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MV Agusta F3 ‘Serie Oro’ Unveiled

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MV Agusta has officially taken the wraps off its collector’s edition MV Agusta F3 ‘Serie Oro’ motorcycle, showing the three-cylinder supersport machine in its final production trim. Producing only 200 units of the Gold Series, MV Agusta is building these bikes to each customer’s specifications, with a price tag upwards of €20,000 being the name of the game. Helping justify that high cost for the MV Agusta F3 Serie Oro, MV Agusta has made Brembo monobloc calipers, Öhlins forks, an Öhlins TTX rear shock, and forged aluminum wheels all stock on the 675cc supersport machine.

The premium F3 also boasts plenty of carbon fiber and a sophisticated electronics package, though some might find the price hard to swallow in the middleweight sport bike category (even if there are nice touches like painted mirrors and intake grills). Accordingly, MV Agusta has also announced the MSRP for the base model MV Agusta F3, with European pricing set at €11,990. Production for the MV Agusta F3 has also been moved up by four months, meaning bikes will be in the hands of dealers by the end of this year. Photos of the 2012 MV Agusta F3 ‘Serie Oro are after the jump.

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Bikes

Husqvarna Nuda 900R Revealed

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UPDATE: Find 23 Official Photos of the 2012 Husqvarna Nuda 900R here.

These are the first images of the Husqvarna Nuda 900R motorcycle (taken by our good friends at OmniMoto), the Swedish brand’s first foray into the street bike scene. Making over 100hp and weighing less than 385 lbs, the new Husqvarna will hit dealer floors by the end of the 2011 (hopefully by then they’ll have the spec-sheet ironed out a bit more). What technical specifications we do is this: 320mm Brembo disc brakes, fully adjustable 48mm Sachs forks, and a fully adjustable Öhlins rear shock. Check out the photos and video from the unveil after the jump.

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News

New Suzuki V-Strom Delayed Until Tomorrow

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While Suzuki has been hyping some sort of middleweight adventure-tourer, suspected to be an 800cc V-Strom, the company has missed its original unveil date of Saturday June 11th. Now Suzuki sites are touting a new date: tomorrow (Wednesday June 15th), which we suppose we’ll forgive Suzuki for this blunder, provided the new model blows our socks off. So far no one has said why the date has been pushed back, though we’d like to start a good rumor of a headlight fluid shortage at Suzuki HQ.

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Racing

HRC NSF250R Moto3 Race Bike to Debut at Catalan GP

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Honda has done a pretty good job of teasing out its HRC NSF250R, which is set to race in the Moto3 Championship in 2012. Replacing the 125GP, Moto3 class is based around four-stroke 250cc race bikes, and should be a more affordable and leveling playing field for new riders to enter into GP racing. HRC has teased us with images and videos of the new NSF250R, which takes its core cues from the its RS125R predecessor (both current factory Honda riders Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso won their lower Championships on the Honda RS125R).

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Bikes

Motus MST – Here Comes America’s Sport-Tourer

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After much waiting, Motus Motorcycles finally launched its MST sport-tourer to the public today. Unveiled at the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum in Motus’s hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, the American motorcycle manufacturer will head to Florida for the Progressive International Motorcycle Show on Thursday, March 10th for a more public showing.

Developed in conjunction with Pratt & Miller Engineering, the Motus MST features the KMV4 motor, a 1,645cc V4 push-rod style engine that include gasoline direct-injection technology (GDI). Power for the Motus MST prototype is said to be 161hp @ 7,800 rpm; 122 lbs•ft of torque @ 4,500 rpm, while the bike tips the scales around around 500 lbs dry. Motus will be riding the MST around the United States to show off their work, meet with supporters, and look for dealers interested in carrying the line.

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Opinion/Editorial

LCR Honda: This is How You Launch a MotoGP Team

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Testing has already gotten underway and concluded at Sepang today, meaning the teams of MotoGP have released their livery for the next season with varying degrees of fanfare and showmanship. It’s no surprise then that we found a couple photos of the LCR Honda RC212V adorned with a seductive Playboy bunny affixed to it, in what surely has to be the best GP team launch in 2011.

