Tomorrow, the Honda TT Legends World Endurance Championship team will take to Magny-Cours, and compete in the 24 hours Bol d’Or endurance race. The first stop on the FIM World Endurance Championship, John McGuinness, Cameron Donald, Gary Johnson, and Simon Andrews qualified 11th for the Bol d’Or, but hope their 2012 Honda CBR1000RR will be able to make up the distance to the front-runners over the course of the race.

Putting together a quick video about the team, and endurance racing in general, the Honda TT Legends squad knows that it has a challenge ahead of them. Acknowledging that last season was a “development year,” for 2012 the team hopes to be on the podium at every race. A race bike with lights, the Honda TT Legends mechanics have had to take the race-spec Honda CBR1000RR, and “tune it down to 200 [hp]” in order to meet the reliability requirements for such a long race.

We can’t imagine what it is like riding a bike that only makes 200 hp around a tiny French track for 24 hours must be like, but McGuinness et al seem quite pleased with the machine thus far. Featuring ABS brakes on the CBR, we especially like McGuinness’s thoughts about the technology, and attitude towards “the lads in the pub” and what they have to say about ABS on sport bikes. Better living through technology, the Honda TT Legends squad is going to be a menace in the rain with the ABS-equipped CBR1000RR.

After teasing us with some photos and video of its new Duke, KTM finally unveiled the 2012 KTM 690 Duke at EICMA this morning. With 90% of the bike being completely brand new, KTM says the new 690 Duke brings the Austrian company back to its street-naked roots, with an off-road influence of course. Accordingly, at the heart of the KTM 690 Duke is a 690cc LC4 single-cylinder thumper that puts out a crushing 70hp and 51 lbs•ft of torque, while the whole motorcycle package weighs only 330 lbs (without fuel).

Further refining the LC4 single-cylidner motor, KTM has created a new cylinder head, and added a dual-ignition system & ride-by-wire throttle for the 690 Duke. Anti-lock brakes have also been added to the 2012 KTM 690 Duke, as the Austrian company has tapped Bosch to use the Bosch 9M+ ABS package. Lastly, braking power comes from a Brembo radially-mounted caliper with a single 320mm brake disc, while suspension is handle by KTM subsidiary WP, and consists of fully-adjustable 43mm front forks, and a fully-adjustable rear shock.

I often get lambasted in the comments section for being pro-Ducati here on Asphalt & Rubber, and that’s fine by me, because I am. It’s hard not to like a company that has basically defined the modern aesthetic for motorcycles, or a company that continues to grow despite being in the worst recession since The Great Depression. It’s also not hard to love a company that continues to release, year-after-year, new compelling motorcycles, as is the case today with the 2012 Ducati 1199 Panigale.

Teased ad nauseam, the Ducati 1199 Panigale shouldn’t disappoint the discerning sport bike rider with a strong appetite for Italian food, as the latest v-twin from Bologna sets many firsts for the superbike market segment. As we predicted last year, the Ducati 1199 Panigale drops 20lbs off the Superbike 1198′s design (22 lbs actually), while making an extra 20hp over its predecessor. Not only is the 1199 Panigale the lightest production superbike on the market, with its 361 lbs dry weight (414 lbs wet), it’s also one of the most powerful with its 195hp peak power figure, courtesy of the Superquadro motor.

Other firsts include a revolutionary monocoque frame, the first full-LED headlight on a motorcycle (another story we broke), the first electronically adjusted suspension on a sport bike, the first engine braking control system, as well as the first GPS-assisted data acquisition system for a production motorcycle (the DDA+ package is an optional equipment item for the Panigale). While traction control comes standard, ABS brakes will also be an optional item for the Ducati 1199 Panigale.

Available in April 2012, as we expected the new Ducati 1199 Panigale has gotten a price increase over the Superbike 1198. Accordingly the base model will cost $17,995, the “S” will cost $22,995, and “S” Tricolore will hit the wallet at $27,995 MSRP.

Asphalt & Rubber is in Milan right now, and in a few hours we’ll headed over for the official launch of the 2012 Ducati 1199 Panigale. However, we might as well stay in the hotel and do grappa shots until our eyes bleed, as the sport bike of 2012 has already unsurprisingly leaked ahead of its official debut. Not only do we get our first glimpse of the new flagship Ducati, but it looks like the Ducati 1199 Panigale will have optional anti-locking brakes (ABS) and Ducati Electronic Suspension (DES).

While it was only a matter of time before Ducati put ABS on its Superbike line, the electronic suspension package on the Panigale (note the wires going into the top of the fork tubes), which originally made its Ducati debut on the Multistrada 1200, is the first time the technology has made its way onto a sport bike. Expect full-details and photos in a couple hours, until then salivate after the jump.

