Kel Edge, Andy Rixon Find it Fast! Bikes Babes
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Postcards from London The front of the Hilton Metropole Hotel where we stayed in downtown London after the race weekend. The Themes River in the middle of London with Parliment on the left and the London Eye, the world's tallest ferris wheel on the right. The wheel takes a full 1-hour to revole, never stopping, with visitos walking itno the huge gondola cars as they pass by at ground level. Tower Bridge on the themes with the battle cruiser HMS Belfast, now open to visitors. View of London Tower prison from the Themes River, where Henry the 8th beheaded his wife Ann Bolynn and anyone else he gre tired of. A touch of trivia. The origional Queen Mary river cruise boat, buit 4 years before the much bigger Queen Mary ocean liner, now retired in Long Beach, CA, where we now hold our big LA Calendar Motorccyle Show Weekend. The horse guard at Buckingham Pallace. The British National Gallery Art Museum at Trafalgar Square. The city hires full-time professional "pigeon shooers" to chase the hundreds of pesky pigeons away from the Square without harmng them. The pigeos flock onto the Museum lawn instead, just 50 feet away. Downtown London is a stark contrast of Modern and Midevil.
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LA Calendar Bike Show Hostess and Playboy Playmate Tamara Witmer featured Featured are all the top factory Superbikes from Yamaha, Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki, and Ducati including double World Champion Troy Bayliss' 2006 title winning Xerox Ducati 999F06 and Troy Corser's Suzuki GSXR1000, as well as Noriyuki Haga's Yamaha R1 and James Toseland's Ten Kate Honda CBR1000RR. You can read about all the drama and excitement that went into photographing this year's Calendar at Brands Hatch World Superbike in Fast Dates Calendar News July-August 2006. Also featured are Biker Build Off TV Show challengers Roland Sands' "No Regrets" American V-twin powered sportbike, together with his contender on the show, 3-time LA Calendar Motorcycle Show winner Jesse Rooke's KTM V-twin retro board track racer. Plus, there's Roland Sand's incredible Kenny Roberts commissioned KR 990cc 5-cylinder 230hp MotoGP engine powered retro board track streetbike. Both bikes are feratured with FastDates.com Calendar Kitten and Playboy Playmate Tamara Witmer, currently featured on the MTV reality dating show Rock of Love. This is a 16 month clanedar starting September 2007 so don't delay and order now. Last year's 2006 calendar sold out well before Christmas! ORDER HERE Calendar Kitten and Playboy Playmate Athena lundburg is featured in the 2008 Fast Dates Calendar with this 650 Triumph powered retro board track racer built by Shinya Kimura of ChabottEngineering.com.Shinya was Best of Show winner at the 2004 LA calendar Motorcycel Show. Below is Shinya with his wife at this year's 2007 Calendar Motorcycle Show with his latest retro race bikes and Calendar Kitten Tiffany Toth. Misano is the home track for the Ducati factory with their Championship points leader Casey Stoner (27) and for local hero Valentino Rossi (46) who is seconf in points. It should be an epic battle if Rossi has the tires to stay with Stoner. Race Preview: MotoGP set for return to San Marino The MotoGP World Championship leader heading to the San Marino encounter is Australian Casey Stoner, who currently has a cushion of a massive 60 points over nearest rival Valentino Rossi. The Ducati factory rider has won seven races thus far in 2007, including the last two at Laguna Seca and Brno from pole position. A dominant figure in the premier class over the entire season, Stoner has established an advantage that will be difficult to overturn. One of the only riders with previous experience of recovering such a deficit is precisely the man behind him in the classification, Yamaha’s five-time MotoGP World Champion Valentino Rossi. He came back from 51 points behind current title holder Nicky Hayden last season to lead the standings at the final race, but can he or anyone else do the same to Stoner? Rossi has won just three of the last sixteen races, something well below his usual haul. The Italian will have plenty of support at the next date on the calendar, with Misano sure to play host to thousands of fans committed to the Rossi cause and create scenes akin to those at Mugello earlier this year. Dani Pedrosa has an even harder task ahead of him as the only other rider with a realistic chance of catching his former 250cc rival, 78 points behind Stoner in the championship. Whilst a maiden title seems a tall order for the Spaniard, he has Rossi in his sights for second place in his sophomore season. The Suzuki duo of Chris Vermeulen and John Hopkins are both experiencing their most successful season in MotoGP, with the former having taken his first victory at Le Mans and Hopkins the most recent Suzuki podium finisher with a career best second place in the Czech Republic. The pair are dead level on points after 12 races, and will soon be incorporating a new engine specification on the GSV-R800. A doubt for Misano, Marco Melandri rounds off the top six in the classification. The Gresini Honda rider missed the race