Official MotoGP, Superbike and motorcycle racing twitter accounts:

We thought we’d update our known list of genuine twitter accounts from the world of MotoGP, WSBK, AMA, and motorcycle racing in general. This list captures the twitter accounts of the individuals, and not accounts for websites and news outlets. We’ll keep coming back to update this as we find more.

Feel free to add any we miss in the comments.

List of twitter accounts for motorcycle addicts:

Racers:

• Chaz Davies twitter account: http://twitter.com/chazdavies
• Michael Laverty twitter account: http://twitter.com/michaellaverty
• Eugene Laverty twitter account: http://twitter.com/eugenelaverty
• Alex Hoffman twitter account: http://twitter.com/Alex_66
• Jorge Lorenzo twitter account: http://twitter.com/lorenzo99
• Nicky Hayden twitter account: https://twitter.com/nickyhayden69
• Ben Spies twitter account: https://twitter.com/BenSpies11
• Hector Barbera twitter account: http://twitter.com/HectorBarbera
• Nico Terol twitter account: http://twitter.com/nicoterol
• Bradley Smith twitter account: https://twitter.com/BradleySmith38
• Mat Mladin twitter account: https://twitter.com/MatMladin
• Ben Bostrom twitter account: https://twitter.com/BenBostrom
• Leon Camier twitter account: https://twitter.com/leoncamier
• Kevin Schwantz twitter account: https://twitter.com/KevinSchwantz
• Shane Shakey Byrne twitter account: https://twitter.com/67Shakey
• Roger Hayden twitter account: https://twitter.com/rogerhayden
• Jonathan Rea twitter account: https://twitter.com/jonathanrea
• Chris Vermeulen twitter account: https://twitter.com/chrisvermeulen7
• Carl Fogarty twitter account: https://twitter.com/carlfogarty
• Eric Bostrom twitter account: http://twitter.com/BozBros
• Andrew Pitt twitter account: http://twitter.com/andrewpitt88
• Tom Tunstall twitter account: http://twitter.com/tomtunstall
• Marco Melandri twitter account: http://twitter.com/MarcoMelandri33
• Kevin Schwantz twitter account: https://twitter.com/KevinSchwantz

Mechanics and Crew:

• Alex Briggs (Rossi mechanic) twitter account: https://twitter.com/Alex__Briggs
• Davide Brivio twitter account: http://twitter.com/Davide_Brivio

Commentators:

• Gavin Emmett twitter account: http://twitter.com/gemmett
• After the Flag twitter account: http://twitter.com/AfterTheFlag
• Suzi Perry twitter account: http://twitter.com/suziperry
• Matt Roberts twitter account: https://twitter.com/mattnroberts
• Toby moody twitter account: https://twitter.com/tobymoody
• Nick Harris twitter account: https://twitter.com/NickHarrisMedia

Teams / Sponsors:

• Jack & Jones twitter account: http://twitter.com/JACKJONESSPAIN
• Fiat Yamaha twitter account: http://twitter.com/fiatyamahateam

Race Series:

• Official MotoGP twitter accouunt: http://twitter.com/officialMotoGP
• Official British Superbikes twitter account: http://twitter.com/officialBSB

Oh, and this is our twitter account, so if you feel like adding us then that would be great: https://twitter.com/motogp_world

It seems that the Google Street View car gets to have some fun sometimes – it’s not all about driving through dull neighbourhoods and capturing photo’s of drunks passed out on the pavements, or capturing images of people looking surprised leaving ‘adult stores’.

Google gained permission to take their street view car around Laguna Seca with the cars preparing for the US round of the American Le Mans season. They took 360 degree photos, and you can now take a virtual tour around the track and check out all the turns and famous features such as The Corkscrew (see photo above).

Try it out below – we have embedded the street view experience, so you can click your way around Laguna Seca. Click on the arrows on the map to move, or use the controls positioned at the top left of the window. We’ve started you off at the top of the corkscrew, but feel free to use the arrows to back up, or to start from any other point on the race track. The whole race track is available. Feel free to post your ‘lap times’ in the comments field if you are that way inclined

Google Street View for Laguna Seca Raceway:

View Larger Map

Video: A Honda Goldwing made to look and sound like a F15 jet fighter

F15 Jet Fighter Honda Motorcycle

Great video of the starts of the race:

Jorge Lorenzo’s cool down lap and celebratory wheelie:

The French paint shop “AD Koncept” has done a great job on painting up this Fireblade into a slick LCR Playboy Honda MotoGP replica.

AD Koncept has also fronted up over $15,000 worth of work in to the bike to give it a performance output worthy of the paint job.

“Standard bodywork is retained with the addition of a genuine Honda seat cowl, carbon tank infill panels and fitment of a carbon tail tidy in place of the standard number plate hanger – then decked out in the black/white Playboy colors of Randy De Puniet’s Honda RC212V. The wheels are painted white to match, and a smoked double bubble screen is added to give it a race bike silhouette. The forks and rear shock absorber are replaced with Ohlins parts for better ride and greater adjustability, and the complete front brake system is replaced with a set of Brembo monobloc radial-mount calipers, discs and a radial-pump master cylinder. The engine gets a slight performance hike too with a Leo Vince titanium exhaust system giving the motor better breathing.”

It will set you back over 25K to get one done yourself – or less if you already have a Fireblade that you fancy riding out to France to visit AD Koncept.

via inlineperformancemag

There are not many MotoGP riders that have embraced Twitter and feel the urge to tweet their updates into the ether. There are only a few riders who have accounts that serve to remind us how infinately better their lives are compared to ours. We’ve collected some below if you feel like following them.

