40 days to go... Shelsley Bike Festival, September 13th
If you've already booked - thank you for your support. Please tell your friends!

We've got a cracking Festival planned for you, here's some of the highlights •Your unique chance to run the historic Shelsley Walsh Hill Climb track

•Our very best Paddock Specials ever; the best in factory racers, unique builds, rare classics. Get up close and watch them take to the hill.
•Lunchtime Show 'n' Tell - interviews with the very best Paddock Specials
•End of season bargains and trade stands
•Manufacturer's Dealers
•Passenger Experiences - go up the hill in a choice of 2 or 3 wheels.
•Live Music and Burlesque
•Entertainment including stuff to keep the kids amused.
•Meet Zoe Cano (Adventure rider) and David Hailwood
•Team RepliCast, MiniGP UK and the Scott Redding Riders Academy - the best of motorcycle racing's young talent.
•Supermoto UK - top riders taking to the hill
•The UK launch of the new, electric Morgan Three Wheeler
•Plenty of good food and drink
•Club stands and so much more

Ticket Booking Office is here

Run the Hill entries are only £35 and include two runs up the famous hill, paddock spot and general admission plus (if you wish) Saturday arrival, camping and our Saturday Night Party. Run the Hill Pillion / Friend tickets are only £10 and they're also welcome to join you on Saturday evening. Only 180 Run the Hill places are available.

General Admission tickets (Sunday arrival only) are only £10 in advance saving £5 on the Gate Price.

Ticket Booking Office is here

We look forward to seeing you at Shelsley in September, check out the website for latest news. Gates open 8:30, track action starts at 9:30 and show closes at 17:00. Just 20 minutes from the Worcester junctions on the M5.

Best regards
Gordon
Festival Organiser

Rhino Ride: Together Against Rhino Poaching in Southern Africa

They mostly appear in the middle of the night, rope down from the helicopters; and often it takes them just a few minutes to do their bloody business: Rhino poachers in Southern Africa. With the Rhino Ride, André Barnard from Namibia and Gavin Green from South Africa are committing themselves to the protection of these impressive pachyderms. The Touratech headquarters in Niedereschach / Germany are supporting this project.

For about 50 million years, rhinos have been living on this planet. But the survivors of prehistoric times may soon disappear forever, if trophy hunters and poachers can’t be stopped. According to the WWF, between 1990 and 2007 about 14 rhinos per year were victims of illegal hunt. Then - due to the greed for their horns - the numbers exploded. According to André Barnard, 1215 white and black rhinos were killed by poachers in South Africa in 2014, and this year, about 1200 have been killed to this day. So, 2015 is going to be the bloodiest year in the history of rhinos. “If this continues, our children won’t see any rhinos anymore”, says André, pointing out that it’s five to midnight. The population of white rhinos in Namibia has decreased to only 5000 animals.

For this reason, he started the “Rhino Ride” project along with Gavin Green from Cape Town two years ago. Working in the tourism business themselves, the two of them want to raise the awareness of other tour operators and partners for the protection of wild animals in general, and rhinos in particular. Motorcycle stunt rider Dirk Manderbach and Sabine Kastner, CEO of the company “Afrikascout” in Haiger (Germany) are supporting them. Sabine wants to set a good example, knowing that you can also achieve a lot by doing small steps. A single e-mail she sent to several tour operators was the reason that some of them are no longer offering ostrich and elephant riding in their programmes.

The 2015 Rhino Ride lead through Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. André and Gavin have between  two and four appointments a day on their schedule. In order to be flexible and to avoid traffic jams, they have used motorcycles. But this is not the only reason: “The bikes are ‘door openers’, too. People are more relaxed, there is less distance and it's much easier to get into a conversation”, BMW fan André points out. Therefore, Touratech provided the two “Rhino Riders” with an R 1200 GS LC and an R 1200 GS Adventure. Africa fan Herbert Schwarz, who got to know André in person at the 2014 Travel Event, immediately knew that this project deserves every support.

André and Gavin are also hoping for support from their partners in the tourism business, as last but not least, it’s the fascinating fauna that attracts holiday makers to the black continent: “If they’d donate just three Euros for each tourist travelling to Southern Africa, a lot could be done in the fight against poaching.” Protecting pachyderms is expensive: Due to the organized procedure of poachers, it is necessary to observe even remote areas from the air on a large scale. In some reservations, the rhinos even get their own bodyguards to prevent them from being slaughtered because of their horns. Rhino horn is considered to be a magic cure and is illegally shipped to Asia in most cases. One kilogramme of horn is worth about 60,000 US Dollars.

Often, the animals are just anesthetized, so that no gunshot will alarm the rangers, André explains. Then the poachers cut off the horn, disappear as quickly as they came and leave the animals dying in agony. “Each tour operator should be obliged to support the fight against this cruel slaughtering and thus support species protection”, André says. It is not just all about collecting donations but, in the first place to do explanatory work and to raise awareness for the fate of rhinos.

The Rhino Ride team points out that every cent donated will directly benefit the Chipembere Rhino Foundation in South Africa and the Next Generation Conservation Trust in Namibia. Both organizations do valuable work for the protection of rhinos.

