Spy photos of the KTM 1290 Super Duke are nothing new, and the Austrian company has even gone as far as to tease us with a heavily massaged KTM 1290 Super Duke R prototype at the 2012 EICMA show. With the final version of the superbike-powered streetfighter expected to be decidedly less edgy, the photo brought to us today (one can only guess when it was taken), if anything else, is a reminder to be reluctant our expectations.
The ever elusive “spy” photo, what we have here looks to be a near production prototype of the KTM 1290 Super Duke that has been caught in the wild. Easily the clearest photo we have seen of the road-going bike, it clearly holds KTM’s LC8 motor as well as the same trellis frame found on the “beast” prototype.
While our attentions may be on this weekend’s inaugural MotoGP round at the Circuit of the Americas in Ausin, Texas, the World Endurance Championship (EWC) season is also kicking off with the 2013 Bol d’Or. A 24-hour that now takes place at the in Magny-Cours circuit in France, the Bol d’Or is one of two 24-hour races on the EWC calendar, and is in its 77th running.
At the top of the heap for tomorrow’s grid is the SRC Kawasaki team (WSBK’s Loris Baz is one of the team’s riders, for trivia points), which won the Bol d’Or 24-hour racing last year, upsetting the Suzuki Endurance Racing Team (SERT). Despite the upset defeat, SERT went on to win the EWC title outright in 2012, and remains the favorite for the 2012 season.
Though SRC is the team to beat to the finish come Sunday, it goes without saying that you cannot count out SERT from a top-step finish with their Suzuki GSX-R1000 endurance race bike. Yamaha France’s GMT94 entry finishes out the top three spots, and is another strong contender, as is fourth-place starter BMW Motorrad France Team Thevent.
Despite Qualifying 9th in the EWC field (12th overall), the Honda TT Legends crew is upbeat about their pace, and tip their consistency as being a deciding factor come tomorrow’s race. Fastest on the team, Michael Dunlop will move from being the team’s back-up rider, and instead will replace Michael Rutter, who is still nursing his leg injury from pre-season testing.
McGuinness, Andrews, and Dunlop will be hunting a Top 5 finish over the 24 hours, with a podium being an outstanding result ofr the factory Honda squad.
Another installment in the life of AMA Pro Superbike’s Chris Fillmore, and we see the KTM rider head down to Deus Ex Machina for some “coffee and café racers” as he calls it in this episode of Following Fillmore. Checking out the work of Michael “Woolie” Woolaway, Chris sheds some insight into his failed career in retails sales, as well as the early period of his motorcycle racing career.
News that KTM would be making a full-fairing version of its small-discplacement single-cylinder KTM 390 Duke street-naked is nothing new, and is something that we have reported ad nauseum. News that Stefan Pierer has confirmed that bike’s release isn’t new either, but for the first time the Austrian CEO has given us a concrete date on when we will see the now-called KTM RC390 in the flesh, and that date is the 2013 EICMA show in Milan, Italy.
Talking Sir Alan Cathcart with Cycle News, Pierer explains that three flavors of the full-fairing machine will come from Mattighofen, in the 125cc, 200cc, and 390cc varieties. As reported earlier, the new RC bikes will feature styling very similar to KTM’s Moto3 race bike, the KTM RC250GP, and will be manufactured in Bajaj’s Chakan factory in India.
Asphalt & Rubber is coming to you from the Grand Prix of the Americas this week, and things are already off to an interesting start. With a fire breaking out in the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 garage during the night, the gear for the satellite Yamaha squad was flooded by the Circuit of the America’s fire suppression system, which also affected the garages for Yamaha Racing, LCR Honda, and Cardion AB.
Yamaha Racing Boss Lin Jarvis explained that while the small fire was quickly put out by COTA’s sprinklers, the team lost one of two servers and several computers to the blaze before it was extinguished. It is not anticipated that the fire will have any affect on Sunday’s race, though it could pose a problem for the teams, since they have a quick turnaround for the Jerez round.
Currently, the cause of the fire is presumed to be the lithium battery to Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s electric starter for the GP motorcycles, making this incident another eyebrow raising episode in the handling of high-tech battery packs, which have different tolerances and operating procedures than conventional battery pack types.
While certainly a setback to the start of the race weekend, the teams involved dodged a serious bullet by having the fire occur while MotoGP is at COTA, since the Texan track has a sophisticated fire prevention system in place.
Confirming what we already thought to be true, Gabriele del Torchio has left his position at Ducati to takeover as CEO of Alitalia. Replacing him will be current Ducati General Manager and Board Member Claudio Domenicali.
With 21 years of experience at Ducati Motor Holding, including time in both Ducati’s product and racing departments, Domenicali is perhaps the most logical successor for the departing Del Torchio, as he intimately understand’s the company’s product line as well as its racing heritage.
Following Del Torchio will be no easy task though, as the former-CEO has helped build Ducati into something that is more than just a superbike brand. Domenicali’s marching orders are surely to continue that growth into new two-wheeled sectors, as well as to take Ducati from a boutique European brand into a true global player in the premium motorcycle market — you have been warned BMW and KTM. Ducati’s press release on the transition is after the jump.
With the start of the racing season just barely into its second round for many of the world’s various series, it is hard to believe that we should start hearing about entries for the 2013 Isle of Man TT, but June is truly just around the corner. Returning for the TT Zero race, Team Mugen returns to the Isle of Man with its new Shinden Ni electric motorcycle.
Piloted last year by the King of the Mountain himself, John McGuinness returns to Team Mugen where he hopes to improve upon his second place finish, and the 102.2 mph average lap speed he posted during last year’s competition.
News that BMW will be coming out with a water-cooled replacement of its current R1200RT is really nothing new. Since the debut of the new BMW R1200GS, and its precision water-cooled motor, it has seemed like only a matter of time before the BMW’s next-generation boxer engine made its way into the German company’s other models.
We have already seen the 2014 BMW R1200RT strutting its stuff in camouflage before, but those photos were small and blurry — really just enough to give us an idea of what we were looking at, and nothing more. This is not the case today however, as a German blogger has been fortunate enough to catch what he calls the BMW R1200GTt out in the wild, and has included a 1080p walk-around to prove it.
The boys and girls in Varese, Italy are giving only modest updates to the MV Agusta F4 for the 2013 model year, as the company’s four-cylinder superbike will sport an ABS package from Bosch. Featuring the dual-channel Bosch 9M+ anti-lock braking system with anti-rear wheel lift, the F4 will be able to handle better low-traction stops and wet surfaces.
As the name suggests, the Bosch system also keeps the rear-wheel from lifting up during hard braking actions, which may throw a wench in your plans for epic stoppies, but it also will keep Italian dream machine in-check when diving deep into the braking zones.
The laws of physics are a funny thing — simple on paper, yet complex in practice. When designing a motorcycle helmet, taking in all the factors and forces is a daunting task, which is why helmet manufacturers do such rigorous tests on their samples.
One test that we are pretty sure never occurs in the laboratory is the simulated Newton’s Cradle, for reasons that should become abundantly clear in a few short moments. Take this for the entertainment that it is, and hope to God that Mythbusters gets ahold of it and tests the science involved.