Alex Hofmann Twitter: http://twitter.com/Alex_66

Ex-MotoGP rider Alex Hofmann has fully embraced twitter and often gives some interesting updates and photos when he is reporting on a race or doing testing. Expect he’ll churn out some good stuff from Germany in the next week or so for the MotoGP. It’s also full of stuff that will leave you depressed if you spend your days sat at a desk, as well as some mundane trivia into the life of The Hoff - this week alone he seems to have packed more in than we manage in a year.

The Hoff has: been to Zurich, had a haircut, been indoor climbing, been to France, been mountain biking, posted photos of his new bike, and got stuck in traffic and posted real time photos from the traffic jam:

Follow Alex Hofmann here: http://twitter.com/Alex_66

Other notable rider accounts we’ve found:

MatMladin: http://twitter.com/MatMladin

Ben Bostrom: http://twitter.com/BenBostrom

Bostrom bumped into Casey Stoner at Dr Tings practice after Laguna Seca and posted the photo, saying: ”Was a bit effed up on anesthesia, but look who else was at Dr Tings”

 If we missed any rider twitter accounts then let us know and post them in the comments field.

He wrote up exactly what it felt like:

John Devine: My bicycle ride around Laguna Seca racetrack

There’s nothing better than having a fine-tuned bicycle to pedal up a hill on a world-famous racetrack.Or so I thought.

While I was fighting to catch my breath — leaning forward on my 10 speed to make it up the hill — I wondered why I agreed to pedal a bike around the famed 2.238-mile Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca track.

Record speeds would not be in danger as the only horsepower on my ride came with each pedal. And this former high school hurdler was gassed.

While this wasn’t a race, it was an educational and exhausting experience.

Nothing like on-the-job training as I ride a bicycle worth thousands of dollars from Specialized Bicycles, sponsors of the event, and as I try to figure out how to make my gears work on the most treacherous part of the course.

It’s clearly a different feeling pedaling a bicycle around the world-famous track with the wind in your face than when I was a passenger in a race car zooming at speeds near 100 mph.

I’m guessing I hit 40 mph coming down the hill. Of course, at that point, my vision was a little blurry after climbing the nightmare of a hill out on Turn 6.

I had no idea it would be that steep. Hey, I wasn’t the only one battling the incline. I was just the only one who could not figure out how to switch gears.

“You must be a member of the media,” some lad from Ireland in a slick shirt covered with sponsorship shouted as he sped by me.

At one point, I was thinking, “I can run up this hill faster than I’m pedaling. Turtles move faster. Oh, where is my personal 20-year-old bike that weighs twice as much as the one I’m on, yet is twice as easy to switch gears when climbing what seemed like Mount Everest?”

Being humbled isn’t a strong enough word. I should have known I was out of my league when most of the riders in the event were wearing gear covered in sponsorship.

But feeling a little out of place is nothing unusual for me. The baggy shorts and Jimmy Buffet T-shirt had organizers of the event asking me if I needed some gear.

“You can’t wear your tennis shoes,” I was told. “You’ve got to wear these bicycles shoes. They have spikes that fit into the pedals.”

Man, I just want to get on the bike and ride.

“It’s a whole different experience on a bicycle,” promised Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca Public Relations Manager Jennifer Capasso.

She wasn’t kidding.

Pedaling out of the paddocks and onto the track, I shot out like a sprinter, zipping around Turn 2, hugging the inside of the track into Turn 3.

The bicycle they loaned me was amazing. Coming out of Turn 4, I began to feel a slight incline as I motored my way into Turn 5. No big deal. Pedal to the medal. Let’s knock this out.

Then the unexpected hit me before I could look up. Coming out of Turn 6, it became evident in a heartbeat that this experience was not going to be that simple.

I’m not sure what gear I was in, but it wasn’t in low.

“Did you forget that you have a gear shift on the left side of the handlebars as well?” I was asked.

But during this torturous climb, my mind was wandering. I wasn’t going to stop, but I wanted to. I spent as much time climbing a quarter mile as I did covering the remaining 1.8 miles, or so it seemed.

I didn’t expect to climb the hill at the speed of sound. But I didn’t expect each push of the pedal to feel like it was going to be my last.

When it became evident that I wasn’t going to be able to figure out how to work the gears, the joy of being on the Laguna Seca track waned and surviving the hill became my main concern.

“There’s a reward at the top,” I kept telling myself. I could see bikers ahead of me disappearing as if they were falling off the hill. But they were actually going through the Corkscrew. I thought, “Will I live long enough to feel that sensation?”

By the time I hit Turns 7 and 8, my legs were numb. The damage to them will last into the night, but I headed down the hill through Turn 9, flying on two narrow tires. It did cross my mind that if I blow out a tire, I’m going to look like a crash-test dummy rolling around on the pavement.

As these fancily dressed cyclists kept flying by me with no fear, I thought, “Am I racing in the Tour de France or what I imagined was a media-only bicycle ride around Laguna Seca?”

As I came around Turn 11 and towards the pits, I wondered, “Will I be able to even get off this bike and walk?”

I can only remember this feeling one other time and that’s when I walked up 221 feet worth of stairs at Bunker Hill Monument in Boston on a 90-degree day.

This was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Would I do it again? Absolutely. Just not today.

FULL ARTICLE

And another racing one:

And if you can be bothered watching all the way to the end you’ll see a case of art imitating life, when a bike that looks like a Ducati roars past Rossi, only to slide out just before the end of the race.

If you’re bored and want to try it out, then get the Rossi 2002 Repsol Honda RC 211V HERE