You will find further information on the Rhino Ride at www.therhinoride.org.za

Stunt rider Dirk Manderbach, “Rhino Rider” André Barnard from Namibia and “Afrikascout” CEO Sabine Kastner in front of the Touratech headquarters in Niedereschach / Germany.

The countdown is over! Tickets for Motorcycle Live 2015 go on sale today. This year’s show will fire up on Saturday 28 November at The NEC, Birmingham and run at full revs for nine days until Sunday 6 December, with four halls jam-packed with features that will see modern motorcycling come to life.

Top of every visitor’s list is new metal and this year will not disappoint, with over 30 of the world’s leading motorcycle manufacturers showcasing their 2016 models in the UK for the first time.

The spectacular manufacturer stands will be surrounded with an enormous variety of live entertainment, interactive features and a range of opportunities to ride – for experienced motorcyclists, complete novices and kids – and there’ll be the usual chance to celeb-spot as a whole host of racing stars pay a visit to the show.

New-for-2015 is FMX Live. Visitors will be able to watch some of the world’s leading freestyle motocross stars whip and back-flip in a jaw-dropping display of aerial gymnastics, in a high octane quality show that will push the riders to their limits*.

Motorcycle Live takes place at The NEC, Birmingham from 28 November to 6 December 2015. Advance tickets are on sale now, at just £17.50 per adult, £11 for Seniors and £7 for children aged 11-16** (kids ten and under accompanied by a paying adult go free). There is also a £20.50 advance ticket, which includes entry to the show and a choice of Oxford neck wear worth £15. To book, call 0844 581 2345 or visit www.motorcyclelive.co.uk

*Additional fee of £5.00 for visitors aged 17+

**Advance ticket price, closing date for advanced tickets 5.00pm on 27 November 2015 All information correct at the time of release.

Noale, 1 August 2015 - Twenty-five year old German rider Stefan Bradl, 2011 Moto2 World Champion, will take part in the remaining nine 2015 MotoGP World Championship races astride the second Aprilia Racing Team Gresini Aprilia RS-GP alongside Alvaro Bautista.
 
Bradl will make his first appearance on the Aprilia RS-GP at the Indianapolis Grand Prix scheduled from 7 to 9 August.
 
Born in the Bavarian city of Augusta on 29 November 1989, Stefan Bradl made his debut in World Championship Motorycle racing in the 125cc category in 2005. In 2008 he took two wins and finished the season fourth in the overall standings. In 2010 he moved to Moto2, a category where he would be crowned World Champion the following year thanks to four wins. His rookie year in MotoGP came in 2012 astride a Honda, a bike that Bradl raced for another two seasons, taking a second place finish in the 2013 United States Grand Prix as his best result. This season Bradl has participated in the first eight Grand Prix races on the calendar astride the Forward Racing team Open class Yamaha, earning nine points. A fractured scaphoid in his right wrist suffered during the Dutch GP at Assen forced him to miss his home race at Sachsenring on 12 July.

Aprilia showed its stuff today at Sepang in Superpole, the session that decides the starting order for the WSBK races tomorrow on the Malaysian track.

Torres took full advantage of the session on a qualifier tyre and rode his RSV4 RF to second place, just 27 hundredths of a second behind Sykes' pole.

With this performance Jordi, a rookie in World Superbike this year, confirms his growth, improving on his performance at Laguna Seca when, for the first time, he took a spot on the front row, but with the third best time.

Max Biaggi, the six-time World Champion, did an excellent job in his second wild card of the season. Almost three years after retiring from racing he battled valiantly, leaving many of the Championship protagonists behind and he missed a spot on the front row by just over a tenth of a second. For him this is an excellent fourth best time that places him on the second row and improves on the fifth spot on the grid that he took at Misano.

Leon Haslam was a bit farther back. The English Aprilia Racing – Red Devils team rider had been one of the main players in the last free practice session to get into Superpole, finishing in second place behind his team mate, Torres, but he was unable to exploit his tyre in the decisive session where he finished in eighth place for a spot on the third row.

Max Biaggi: “I'm pleased with the final outcome because just toward the end of the qualifiers we figured out a few things and I hope that this is the step forward we were trying to find for the races. This is a demonstration of why it is essential for me to take full advantage of every single session. My testing here, which was conducted in only one day because of the rain, cannot compare to the race weekend habits of the riders who compete throughout the entire season and are accustomed to certain automatisms. Tomorrow I hope to ride two nice races. I want to stay with the leaders and that is why starting well will be important.”

Jordi Torres: “This morning we did very well and we worked on my RSV4 with a race tyre because we are quite worried about wear, which is the aspect where we still need to make progress and we'll use the warm up session to improve. I am feeling much better with the qualifier tyre now, thanks to increasing experience and in Superpole we pushed well. Maybe I needed be just a bit fiercer to do even better. Now we'll just wait for the races tomorrow. I'm starting from an excellent position and hopefully we'll do well.”

Leon Haslam: “This morning everything went very well, but unfortunately in the afternoon, both in the last free practice and in Superpole, some problems came up that we are assessing now. We need to improve something on our race pace, but above all we need to get back the feeling I had this morning with my bike. If we can do that tomorrow I'll be able to ride two great races.”