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Jensen Beeler

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Despite Valentino Rossi getting the Ducati Desmosedici GP11.1 for the Italian GP at Mugello, the nine-time World Champion is still struggling with a 12th place qualifying position. Despite his troubles, Rossi is keeping true to his tradition of wearing a special AGV helmet at his home GP round. Featuring a giant eyeball on the top of the lid (Rossi’s bulldogs are featured on the back of the helmet), we can only imagine Rossi is paying with the fact that all eyes are on him this year as he tackles the new challenges that surround his move to Ducati Corse.

So far Rossi and Jeremy Burgess haven’t been able to tame the beast, and at Mugello, the famous crew chief is absent, having to attend to personal obligations back home in Australia this weekend. With QP cut-short by inclement weather, Rossi and Ducati had only a handful of laps to work on setting up the GP11.1 for Mugello, which could prove to be a hurdle come Sunday morning. Whatever the reasons are for Rossi’s design choice, he will be one to watch tomorrow to see if he can overcome the hurdles that are set out before him. More photos after the jump.

In this new age of motorcycle marketing, it’s clear that Italian magazine Motociclismo has been given Bologna’s blessing as its favored child of motorcycle media. Accordingly, the publication has been at the forefront of information and photos of the new 2012 Ducati Superbike 1199, and just recently teased this photo of the Ducati Superbike 1199’s headlight, which we know to be the first LED headlight to come on a production motorcycle.

Obviously having some time with the new Superbike 1199 (or at least having one very gracious friend in the Ducati factory), Motociclismo has a bevy of detail shots of the 1199 (we refuse to buy into the Xtreme naming rumors and hype). In the photos, we not only get a better glimpse at the LED headlights, but also the enlarged gilled air intake that surrounds the headlight unit. Also readily seen is the horizontally mounted rear shock, and near it is what Motociclismo is saying is the plastic-guarded collector pipe for the underslung exhaust, however our sources tell us it connects to a second exhaust which exits out the rear of the tail section, as seen on the Ducati Desmosedici GP12.

BMW Motorrad has been working on its next generation of suspension innovations, and at the 2011 BMW Motorrad Innovation Day the Bavarian company debuted its new Dynamic Damping Control (DDC) technology. An evolution on BMW’s electronic suspension adjustment system (ESA & ESA II), BMW Motorrad’s Dynamic Damping Control goes beyond merely allowing the rider to adjust suspension compression, rebound, and spring settings on the fly, and adds a computer-controlled automatic tuning element to the suspension components that adapts to the road conditions on-the-fly.

For some background, BMW’s ESA II is the forefather for copycat systems found on other manufacturer’s machines, perhaps most notable of which is the Ducati Multistrada 1200, which boasts a “four bikes in one” tagline with its different riding modes that use different engine mapping and suspension settings to tailor the bike to the rider’s needs. DDC takes this idea a step further, as it goes beyond just changing settings in different riding modes (as seen on the Ducati), and instead ties in the suspension system to BMW’s ABS and traction control systems (DTC), allowing the suspension to react when a rider accelerates, brakes, swerves, and fords the river Oregon Trail style (you’ll likely lose all your oxen doing this).

Well it didn’t take long for Husqvarna to release some official photos, after showing the 2012 Husqvarna Nuda 900R street bike to the assembled press. The Nuda definitely has a unique look to it, which is already growing on us in a weird way…the name however, well…that’s a different story. Based around the BMW F800GS parallel-twin, Husqvarna has bumped the power plant up to 900cc, making over 100hp with the red-topped lump.

With a 385 lbs dry weight, the Husqvarna 900 should be a potent animal on the street, and promises to be quite the hooligan machine (if you’re into that sort of thing). Until we get a chance to explore our inner-child while on the seat of a Husqvarna Nuda 900R, we’ll have to tide ourselves over with the 23 photos found after the jump.

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.

AMA Pro Racing had its crash at Daytona, World Superbike had Max Biaggi’s slap, and MotoGP is apparently still dealing with its Marco Simoncelli. Yes, if there is one common denominator in motorcycle racing, it’s that the drama llama rears its ugly head from time-to-time. This maxim apparently holds true even in Thailand’s domestic Superbike racing series, as this latest video shows some less-than-sportsmanlike behavior occurring.

What started out as a two jumped-starts, ends with a throw-down melee in pit lane, and somewhere in-between those two things, there is some heated racing that sees competitors kicking at each other mid-corner, swerving to collide, and generally trying to kill one another while racing around one of the most “interesting” race tracks we’ve seen in a while. If you like your motorcycle racing with a little Muay-Thai influence, then we’ve got just the video for you.

The course for the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is 12.42 miles long, includes 156 turns, and goes from 9,390 ft at the starting line to 14,110 feet at the finish. Learning the course can take years, mastering it even longer, and considering that many of the higher elevation turns have sheer drop-offs with no guard rails, mistakes are not an option. To keep all of the turns straight, and to come up to speed as quickly as possible for his rookie year on Pikes Peak, Chip Yates constructed a crib sheet of notes on Pikes Peak.

With the actual notes sheet about four feet long and two feet wide, Chip’s track notes are more like conquistador’s map to the summit, and from what he tells us…he can redraw the whole thing from scratch, blind-folded, while jumping out of an airplane with not parachute (well, maybe he can just draw and annotate the whole thing from scratch). Check out Chip’s notes on racing to the clouds after the jump, and click the photo for the life-size version that aided him in his double-record run.

Kawasaki is recalling certain 2011 Kawasaki Vulcan 900 motorcycles for a possibly pinched inner tire tube, which may have been damaged in the assembly process. The recall affects 436 units of the motorcycle, and if left unattended could result in the tube puncturing, and the tire losing air pressure. If the tire loses air pressure, it could result in a crash, hence the recall.

Kawasaki dealers will replace the damaged tubes for free, with the recall expected to begin in June 2011…today being the last day of that month. Concerned owners may contact Kawasaki’s consumer services department at 1-866-802-9381, and as always the NHTSA is available at 1-888-327-4236 & www.safercar.gov.

Source: NHTSA

KTM Motorsports is teaming up with HMC Racing to field a factory-backed KTM effort in the AMA Pro Superbike Road Racing Championship Series (say that three times fast). KTM & HMC will enter in three races on the AMA Pro Racing calendar: Mid-Ohio, VIR, and NJMP, with rider Chris Fillmore at the helm of the KTM 1190 RC8 R Race Spec. With the team headed by Mitch Hansen of HMC Racing, KTM is trusting old partners with its first official foray into AMA road racing.

After seeing the front fairing of the new 2012 Ducati Superbike 1199 last week, we idly speculated that the design included an LED (light-emitting diode) headlamp, as no bulbs or projector assemblies could be seen in the housing. Another tip-off were the slats in the headlight housing, which can readily be seen, and look very similar to the setup used by Audi on its R18 TDI Le Mans race car. Getting a few tips from our loyal readers, and following up with several of our sources, we can confirm that the new Ducati Superbike 1199 will use a completely LED-based headlight system — the first production motorcycle to use such an assembly.

If you follow where the volume and the growth in the motorcycle industry come from, then it should be no surprise to hear that Triumph has announced its intention to enter the Indian market with its motorcycles. The 109-year-old brand based out of Hinckley is just the latest of many major OEMs to enter India, whose high tariffs and exploding market necessitate a local presence by manufacturers in order to be competitive. Rest assured the rest of this post will be devoid of any mention of the irony in the British brand entering into the once British colonial market of India.