Featured In the August 2024 issue of Roadracing World:
In 1888, Mrs. Bertha Benz loaded her two teen-aged boys on the back of an internal combustion engine-powered trike (built by her husband) and set out on the first motorcycle-adjacent road trip of all time. She had to buy fuel at pharmacies, invent brake pad linings along the way, and augment the power of the Benz engine with her teenage sons for some of the climbs.
She completed the 66-mile journey (as a hooligan, as the trip was officially illegal) to prove to her husband (who didn’t know she was going to do it), and the world, that internal combustion vehicles were viable.
Mrs. Benz also established the now time-honored tradition of all racers to follow in her footsteps, chasing budgets and better metallurgy, that what “wins on Sunday, sells on Monday.”
Following Bertha’s example, many motorcycle manufacturers have proclaimed that their bikes are race ready, secure in the knowledge that the claim will rarely be put to the test.
At Laguna Seca in July 2024, Nolan Lamkin suffered the misfortune of crashing his racebike and destroying the last of his spare parts in qualifying for the MotoAmerica Stock 1000 race. His team purchased the Alpha Racing M 1000 RR displayed at the San Jose BMW garage at the track, changed the fork springs and shock, and took a ninth-place finish in Stock 1000, less than 13 seconds behind the winner, and fifth in Superbike Cup. Bertha Benz would have been proud!
Two days later I had the good fortune to test ride an almost identical Alpha Racing M 1000 RR at Sonoma Raceway…
“Alpha Racing M 1000 RR,” by Sam Q. Fleming
Sam Fleming threw a leg over a bike marketed as a turn-key racebike—if, indeed, racebikes still had keys—and found what he described as the best racebike he has ever ridden. Read all about it in the latest issue of Roadracing World!
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