Taking the “anti-lock brakes don’t work off-road” mentality head-on, Husqvarna has debuted an anti-lock braking system (ABS) package designed specifically for off-road use. Derived from BMW’s extensive experience with the technology (BMW Motorrad was the first OEM to fit ABS to a production motorcycle), Husqvarna has taken the lessons learned by its German parent company, specifically BMW’s Race ABS from the S1000RR superbike, and adapted the technology for its dirt models for off-road racing.

Continuing to prove our “electronics are the new horsepower” hypothesis and fitting the flagship Husqvarna TE 449 with the new off-road ABS technology, Husqvarna hopes to make a statement not only about the use of ABS in off-street conditions, but is taking things a step further by putting anti-lock brakes on a race-bred dirt bike. The key to the off-road ABS technology from Husqvarna is two-fold. First, Husqvarna’s dual-channel ABS still allows for the rear tire to be locked-up while under heavy braking (this can also be achieved on the S1000RR’s ABS package under the “slick” mode setting). Second, the system, like its road-going counterpart, is extremely light, and only adds 1.5kg (3.3 lbs) of weight to the bike.

I’m going to come out and say that I loved the 2011 Triumph Speed Triple when it came out. A divisive model with the Triumph’s loyal fan base, the revised Speed Triple’s aesthetics are a marked improvement over the earlier generations in my book, which was the only thing that kept the peppy three-cylinder machine out of my personal garage. Now to thoroughly ruining my Christmas wish list, the British brand has added the 2012 Triumph Speed Triple R to its EICMA debut list, with the “R” designation denoting the bike’s upgraded Öhlins suspension, Brembo brakes, and PVM wheels.

The wait is finally over on what Suzuki has been brewing for its middleweight adventure bike offering. Through some HTML trickery, we were able to glean this unreleased information off the Suzuki website, and as such are bringing you the first photos, technical specifications, and design features on the 2012 Suzuki V-Strom 650 ABS. An evolution of the current V-Strom 650, the new middleweight V-Strom is longer, taller, and lighter than its predecessor, while boasting an updated look to the aging V-Strom exterior.

If you were expecting more, and feel let down…welcome to the club. Though this represents a large portion of the information Suzuki plans on unveiling in the coming days, we still have some unanswered questions: like what’s been changed in the motor (we have yet to see any power figures quoted), though the general specifications on the 645cc v-twin lump appear to be the same. More as we get it. Find the massively underwhelming leaked photos, details, and specifications after the jump. Thanks for the tip Yellow Ranger!

Another cog in the wheel has turned, bringing us closer to complete adoption of anti-lock brakes as standard equipment on motorcycles, as BMW Motorrad USA has announced that all 2012 BMW motorcycles will come standard with ABS. It was 23 years ago that BMW brought the technology to motorcycles, so it seems only fitting that the company would be the first to implement the technology across its full line-up.

To the chagrin of some motorcycle enthusiasts, ABS has slowly seen its way onto a variety of motorcycles over the years, including the sportbike segment. It seems only a matter of time before it becomes standard across all manufacturers, not just BMW Motorrad.

“Plain and simple, being able to stop a motorcycle faster and more predictably helps prevent a rider from becoming a statistic,” said Pieter de Waal, Vice President, BMW Motorrad USA. “It’s time for all of us in the motorcycle industry to embrace the benefits of ABS. Extensive testing by safety experts, law enforcement authorities and journalists around the world consistently demonstrates that ABS reduces overall crashes and saves lives.”

MV Agusta is hosting it dealers meeting this weekend, and it is expected that the Italian company will unveil details on its upcoming 2011-2012 model line-up. With information coming forth about its new smaller Brutale 675 “B3″, a naked version of the companies recently unveiled MV Agusta F3 three-cylinder supersport, MV Agusta is likely to have the bike on sale as early as February 2012, with a base price of €8,990.

This puts the MV Agusta Brutale 675 squarely in the Triumph Street Triple’s price range, but bests its British counterpart with a claimed 120hp (de-tuned from the F3′s expected 140hp output). Also expected to be announced at the dealer meeting is the company’s plan for the releasing the MV Agusta F3, and news of a 201hp MV Agusta F4 “Corsacorta”.

The news of the 2011 Aprilia RSV4 R APRC got me thinking today about where the sport bike market is headed from a big picture perspective. The sport bike market has been dominated the constant need to develop motorcycles with more power, less weight, and new performance enhancing technologies, and you’d be hard pressed to find a year where the bike with the most horsepower wasn’t the top-seller in this category (case in point: the complete sales domination of the BMW S1000RR during 2010).

For years the motorcycle manufacturers, especially the Japanese, have been painting themselves into a corner by constantly having to one-up each other with horsepower figures in order to sell motorcycles in this segment. With bikes like the 2011 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R approaching the 200hp barrier, the question about “how much power is enough?” has been cropping up, and it certainly could be that we’re approaching the point in time where the relevancy of this metric is losing it’s power (pun moderately intended). So what will be the new kingmaker for sport bikes? The electronics package.