Imagine making that 22,000km six-week sea journey from Australia to Europe to compete in the very first World Championship event at the 1949 TT races in the Isle of Man. That four-hour crossing from Liverpool to the Isle of Man across the bumpy Irish Sea must have seemed like a doddle for the three Australian riders, Eric McPherson, Harry Hinton and George Morrison, who flew the Australian flag 73 years ago not only at the TT but in that historic first season. Growing up I always thought how romantic it sounded. Far from home, travelling around Europe in a van to race motorcycle at legendary venues but it was a hand to mouth existence, especially for the non-European riders, but they continued to arrive.
Takuma Matsuyama is set to make his Moto3™ debut in the SHARK Grand Prix de France. Matsuyama, who currently competes with the Junior Talent Team in the FIM Moto3™ Junior World Championship, will form part of an extended Honda Team Asia Moto3™ line-up at the event.
Matsuyama began his international career competing in the Idemitsu Asia Talent Cup, where he was runner up in 2019 following three race wins and a further four podiums. For 2020, he moved up the Road to MotoGP™ into the FIM Moto3™ JWCh as part of Dorna’s Junior Talent Team, racing in Asia Talent Team colours. Scoring points at every track on the calendar bar one, he put together an impressive rookie season including a first front row start in Valencia and a best result of fourth place.
The Japanese rider began the 2021 FIM Moto3™ JWCh fighting at the front from the off, battling for the win in Estoril and ultimately taking sixth place. In Round 2 at Valencia, Matsuyama was once again a key presence at the front and fought for victory right to the line – coming home second by mere hundredths to celebrate his first ever FIM Moto3™ JWCh podium in style.
He will now line up in the Moto3™ World Championship for the first time at Le Mans with Honda Team Asia, running an Asia Talent Team livery.
After making its return in Jerez, MotoE™ is back for the second round of the FIM Enel World Cup, and the riders from the electric class kick off proceedings with their press conference at 12:00 (CET) Thursday. Then, later in the afternoon, the MotoGP™ riders will take to the stage to field some questions from the press at 17:00 (CET). Spanish GP race winner Jack Miller (Ducati Lenovo Team) will be joined by the aforementioned Bagnaia, Quartararo and Zarco as well as Franco Morbidelli (Petronas Yamaha SRT) and Takaaki Nakagami (LCR Honda Idemitsu).
As is the usual case, HETC provided more intense action as the class took the track in the morning for their first race, and it was a third different winner in as many races as 12-year-old Brian Uriarte (Team Estrella Galicia 0,0) stunned everyone from 14th on the grid. The Spanish sensation picked his way through the order to eventually hit the front, seizing his opportunity to take Race 1 honours. Second place went to pole-sitter Hugo Millan (Cuna de Campeones) who grabbed the Championship lead, whilst third place belonged to his teammate Xabi Zurutuza, after Maximo Martinez (Team Honda Laglisse) received a post-race penalty for a previous infringement. It was a disaster for Alvaro Carpe (MT-Foundation 77), who after leading most of the race and starting third, retired with mechanical issues.
HETC Race 2 was another titanic duel as Adrian Cruces (Cuna de Campeones) and teammate Millan eased away at the front, ahead of Alvaro Carpe and a charging Angel Piqueras (Team Estrella Galicia 0,0). With the battle between the Cuna de Campeones teammates igniting, Carpe and Piqueras closed in and Carpe pounced on the final lap at the last corner, hitting the front to take a career-first race victory. Cruces and Millan followed their fellow countryman home whilst it was disaster for Piqueras, who crashed on the exit of the final corner on the last lap. Cruces lead the title ahead of Millan by a single point after Round 2, with Xabi Zurutuza third. Carpe’s win elevates him to eighth.
For all the results from the past, present and future and more news regarding the Championship, visit www.fimcevrepsol.com
At Honda, there was plenty, plenty to see in the test. A brand-new air intake, chassis, exhaust and more added to five different aero combinations made quite the impression, although last time out it was someone reverting to their 2020 chassis that made the biggest dent in the race: Takaaki Nakagami (LCR Honda Idemitsu). The Japanese rider equalled his best ever result in fourth and will be looking to keep that rolling, and he had a solid Le Mans last year. His teammate Alex Marquez (LCR Honda Castrol), meanwhile, is still looking to get back to where he left off last year… but last year, the then-rookie put in an absolute stunner for his first premier class podium in France. Will good memories see him take a step forward? And has the Jerez test helped Pol Espargaro (Repsol Honda Team) do the same?
