Ewan McGregor is fast becoming the Steve McQueen of the modern generation. A movie star with a passion for motorcycles, McGregor, 37, has (once again) combined the two in a new documentary, "Long Way Down."
15,000 miles. 20 countries. 85 days.
Terrorism training. Monkeys. Sand.
It was all part of an epic journey McGregor took with his pal Charley Boorman from May to August last year. The new film is the follow-up to "Long Way Round," the motorcycle adventure that had McGregor and Boorman traversing 19,000 miles through 12 countries in 115 days from West to East in 2004 aboard BMW adventure bikes. "Long Way Down" went just ran from North to South, from Scotland to South Africa.
There are big-screen and small-screen versions of McGregor's and Boorman's journey. A 10-episode TV series kicks off on the Fox Reality Channel Aug. 2 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. A condensed, two-hour version will also be screened at 430 theaters nationwide on July 31. A list of theaters and show times and tickets are available at the Fathom website.
 Batman’s motorcycle in The Dark Knight is getting a lot of attention at the moment, appearing in all the trailers and such. And why not? It’s a very cool thing. So the machine here might seem like a case of life imitating artifice.
This is the Icare, from Enzyme, a French design studio. Its creators claim the inspiration for its styling came from high-end products like Apple, Bang & Olufsen, Audi and Porsche. Power comes from a Honda 1.8-liter flat-six engine and, although it’s hard to tell in this picture, it has four wheels instead of two. Among the slick, smooth lines is a weld, running like a scar across the fuel tank.
In a most Batmobile-like fashion, the Icare is shrouded in aluminum from the seat forward when parked. Only the tangled sculpture of its exhaust being partially visible.
The panels disappear, as if by magic, into the bike’s nooks and crannies when the engine is fired up. Enzyme says that although it’s still in the concept stage, the tech behind it works.
If it ever goes on sale, the Icare won‘t be cheap.
-- Colin Ryan
Photos: Enzyme, Warner Bros.
 Harley-Davidson and MV Agusta couldn't be more opposite. While both motorcycle manufacturers are legendary, one is known for cruisers, the other for high-performance sportbikes. Where one is quintessentially American, the other is distinctively European. Yet the two legendary marques will merge, according to an agreement announced earlier today. Harley-Davidson Inc., based in MIlwaukee, is acquiring MV Agusta Group, of Varese, Italy. The pricetag: $109 million. In a deal expected to be completed within "several weeks," Harley-Davidson will take over the MV Agusta and Cagiva brands, both of which will continue to operate from their Italian headquarters.
"Motorcycles are the heart, soul and passion of Harley-Davidson, Buell and MV Agusta. Both have great products and close connections with incredibly devoted customers," Harley-Davidson chief executive officer Jim Ziemer stated in a press release issued Friday. According to Ziemer, the acquistion is meant to expand Harley-Davidson's presence in Europe, where Harley sales have been growing at a double-digit pace for three years running. In the U.S., however, Harley sales have been experiencing quite the opposite. Overall sales are down, after peaking at a whopping 349,156 motorcycles per year in 2006.
MV Agusta, which makes about 6,000 motorcycles each year and sells almost 1,000 of those in North America, has also been in financial trouble, due to problems with the Italian banking system and a weak dollar that was eroding the company's profitability in its second most lucrative market -- the U.S. MV Agusta had planned to introduce as many as five new platforms in the next three years, several of them in entirely new market segments. MV's acquisition by Harley-Davidson means those platforms and models are more likely to proceed as planned.
"We take enormous pride in MV Agusta and Cagiva motorcycles," said MV Agusta president Claudio Castiglioni, whose family owns 95% of the shares in MV Agusta Group. "Our riders seek an uncompromising experience in premium performance motorcycles. And with Harley-Davidson's deep understanding of the emotional as well as the business side of motorcycling, I have great confidence that our motorcycles will excite customers for generations to come."