at Brno with a neck injury, and has been undergoing further tests to see if he will be fit to compete after two weeks of rehabilitation. The race is an important one for his team, as their headquarters are located close to the Misano circuit. Team-mate Toni Elias is also on the recovery trail after making his return to action at 60% fitness in the Czech Republic. Both riders used the track to complete a late fitness test this month on streetbikes. Experienced faces Colin Edwards, Nicky Hayden, Loris Capirossi and Alex Barros complete the MotoGP top ten, all looking to gain points and places in the remaining races of the 2007 season. Of the MotoGP field, only the aforementioned Gresini Honda riders, Safety Commission members Rossi and Capirossi and one other rider have ridden at Misano. The only additional competitor with experience at the circuit is ironically MotoGP newcomer Anthony West, who took victory on a 600cc bike earlier in the year. The GP Cinzano di San Marino e della Riviera di Rimini takes place on Sunday September 2nd, with practice beginning on the preceding Friday.The schedule for Friday will change to allow riders extra time to get to grips with the circuit. An extra hour has been set aside for 800cc practice from 4.15pm local time, with an additional two rear tyres and one front permitted accordingly to tyre companies subject to new this year’s regulations (Michelin and Bridgestone). Circuit Information With updated facilities, track and grandstands, Misano Adriatico will hold a maximum capacity of 60,000 spectators. In accordance with MotoGP safety regulations, the 4,200m track will run clockwise for the World Championship races.
126,000 Enthusiast British fans jam pack Brands Hatch Brands Hatch, Kent,United Kingdon August 3-5th, 2007 - With still no SBK World Superbike round taking place in America for 2007, I was still excited to return to the incredible Brands Hatch, British round of the Championship this year. If you remember from our last reports, the historical Brands Hatch Raceway set in the beautiful rolling green farmland in the county of Kent, just south of London, dates back to the 1920s and has host every form of major motorsports events from FIA Formula One and World Championship Sports car rounds, to the world's premier motorcycle races. It is amazing that historic racing venues in Europe, like this one at Brands hatch, just get better with age, while in America, race tracks won't comply to the latest race car and safety standards, and end up being run down club tracks. The World Superbike starting grid on Sunday at Brands Hatch in front of 126,000 hard core sportbike fans. The track, the facility and British sportbike fans are awesome. This one race in a small country the size of California and with 20% of our national population count, pulls more spectators than the entire 11-round AMA National Roadracing Championship held across America. Next year America will possibly get 2 World Superbike rounds and a chance to redeem itself.
And yet, back at our hotel the Hilton Dartford on Saturday night, we ran into retired World Champion Carl Fogarty in the restaurant with his manager Neil Bramwell (Neil wrote the Carl Fogarty biography), and they invited us to join them for drinks in the hotel bar where we spent the rest of the evening with them. Carl told us they were down at Brands hatch for the weekend, sort of under the radar, to follow up on contacts and meet with potential sponsors for their planned returned to World Superbike next year with the official factory MV Agusta race team. Things were still yet confirmed for a team title sponsor and the $4 million dollar budget they needed to finalize the team and hire the riders. carl and brian mention they were looking for a press officer for the team, and when I mention that Gemma had a degree in Journalism and might be looking forward a part time job on the weekend, Gemma was pretty much hired for the job on the spot. Fast Dates Calendar Kitten, Gemma (right) shares starting grid duties at Brands on Sunday for Alstare Corona European Superstock 1000 rider Xavier Simeon who placed 2nd that race, and is currently 2nd overall in the Championship behind Matteo Baiocco (Yamaha). The grid girl on the left is another well known Fast Dates Calendar Kitten and Miss Great Britain, Nicki Lane. It also turned out that model Rhian was from Manchester too. But she and Gemma had never met until I brought them together at the hotel on Thursday night, before our big calendar shoot out at the track on Friday after final Superbike practice. They became good friends while working together, and plan to get back in touch back home. Both girls own their own cars in Manchester, but traffic is terrible on the highway down to London, and petrol is extremely expensive at close to $8 per gallon now. An advance booked round-trip train fare from Manchester to London and back - about 250 miles - cost around $220, but it was still quicker and cheaper than driving down by car. Gemma was able to get her boyfriend drive her to our hotel on Thursday night when we first met up and checked into the rooms I had booked before dinner. Gemma fluffs her hair as we get ready to shoot Max Biaggi's Alstare Corona Suzuki GSXR1000 World Superbike