From there and the five fastest riders so far, there’s a small gap back to those on the chase, so who can break the stranglehold near the top? So far, only Aron Canet (Inde Aspar Team) has done so; the Spaniard taking second place in Portugal. Can he find that form again and iron out his ups and downs? Joe Roberts (Italtrans Racing Team) is actually ahead of Canet overall though, the American with one DNF but some solid consistency otherwise, and he’s been close – rubbing-is-racingly close – to the podium this season. Never having found Jerez the best match, will Le Mans bring the American further into the fray? Augusto Fernandez (Elf Marc VDS Racing Team) is another looking for a step forward and he has podium form at Le Mans, as well as having come close to it again last season, and Ai Ogura (Idemitsu Honda Team Asia) is now in the groove after a tougher first race. The Japanese rookie has made a few waves of late getting in the mix near the front…
That said, there are a few riders who’ll be ignoring that and heading into Le Mans looking to depose the new ruler. Niccolo Antonelli (Avintia Esponsorama Moto3) arrives closest on the chase thanks to his consistency – and a Doha podium – followed by Andrea Migno (Rivacold Snipers Team), who has one 0 but two fourths and a third. Their ability to stay out of trouble, in terms of either causing it or getting tangled in it, has paid dividends and they’ve both been quick to boot. Migno also took a top five in France last season, and the year before, prefaced by a podium in 2018. On both past and current form, the Italian has arguably the best CV at Le Mans.
Zaccone will definitely be on everyone’s radar after his impressive weekend at Jerez, but Le Mans could be a tougher one. Looking ahead to the round in the post-race Press Conference, the Italian explained that the Cup’s 2020 visit had been challenging with the mixed conditions really hampering those who, like him, had never ridden Le Mans before. With only six or seven laps in the bag before E-Pole and then the race, it was a tall order. So he’ll be pushing to keep that consistency, but who else will come out swinging?
We all fight a battle between our opposites selves, between good and evil, between our inner demon and our inner angel. No one is all good or all bad. It’s the vast area in the middle where things get interesting.
When it came to reviewing Peter Jones’ new book, “The Bad Editor: Collected Columns and Untold Tales of Bad Behavior,” I knew I would be biased. I know Peter. I like Peter. We’ve shared lots of laughs and drinks over the years at motorcycle press launches. When I took over as editor-in-chief of Rider, Peter reached out to me and offered to help. Now he writes a monthly column in Rider called “The Moto Life.”
So I asked Denis Rouse, Rider’s founding publisher and a guy who loves reading as much as he loves riding, to review Peter’s book. Denis doesn’t know Peter. Denis is unfiltered and likes controversy. He’s also been in the trenches of the motorcycle industry. Who better to review a book called “The Bad Editor”?
But after reading the review Denis sent me, I knew we needed to zoom out, to take a wider view.
We need interesting people in this world to save us from the khaki-slacks and white-Camry dullness that will swallow us whole if we don’t pry open its jaws and kick out its teeth. Interesting people are complicated. As Whitman would say, they contradict themselves, they are vast and contain multitudes.
Peter Jones with his 2006 Suzuki GSX-R1000 Bob-Job.
Peter is interesting. He has a degree in fine arts and used to work in a museum. He started road racing in his 30s. He had a engine throw a rod between his legs at 199 mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats, just missing his chance to join the 200 MPH Club (and luckily escaping without grievous bodily harm). But he later joined the club, clocking 202.247 mph from a standing start on a naturally aspirated production motorcycle at Maxton AFB. Peter has written for every major motorcycle magazine and worked for Pirelli, Öhlins, Kymco and Nitron. He’s written academic papers on philosophy and an as-yet-unpublished book about risk. He’s working on a graphic novel. He’s restoring a 1962 Benelli Sprite 200. Peter also an eclectic taste in shoes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him wear the same pair twice.
You get the idea.
Peter’s new book has a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde quality to it. The first 150 pages are devoted to 30 columns he wrote between 1996 and 2002 for Sport Rider, Motorcyclist, American Roadracing and Motorcycle Street & Strip. Many of the columns are about road racing — the mindset of racers, crashing, backmarkers, G-forces and so on.