-- Susan Carpenter
Photo by: Don Kelsen, Los Angeles Times (2008 MV Agusta F4CC)
By Susan Carpenter, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
 The 2009 Star Motorcycles' VMax was unveiled in a cloud of smoking rubber Tuesday night, which was appropriate considering the many burnouts this 197.4-horsepower machine will inspire when it hits the market in October. Powered with four cylinders configured into a 65-degree V, the new VMax is also likely to flatten a few eyeballs -- not just from its 123 pound-feet of torque, but its brooding and masculine profile. The new VMax is black, but if it were green, it would be the Incredible Hulk of motorcycles. A 1,679 cc beast of a machine, it gulps air through the huge scoops protruding from its sides, then forces it down the engine's 16-valve throat and out the catalyzed, 4-1-2-4 titanium exhaust jutting from its haunches.
The VMax first came on the market in 1985. It's received only minor updates and color changes in the years since. But for 2009, Star has gone all out, outfitting the bike with fuel injection, anti-lock brakes and many of the same MotoGP-derived technologies it uses on its supersport models, i.e. a slipper clutch and computer-controlled throttle and intake systems to deliver power more responsively. The chassis has also been updated with an all-aluminum frame that uses the engine as a stressed member and jacked-up components that can handle some major thrashing, i.e. 52 mm titanium-coated fork tubes and 6-piston-caliper, 320 mm wave rotor brakes on the front.
The concept for the next-generation VMax has been kicking around since 2005, well before the U.S. economy began to sour and gas prices started going through the roof. The current economic climate may be the reason Star is making a maximum of 2,500 VMax bikes for the U.S. market this year. The company appears to be testing the waters to see if obscene power in a brooding and somehwat expensive package has traction. Dealers are currently taking $1,000 down payments for the $17,990 bikes, which will be built to order.
2009 Star Motorcycles VMax
Base price: $17,990
Powertrain: Liquid-cooled, fuel-injected, DOHC, four-stroke, 65-degree V4, 4 valves per cylinder, 5-speed
Displacement: 1,679 cc
Maximum horsepower: 197.4
Maximum torque: 123 pound-feet
Seat height: 30.5 inches
Wet weight: 683 pounds
 When Shia LaBeouf speeds through a college campus with Harrison Ford riding shotgun, it will be aboard a Harley-Davidson. The motorcycle star of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" is a 2007 Softail Springer Classic that was modified to look as if it was built at least 50 years earlier using mostly H-D service and accessory parts. So if you see the movie and have to have one, you might be able to build it yourself, though some of the parts were specially fabricated, including the fuel pump, kick start and saddlebags.
Harley-Davidson supplied Lucasfilm with the bike and asked that it be recognizable as a Harley. But the bike also needed to look era-appropriate because the movie is set in the '50s. According to the bike's L.A.-based builder, Justin Kell, it's "modeled to be a postwar Knucklehead."
Kell, 38, had to build the bike using "one bad pixelated picture on an 8-1/2-by-11 sheet of paper" as his guide. Ripping off the sheet metal and the chrome and hollowing out the exhaust, he lightened the bike by about 70 pounds; it also gained about 30 horsepower. Both improvements were necessary because the bike was used to do high-speed stunts and to ride a staircase in the film.
The disc brakes are a giveaway that the bike is modern. Although Kell "tried to work with different ways to cover them," he said, "the stunts put such a strain on the suspension that nothing would work without being dangerous."
Five bikes were built for the film, one of which was an effects bike that was destroyed in the course of filming, Kell said. Two of the remaining bikes will be returned to Harley-Davidson, which will display them in its new motorcycle museum, opening July 12 in Milwaukee. The two others were purchased by the production company.
-- Susan Carpenter
Photos: David James, top; Harley-Davidson
By Susan Carpenter
This week's magnitude 7.9 earthquake in Chengdu, China, reminded me of a question I've always wanted answered: How should a motorcyclist react when the earth starts rolling beneath the bike? I know the chances are slim that I'd actually be on a motorcycle when The Big One hits, but being a resident of fault-laced Southern California (which, according to a recent U.S. Geological Survey Report, is pretty much guaranteed a 6.7 quake by 2028) and a motorcyclist who logs about 20,000 miles a year, it doesn't hurt to be prepared.
