You can tell it’s new year, the motorcycle journalists are back at work, sniffing out the stories. Here are some of them, in no particular order.

The IODA team who will be running a bike in the CRT section of MotoGp this year are close to confirming their technical package. In spite of everyone being told that their weapon of choice would be a Suter/BMW, it now seems that they will be running an Aprilia engine in their own proprietary chassis. This makes sense as their team principal is a former employee of Piaggio and worked with Aprilia, Derbi and Piaggio as well as Aprilia in WSBK.

The big news of the Christmas/New Year break was the announcement that Yamaha would be concluding their sponsorship arrangement with the Malaysian giant, Petronas. After losing FIAT and running the bikes self-branded in 2011, this was a  big blow. It seems now that Yamaha have picked up at least a partial replacement with the announcement that they have signed a deal with ENEOS, a Japanese lubrication company. Quite where this will leave them in terms of Yamaha’s use of their own, proprietary, oils is anyone’s guess. Maybe they will use Yamalube in ENEOS bottles? And I wonder if the bikes will be orange this year, as ENEOS’s corporate colour is a particularly startling shade of orange. ENEOS are no stranger to motorsports having been associated with the sports car races at Le Mans and also the former Honda Formula One team.

Further worrying signs of the GFC have emerged overnight with the Parkalgar Honda Team announcing that it will be withdrawing from the 2012 WSS Championship. The super team for whom the late Craig Jones rode, is just another casualty of a European economy that is barely keeping its head above water. Despite the constant bleating about costs it seems paradoxical that the most expensive form of motorcycle racing, MotoGp, is expanding (sort of) whereas the supposedly less expensive one (WSBK and WSS) is shrinking.

Still on WSS, news overnight that Moto2 competitor, Mr Crash himself, Jules Cluzel, will be leaving Moto2 and heading up the brand new WTR Ten 10 WSS team. Ten 10′s second rider has not yet been announced but the team, backed by Indian money, has hinted at a WSBK entry in 2014.

And, finally, back to MotoGp. The Gresini Team has confirmed a technical arrangement with Ten Kate Honda to supply engines and expertise for their new CRT effort in 2012. Well done, Fausto for snaring the best engine deal in the paddock.

I don’t often stray too far from motorcycling in my posts, but a friend posted this on my Facebook page last night and it’s worth sharing.

“You really don’t HAVE to be old to read this. Checking out at the grocery store recently, the young cashier suggested I should bring my own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment. I apologized and explained, “We didn’t have this green thing back in my earlier days.” The clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations.” She was right about one thing — our generation didn’t have the green thing in “Our” day.

So what did we have back then…? After some reflection and soul-searching on “Our” day here’s what I remembered we did have…. Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles repeatedly. So they really were recycled. But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day. We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby’s diapers because we didn’t have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts — wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right. We didn’t have the green thing back in our day. Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us.

When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she’s right. We didn’t have the green thing back then. We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn’t have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus, and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint. But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?”

My grandma, who passed away in 2001, aged 92, was a  recycler before the term was even coined, making and making do while she supported an invalid husband (grandad lost a leg in an industrial accident in 1929) and raising 5 kids through the Depression. How dare the modern generation lay the guilt trip on us.