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I often feel like the Ducati SuperSport 950 is the forgotten model in the Italian brand’s lineup of machines. Maybe it’s the Panigale-esque styling, maybe it’s the diminutive 108hp (81 kW) rating, or maybe the crossover sport bike with touring bags thing.

Whatever the case may be, the handsome little motorcycle is an interesting niche in Ducati’s range of motorcycles, and for the 2021 model year, it gets a welcomed refresh.

With a bevy of photos coming from its European launch, I thought it worth some time to talk about this odd duck from Borgo Panigale.

Buell Motorcycles is back, in case you missed the news. The American brand is in new hands new, merging back with its offshoot of Erik Buell Racing, under the leadership of Bill Melvin from Liquid Asset Partners.

For their resurgence, Buell aims to have 10 motorcycles on the market by 2024 – a grand ambition by any standard.

To help them reach that goal though, Buell will leverage three of the known models from the EBR days: the 1190RX superbike, the 1190SX streetfighter, and the less-known-about 1190AX.

When we didn’t hear anything from KTM during the typical new model year blitz at the end of the last year, we worried that the Austrian brand had decided to pack it in, after the tumultuous ride of 2020.

Don’t worry though, KTM hasn’t forgotten about its 2021 obligations, and zie Austrians have more than a few plucky machines to debut for the current model year.

Two of the biggies are a new KTM 1290 Super Duke GT and an updated KTM 1290 Super Adventure lineup, as both bikes are being teased on its social media channels right now with a January 26th release date.

When we first saw the Honda CB4X concept at EICMA last year, we fell in love at first sight. Honda Motor Europe has a history of making intriguing concept designs, and the CB650 platform lends itself to some beautiful options.

With the reception that the CB4X received, it seemed likely that Honda would bring the bike to market, and fuel was added to that fire when Big Red filed for intellectual property protections for the concept’s design.

Now, we get some hope from Japan (thanks to the folks at AutoBy) for the future of the Honda CB4X, though the bike has taken a turn in its evolution.

One of the motorcycles we expected to be updated for the 2021 model year, the KTM 1290 Super Duke GT was just spotted in the wild by the folks at Germany’s Motorrad magazine.

With the KTM 1290 Super Duke R naked bike getting updated for this year, it almost went without saying that its full-fairing sport-touring sibling would get a similar treatment for next year.

As such, the changes are pretty easy to spot.

One of BMW Motorrad’s big reveals for the 2019 EICMA show in Milan, the BMW F900XR brings two big announcements with it.

First, there is the obvious middleweight addition to the XR “adventure-sport” lineup, and second that the German’s 270° parallel-twin will see a 895cc displacement for the Euro5 homologation.

Riffing on the BMW 9cento concept that we saw a year-and-a-half ago, the 2020 BMW F900XR keeps many of the concept’s lines, while infusing more of its bigger sibling into the design as well.

We have heard rumors that Ducati would jam its new V4 engine into a Multistrada-type for quite some time now.

But, most of those rumors seemed to confuse the high-powered adventure-sport for the upcoming Ducati Streetfighter V4, so we dismissed them. And yet, talk of a Ducati Multistrada V4 continues.

Now, the rumors are getting more palatable, and even more credible. One reasons for this is a report from Germany’s Motorrad Magazine, which says that they even saw the Multistrada V4 out testing in Bologna.

For the 2019 model year, Kawasaki is upgrading the Versys 1000 platform, and giving us a new model variant in the process, the Versys 1000 SE LT+, which just debuted at EICMA for the US and European markets.

At the core, the 2019 Kawasaki Versys 1000 SE LT+ is the same machine as before, but right away we can see that Team Green has made some changes, with the design language of the bike falling in line with the Kawasaki Ninja 400 and Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R. It also has the self-healing paint that first debuted on the Kawasaki Ninja H2.

This means that the Kawasaki Versys 1000 SE LT+ retains use of the 1,043cc inline-four engine, which puts out 118hp (88 kW) and 75 lbs•ft (102 Nm) of torque.

She is a big girl though, with a Curb weight that will be 567 lbs, without the saddlebags, handguards, and other optional hardware. What’s makes this bike new is harder to see, besides the bodywork, of course:

Kawasaki has added its KECS electronically controlled suspension pieces; the engine has been updated with electronic throttle valves and a quickshifter; there is a five-axis Bosch IMU that provides cornering ABS; and the dash is a color TFT unit with smartphone connectivity.

When the Yamaha Niken debuted, we didn’t know what to make of this leaning three-wheeler. Yamaha pitched the Niken as a sport bike, but our time riding it in the Alps showed a machine that was better suited for touring.

Seemingly following that feedback, the Yamaha Niken GT has come for the 2019 model year, debuting at the EICMA show in Milan, and it offers more touring-focused features for three-wheel enthusiasts.

Perhaps the perfect touring platform, the move makes sense for Yamaha, and the Niken needs few changes in order to adapt to this new concept.

The most aggressive street-tourer on the market just got more potent for the 2019 model year, as at INTERMOT today, the Austrians have updated the KTM 1290 Super Duke GT for next year.

As such, a host of updates come to the 2019 KTM 1290 Super Duke GT, the most notable of which is a styling change. Gone is the “Spy vs. Spy” front end, in favor of a fairing design that is closer in style to the current KTM 1290 Super Duke R.