So I reached out to Ray Ochs, the Motorcycle Safety Foundation's director of training systems, to see what advice he had for riding through a quake. Personally, he said, he'd never ridden through one -- nor had he ever been asked this question! -- but he'd talked to people who'd experienced a quake in a car, and they said it feels like the earth is rolling.
"If the terrain starts to shake," Ochs said, "your normal balance would probably take of you. For a rider with good perceptual skills, it's probably going to be a situation similar to how he'd respond when a car pulls out in front of him."
Ochs emphasized the importance of a two-second following distance, which typically gives a rider enough time to respond to whatever is happening in front of him. Beyond that Ochs had the following advice:
- Watch for cracks in the roadway so you have enough time and space to stop.
- Pull off to a safe location away from any potential falling objects.
- Stay away from underpasses because of the danger of collapse.
I have no idea if anybody else out there has thought about this or if it's only my brain that's filled with nuts and bolts and worst case scenarios, but if you're at all like me, now you know!
Read on »
 To the general public, Easy Rider may be the definitive motorcycle movie, but to many riders of a certain age, the 1971 documentary On Any Sunday is at least equal if not more significant -- not only because it was real but because it showed the sport's great breadth, from hill climbs to enduro races and everything in between.
Those of us who aren't of a certain age have only been able to see the film on DVD, but on May 21 the legendary doc gets the big-screen treatment at the second On Any Sunday Reunion. As the name implies, it isn't just a screening but an assemblage of many of the legendary racers who starred in the movie, including Malcolm Smith and Mert Lawwill. Director Bruce Brown will also be at the event, which features 40 bikes, some of which were used in the movie. The screening of On Any Sunday, the reunion of its racing legends and the Moto Expo of bikes will take place on May 21 at the Regal Big Six Theater on Fashion Island in Newport Beach. For tickets, visit www.onanysundayreunion.com.
-- Susan Carpenter
Photo credit: Orange County Dualies / IRS Media
 It's been in the works for years, but the Harley-Davidson Museum is finally set to throw its doors open to the public with a grand opening celebration July 12. Planned festivities include a custom bike build, a tattoo artist, live music and dining at the museum's restaurant and cafe.
More than 450 motorcycles will be on display at the new 130,000-square-foot museum, which sits on 20 acres in Milwaukee's Menomonee Valley. While the motorcycles Harley-Davidson has manufactured in its 105 years are the main draw, the culture of Harley-Davidson will also be brought to life with photos, videos, clothing and never-before-seen archival documents. The Harley-Davidson Museum is located at 400 W. Canal St., Milwaukee. Tickets for the grand opening go on sale May 20 at www.h-dmuseum.com/tickets. You can also watch the museum being built on Harley's live webcam, complete with time lapse photography.
-- Susan Carpenter
 I don't like to buy in to trends, especially ones as perverse as Bad Mommy Chic. But that's what I did when I took my 4-year-old to the Viper Room for Harley-Davidson's unveil of its Cross Bones Saturday night. For the record, I don't make a practice of dragging my boy to bars, but I had no choice. His dad wasn't available and his grandma was only game to babysit in exchange for a ride to the airport later that same night, which is why she was there too.
So there we were -- Grandma in her Gucci loafers, my son in his Gap baseball shirt and I in my green flak jacket -- looking, and smelling, completely out of place amid the spilled beer and boys decked out in leather. We were there, of course, to see the cover come off the big black blob blocking traffic in the middle of the floor. But we were also early, which meant I had to pacify the troops. After I liquored up Grandma with a gin and tonic, my son insisted that I also take him to the booze counter, where he was given a Shirley Temple, a ham sandwich and an ever-so-brief lesson in cool.
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