If you read Asphalt & Rubber on a religious basis (we are your motorcycling zen temple, right?), you’ve likely divined by now that I’ll chastise just about any company that uses the premise that “sex sells” (nothing boils my blood more than this cleverly short, yet misguided maxim), and that I love a good scrappy startup that’s got more hustle than funding (case in point: A&R is a penniless motorcycle startup trying to make it in this crazy online world).

So how does a the multi-million dollar motorcycle racing team with half-naked women draped all over their machinery get such accolades from our humble motorcycle blog? Because LCR Honda is the epitome of innovation on the business side of MotoGP racing.

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Racing

WSBK: PATA Racing & Haga Show Off 2011 Livery

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Pata Racing Team Aprilia launched its 2011 World Superbike entry today at the Verona Motor Bike Expo in Italy. The largely white Aprilia has a large PATA logo on the side with accents of green and blue and other sponsor decals. As expected, Noriyuki Haga will be the sole-rider for the team that formerly fielded Jakub Smrz first on a Ducati then Aprilia for the 2010 season. The bike was unveiled by Team President Daniele Carli and Team Manager Marco Borciani, who also underscored the previous announcement that Aprilia is officially supporting the team, though no one officially from Aprilia attended.

Nitro Nori successfully stirred up some interest by saying, “I’m not worried about Max Biaggi! I think I can start winning again with this bike, and try to reach my goal of 60 career wins. Then I can retire…I’m aiming for the title, but my first objective will be to beat the factory Aprilias.”

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Bikes

Ducati Desmosedici GP11 – Christmas Comes Late in Italy

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If you are a Ducati owner, Valentino Rossi Fan, Italian, or have more than a passing interest in MotoGP, then today is the day you’ve had marked on your 2011 calendar (with perhaps the Valencia test being the date of 2010). Finally released from his contractual obligations with Yamaha, Valentino Rossi can officially begin his duties working for Ducati Corse this week, and Ducati has already capitalized on the moment by showing off Rossi’s new leathers to great fanfare. Now the pièce de résistance and the end to our torment, Ducati has finally debuted the Ducati Desmosedici GP11 at the 2011 Wrooom media event, a joint launch event between Ferrari and Ducati held in the Dolomite Mountains.

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Bikes

2011 Kawasaki ZX-10R SBK Now in Green

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Kawasaki will be officially be “unveiling” its 2011 World Superbike-spec ZX-10R at Nurburgring this weekend, but has released photos of the bike, finally showing the ZX-10R in its green livery. Team Green has slowly been leaking photos and videos of the new 10R through a massive online social marketing campaign, which centered around the company’s Next_Ninga twitter account.

Kawasaki is putting a lot of weight on the superbike’s shoulders after being un-competitive in World Superbike racing, and withdrawing completely from MotoGP. Hoping the 2011 Kawasaki ZX-1oR will turn around Kawasaki’s racing fortunes, Kawasaki is also hopeful that the bike will help spur its fading sport bike sales.

For 2011, Kawasaki says it has down a top-down approach to the ZX-10R, starting for the first in the company’s history with making the race bike before the street model. This hopefully means that the 2011 Kawasaki ZX-10R will be a no-compromises race/track weapon with turn signals, but we’ll leave that hyperbole until A&R gets a leg over one.

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Bikes

Video: Ducati Superbike 848 EVO

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Soon the 2011 Ducati Superbike 848 EVO will be released before a live audience at Laguna Seca, so we thought we’d help wet your v-twin appetites with a little promo video the Italian company put together. The Evo seeming makes right-hand turns as well as it makes left-hand turns, all the while producing a distinctive Ducati note from its exhaust pipes…that should be enough to sooth the masses at Ducati Island, but we wouldn’t mind trying a Bologna Bullet Evo out for ourselves…come on JPC, we know you’re reading this. Video after the jump.

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News

New Ducati Model to be Unveiled at Laguna Seca

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UPDATE: Ducati will be unveiling to the public its 2011 Ducati 848 Superbike EVO, which will have a $1,000 cheaper “Dark” variant as well.

Get ready Ducatisti, a new Ducati model is coming in two weeks. To be launched at Laguna Seca’s Ducati Island during the GP weekend, Ducati is tight lipped as to what the new model could be. In our invitation to the event, we are told only that the unveiling will be “hosted by four very excited guests to whom this new model means quite a lot.” The unveiling will be at 1pm on Saturday, and we’ll be there with our cameras.

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