in front of the Pit Garages at Brands Hatch. Photo by Kel Edge. As usual, the SBK Fast Dates Calendar shoot weekend wasn't normal without a few dramas to make it even more exciting. Before even flying over to England from Los Angeles, I had been having difficulties for months trying to get the organization staff at FGSport confirm the media credentials me and the models needed to get access to the bikes and work on the starting grid for the race. I finally gave up with just 2 days left, and with a direct E-mail to FGSport president and good friend Paolo Flammini, I got an Email back from his new right hand man and another friend, new FGSport Special Projects Manager Paolo Ciabatti, the former marketing Director at Ducati Corse. All the necessary full Media and Photo Credentials with grid passes, including VIP staff paddock parking would be waiting for us at Will Call. A winning combination at the Brands Hatch World Superbike weekend, Rhian with James Toselands double race winning Ten Kate SBK Fast Dates Calendar Hannspree Honda CBR1000RR! Click for a Screensaver. Then on Friday evening after Practice on Pit Lane for our calendar shoot we had the usually deluge of team mechanics lining up their bikes in front of their pit garages for us to come over and shoot. Ducati Corse Press Manager Julian Thomas come over and told me that Troy Bayliss factory 999F07 would be ready to shoot in about 10 minutes. But with my concentration continually being diverted by shooting, directing the models and getting them to change swimsuits and come back to the bikes, other teams lining up and asking me to shoot heir bike next, I could do little more than look over to the ducati garage to see if Bayliss' bike had been pushed out of the garage for me to come over and shoot (as always), but it wasn't. About an hour goes buy and then a storming mad Ducati Press Manager comes stomping over to me an nearly takes my head off, shouting why i wasn't over to their garage an hour ago to get their bike. That I was "...keeping all (9) of the team's crew fromgoing to dinner!" waiting on me (As if all of couldn't have gone to dinner in the Paddock 200 yards away, with just one person lagged behind to help me with the bike and close up their garage when finished). So I went over to get Bayliss' bike next. The entire Ducati race team come out onto Pit Lane while I set it up to shoot, to seats behnd me on the Pit Wall to spectate as the girls did their thing, and begged me to take a team picture of all the Ducati mechanics with Troy's bike and the Calendar Kittens. Then finally, they could all go to dinner in the Ducati Hospitality Tent where the girls and I weren't invited! Troy Bayliss' Team must not have beenlook too hungry to get to dinner, as they all waited to watch the Fast Dates Calendar shoot with Gemma and Rhian.... So Friday morning when we first arrived at the track, I took Gemma by the Ducati Hospitality Area and media room to introduce her to Julian Thomas and Claudia, the woman who manages the Hospitality area and the grid girls to introduce her to them, and again confirm she was working the grid for them on Sunday. And they both confirmed it again. Oh My God! Just to be the mayonase in this Miss Great Britai sandwich with the two hot Alfa girls.... On Sunday afternoon before the last race ended, I got Gemma Louise packed up in the car with Carl Fogarty and Neil Bramwell to head back home to Manchester. Then headed off myself back to the hotel before 126,000 sportbike fans clogged up the only 2 roads out of the track . The race would still be waiting for me to watch on TiVo back in Los Angels when I got home. Introducing Harley's New Superbike - The 146hp Buell 1125R The all-new 2008 model year Buell 1125R does just that with an outsourced Austrian Rotax engine featuring modern 1125cc V-twin water cooled, double over head cam sportbike technology, including a slipper clutch, that pumps out a potent 146 HP @ 9800 RPM. That's in the ballpark with the two other Italian class leaders, the 143hp 1000cc Aprilia Mille R and Ducati's 160hp 1098cc Superbike. And price wise, it has them both beat at just $11,995 if you like just the color Black, and some $2,000 less than the Ducati. Buell claims a dry weight of just 375lbs which also puts it on par with the new Ducati 1098. Where the new Buell looks to fall short, though, is in the looks department with an ungainly wide front fairing and water radiator cowling/scoops that are nearly as wide as the handlebars. And carried over Buell quick's like the fuel carried in the aluminum perimeter frame, and the single front rim perimeter brake with a wacky 8-piston caliper. Even weirder is the exhaust system which tries to do double duty as a lower fairing and features Buck Roger rocket diffuser cones at the rear. Suspension components are source from Showa, with both the rear single shock shock and forks adjustable for compression and rebound damping, and preload. Initial press launch and tests rides by magazine testers we're spoken to have described the new Buell 1125R as "A very good engine in a bike that still feels like is made by Harley." Now maybe if Buell could get the entire bike designed and built in Austria.... 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