As Denis puts it: The chapters on road racing are excellent, in particular the one in which our man describes riders of unworldly skill who walk a track before a race and engrave the geometry in their minds to achieve a subconscious sense, some say even a spiritual sense, to negotiate the course at terrifying speeds and lean angles and braking forces that bend the science of physics. Then there’s this painful chapter on expiating guilt that deals with the time Jones crashed his bike in a road race, causing the rider just behind him to do a career-ending crash, that rider being Stewart Goddard, who despite being paralyzed from the chest down as a result of an early moped accident, was doing well enough on the circuits to be an icon at the time. I’m human. I know guilt. How does Jones handle it? I remember how Graham Greene defined its opposite, innocence, as “a blind leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.”
There are also columns about lane-splitting in Los Angeles traffic, being mesmerized by a Supercross race in Las Vegas (a city he fears and loathes), “The Art of the Motorcycle” exhibit at the Guggenheim, owning a clapped-out CB350 and why you should never try to ride a motorcycle with 15 pounds’ worth of brake rotors in a bag slung over your arm, all of which are well-written, thoughtful and entertaining.
Dr. Jekyll is the good guy, the responsible one. He’s not the interesting part of the story. It’s Mr. Hyde’s 19 “Untold Tales of Bad Behavior” that people really want to read.
According to Denis: Jones stirred memories of my own from years as Rider’s publisher of which I’m not particularly proud. Like the time we drove a rental car on the beach in and out of the salt of the surf wash during Daytona Speed Week. Like when I was drinking Lone Stars with tequila shooters at the bar in Gilley’s during the Houston Motorcycle Show and became convinced by colleagues and Harley execs that I could ride the mechanical bull at gringo level without a serious get-off. And the time we were seated at an entertainment club featuring female impersonators, and one of the entertainers came to our table and, well, I won’t go on here, it’s Jones’ book not mine, but there’s related dubiousness in it that’s plenty familiar to me.
What enthusiasts often want to know is, “What really happens at motorcycle press launches?” They don’t care about the 48 hours of travel to spend 36 hours on the ground in Spain to ride a motorcycle for 100 miles. They aren’t interested in how many photo passes you had to do to get the shot, or that you had to ride a motorcycle with DOT tires on a track in the rain. They want the trench coat opened and the naked truth revealed.
Because Peter has a solid moral core, is not out to settle scores and doesn’t name names, his tales of bad behavior feel restrained. The tales lack the prurience we all crave. Peter is self-effacing, humorously pointing out his own foibles and errors in judgment, but the veil of anonymity that protects the not-so innocent left me hungry for more details, for the who, what, when, where and why of what transpired.
Where Peter is more open, though again without pointing fingers at a particular person or brand, is about the delicate balance motojournalists maintain to serve different masters: editors, publishers, readers, advertisers, manufacturers and themselves.
Back to Denis: What rings especially true in the book, and it’s a subject Jones deals with eloquently on several levels as an insider, is the pressure advertisers put to bear on the shoulders of a motorcycle journalist to retain integrity (read: honesty) in the test reporting of machines and related accessories and riding equipment. Advertising is important. The ship goes down without it. But Jones knows it sinks faster when readers no longer trust it.
Motorcycle magazines (and websites) are enthusiast publications. There is a symbiotic relationship between all parties involved, yet the rules of that relationship are not written down or set in stone. As Peter told me in our recent podcast interview, when journalists are reviewing the advertisers’ products, there’s an inherent conflict of interest. Readers want motojournalists to be honest, but only when that honesty aligns with their own biases. When a reader’s favorite motorcycle doesn’t win a comparison test, the reader will sometimes accuse the editors of the magazine of being “in the pocket” of the winning manufacturer, rather than accepting the conclusion that the motorcycle in their garage isn’t the best/fastest/coolest.
As I know from personal experience, no staff editor at a motorcycle magazine gets rich doing their job. It’s a labor of love. Sure, free helmets are involved, but try paying rent or buying groceries with a used helmet and let me know how it turns out for you.
Peter isn’t a bad guy, not in a moral sense, but he has found himself in bad situations.
