#predictions

In case you missed it, Ducati boss Claudio Domenicali recently announced the company will be putting an electric motorcycle into production sooner rather than later. If you must know, his exact words were, “The future is electric and we’re not far from beginning production of the series.” He was speaking during the podium celebrations for a student-run racing series in which the Ducati-supported University of Bologna’s UniBo rookie team took third in the electric class.

Plenty of weird stuff happened in 2017, but no weirder than usual so I really can’t complain. We’ll miss Nicky Hayden, who I remember reading about in Roadracing World when he was 13 years old (how old does that make me?), and has now departed this mortal coil way too early. I won’t miss, they tell me, the corporate tax rate of 35%, which is going down to 20% and will supposedly juice the economy like crazy and lead to a new bull market in motorcycles like the one in the ’Aughts. That’ll make everybody around here happy. All the kids are getting rich on Bitcoin, too, and home equity is on the rise again. We’ve already got granite countertops and big knockers; what does that leave? Motorcycles, that’s what. Basically we’re all set to get on up out this biatch and do some serious WINNING! Here are my predictions for 2018!

The fall motorcycle show season kicks off next week in Cologne, Germany, at the semi-annual Intermot exposition. Although manufacturers try to keep secret the news of upcoming bikes that are nearing production, we already know of several that are due to be revealed this autumn. Here’s a list of some of what we’re expecting to see this year: