WSB

The global market is dropping faster than King Kenny McRoberts Jr. pushed out of the International Space Station with a parachute made of Harley Davidson Fat Boys. Businesses across the globe are cutting back worker's hours, from Japan (where they are now limited to a 175 hour workweek) to Spain (where the max is now 3 hours per month).

Things have gotten so bad that Jorge Lorenzo has traded in his golden nugget for a silver one, and Biaggi can no longer afford prescription hair treatment aids and has resorted to gluing Giovanni Bussei's beard trimmings to his ever expanding scalp.

Huh? What was that? Oh, you wanted a 2009 World Superbike Preview? Well that is an entirely different story…

BMW have released new pics of its S1000RR superbike, with model Ann Kathrin Ruhl upping the glam quotient. While bikes like the BMW K1300R, K1300S and HP2 Sport do offer a fair bit of performance, the S1000RR – the machine which BMW will be racing in World Superbikes this year – is in a different league altogether.

With its aluminium beam frame, high-spec USD fork and monoshock (both ends fully adjustable), Brembo brakes, carbonfibre bodywork and high-revving 1,000cc inline-four that makes about 200bhp at the crank, the S1000RR is more in line with Japanese litre-class superbikes. That, and perhaps even more, because the S1000RR is likely to be equipped with advanced traction control, ABS, variable length air-intake tracts and positive valve actuation of some sort, the details of which have not been revealed yet by BMW.

When the road going version of the S1000RR goes on sale – probably towards the end of this year – the bike is expected to cost around US$15,000.

Click here to read more about "The BMW S1000RR"