Denis: The ironic capper comes in the last chapter of the book in which Jones leads several police officers in a life-threatening chase on the Blue Ridge Parkway. He was speeding way over the posted 45, in a national park no less, when he caught the pursuant attention of the law. The deal ends at a dead end, and Jones is promptly arrested, ordered to lie prone on the ground with his hands cuffed behind him, with an officer’s knee planted on his back. Off he goes to the Graybar Hotel. End of book.
Was a felony conviction added to his resume? He says no but more detail to come in Volume II of “The Bad Editor.”
I’m just jonesing for it.
We need people like Peter Jones in the motorcycle industry. We don’t pay him enough to write his monthly column. So buy his book. Buy two and send one to a friend.
“The Bad Editor: Collected Columns and Untold Tales of Bad Behavior” is 250 pages, and is available in paperback for $18.55 or as a Kindle e-book for $7.99 on Amazon. To read sample chapters and find out more about Peter Jones, visit TheBadEditor.com.
Riders Share, the largest motorcycle sharing marketplace, has announced that bikers can now pay a monthly subscription for discounted rides across the motorcycle rental marketplace. The Rider Pass subscription pricing plan is an industry-first service for peer-to-peer rentals designed to spur growth and motorcycle ridership as the economy rebounds.
Rider Pass subscription service provides 35% discount for rides booked on Riders Share marketplace for a $24 monthly fee
Service includes free motorcycle rental delivery up to $50
Perfect for trying multiple bikes, for frequent travelers and for riders who can’t commit to a single motorcycle
Launched in 2018 by CEO and avid motorcyclist Guillermo Cornejo, Riders Share has powered over 100,000 registered users in its motorcycle rental community, and over 15,000 people have shared their motorcycle on the platform. The company was part of Techstars Los Angeles ’19, and is backed by Texas-based LiveOak Venture Partners and other institutional investors.
The average price for renting a motorcycle on Riders Share is set by the owners of the bike and is typically around $100 a day including insurance — much more affordable than other motorcycle rental alternatives. Now, with the Rider Pass subscription, users will receive an additional 35% off the total price in exchange for a monthly rate of $24.
“We believe subscriptions are key to continued growth in peer-to-peer rentals,” said Cornejo. “There’s an entire market of twenty million plus riders who are bikeless; our goal with subscription services is to provide an economic re-entry point to stimulate responsible ridership across the country.”
Motorcycles are notoriously underutilized in the U.S. On average, motorcycles are used four times less often than cars, which has a significant effect on the total cost of a motorcycle trip. In fact, for the large number of motorcyclists that ride under 40 days per year, each trip requires an average of $190 in ownership costs.
“Peer-to-peer rentals typically cost up to 70% less than brick-and-mortar motorcycle rentals. With our new subscription offering, we’re now able to further reduce this cost, giving people that can’t commit to motorcycle ownership a viable alternative,” said Cornejo.
Riders Share has been recognized as an industry-leader in terms of vehicle selection, marketplace members and low cost. While COVID made a significant impact on travel in general, Riders Share is beginning to see new records in transactions.
“Our mission is to encourage safe motorcycling by making it more affordable,” said Cornejo. “We felt the time was right to further diversify our pricing model and help people create new mobility habits as our cities start moving again.”
The Rider Pass subscription model is only available for riders over the age of 25 and with a FICO score over 700. Free delivery is included up to $50. The base monthly subscription price is $24 with a 12-month term, or $22 per month if prepaid in advance.
About Riders Share Riders Share, is the world’s largest peer-to-peer motorcycle marketplace platform, matching underutilized motorcycles with vetted riders that want to rent them. Riders Share leverages machine learning to vet riders, provides an insurance policy for owners and offers roadside assistance. With over 100,000 registered users, Riders Share offers the largest variety of motorcycles available to rent in the world, all while providing a superior experience for renters and an extra source of income for owners.
About LiveOak Venture Partners LiveOak Venture Partners is a venture capital fund based in Austin, Texas. With 20 years of successful venture investing in Texas, the founders of LiveOak have helped create nearly $2 billion of enterprise value. While almost all of LiveOak’s investments begin at the Seed and Series A stages, LiveOak is a full life cycle investor focused on helping create category-leading technology and technology-enabled service companies headquartered in Texas. LiveOak Venture Partners has been the lead investor in over 30 exciting high-growth Texas-based companies in the last seven years including ones such as CS Disco, Digital Pharmacist, OJO Labs, Opcity and TrustRadius.
