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Dakar Rally – Stage 5: Coma Leads, Despres Penalized

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Stage five of the 2014 Dakar Rally saw  riders battling  some very inclement conditions. With temperatures soaring to well above 100 degrees and poor visibility due to last week’s rain, Stage Five  took its toll on all the riders as they covered the 912 km jaunt between Chilecito and Tucumán.

“It was another tough day and it was really hot out there,” explained Marc Coma. “To get to the end of the stage I rode for 10 km lost in a river bed.” Coma and his KTM 450 Rally rode to the stage lead with Jordi Viladoms taking second nearly 13 minutes behind Coma, while Kuba Pryzgonski finished third.

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Racing

Here is the TV Viewing Schedule for the 2014 Dakar Rally

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The 2014 Dakar Rally is about to begin, and this year the route begins in Rosario, Argentina, travels north into Bolivia, and then turns around to head down south along the coast to end in Valparaiso, Chile. The total length of the route is almost 5000 kilometers.

Founded in 1978, the original route ran from Paris, France to Dakar Senegal; hence the name “The Paris-Dakar”. However, due to political and security issues which cancelled the race in 2008, the race was transposed across the world to South America in 2009, with a focus on Argentina and Chile.

For those wanting to follow the 2014 Dakar Rally on television, coverage in the United States begins on Monday, January 6th at 5pm on NBC Sports, in both SD and HD.

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Racing

Video: KTM Readies for the 2014 Dakar Rally

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Cyril Despres might be the man to beat at the upcoming Dakar Rally, but the boys at KTM aren’t going to let Despres’ defection to Yamaha Racing stop them from keeping the Austrian brand’s winning streak alive. Gearing up for the 2014 Dakar Rally, which starts January 5th in Argentina, KTM factory riders Marc Coma, Ruben Faria and Francisco Lopez talk in a video about the upcoming race and their new KTM 450 Rally race bike.

Debuting the purpose-built 450cc machine, Coma et al will have a potent weapon this year, especially in the more technical stages. However, with two marathon stages (stages where the riders must perform all their own maintenance and mechanical work), as well as five separation stages (stages where motorcycles and quads will tackle a different and more technical routes of the course than the cars and trucks), the 2014 Dakar Rally is looking especially hard compared to previous years.

With Coma looking to tie Despres’ current tally of five wins, we can expect strong competition from the Spaniard. Missing last year’s event due to injury, Coma will be keen to regain his momentum, and equal his Dakar rival. Of course, the KTM Factory Red Bull Team enters this year’s rally with heavy hearts, mourning the loss of American Kurt Caselli, who died this year while competing in the SCORE Baja 1000. KTM is dedicating their race in this year’s Dakar to their fallen teammate.

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Bikes

Photos: Cyril Despres & His Yamaha YZ450F Rally Race Bike

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Yamaha Racing has officially debuted its 2014 Rally race team, which is being spearheaded by Cyril Despres, the five-time Dakar Rally winner who was formerly of KTM fame. Despres hopes to defend his latest Dakar Rally win, despite swapping orange for blue, and today is our first formal viewing of the 2014 Yamaha YZ450F Rally bike with his livery.

This year’s Dakar Rally goes through Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile and will be a longer and tougher route than in past years. With KTM debuting a now purpose-built racing machine, the KTM 450 Rally, and HRC also fielding its refined Honda CRF450 Rally, Yamaha and Despres will have their work cutout for them in defending the Frenchman’s number one plate.

Team Blue has prepared itself though, taking many inputs from Despres and incorporating them into the 2014 bike’s design. We won’t know how it will go at the Dakar Rally course until January 5th, but from the pictures we have now, it sure looks the business.

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Lifestyle

Video: The Unholy Two-Wheeled Motorcycle Burnout

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Motorcycling’s two-wheeled culture has seemed resistant to two-wheel drive machines, but maybe this video will be the breakthrough moment. After all, if one-wheeled burnouts are cool, then two-wheeled ones have to be twice as cool, right?

The logical conclusion to one of the more illogical undertakings we have seen, Gregor Halenda set out to convert his KTM Adventure 990 to use a Christini AWD system, and drive the bike’s front wheel for ultimate off-roadability. You know…because.

The process was not easy one, and it involved a bit of engineering prowess on the part of Cosentino Engineering to get the job done; but the result of all that hard work is a truly unique machine, and of course an epic two-wheeled burnout video.

There is a massive build thread on the ADV Rider forum for you gear-heads to spend hours poring over, and for the less technically advanced, there is a 2WD drive for dummies explanation in the video. Enjoy!

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Bikes

2014 Triumph Tiger 800 XC SE — That’s Hot

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Unless you are into the cruiser thing, Triumph’s press event at the 2013 EICMA show was a fairly timid affair, with talk about the company’s future growth, its plans for emerging markets, and the high-fives over 2013’s business dealings being the soup de jour.

However, we were tickled by one of Triumph’s more minor announcements, the 2014 Triumph Tiger 800 XC SE. Really just a cosmetic reworking of the British brand’s middleweight adventure-tourer, the bright red frame and subtle “Volcanic Black” paint scheme were enough to capture our blogger ADD.

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Bikes

119 Hi-Res Photos of the BMW R1200GS Adventure

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The new BMW R1200GS is a capable off-road machine, something we discovered on our Broventure trip out to Moab, Utah. But what if you want something that’s really built for the trails, along with the road that gets you there? Well that’s where the BMW R1200GS Adventure has always come into play.

A new model from BMW Motorrad for the 2014 model year, the R1200GSA is finally here, and we’ve got a bunch of photos of it — 119 high-resolution photos, to be precise. Check them out after the jump.

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Bikes

The 2014 BMW R1200GS Adventure is Finally Here

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Earlier today, I was thinking of writing a story that would be titled “The Four Obvious Bikes that BMW is about to Debut” or something like that.

While that list would include the spied water-cooled BMW R1200RT, BMW S1000R, and BMW NineT machines, at the top of that list would be the BMW R1200GS Adventure, which is predictable extension of the new GS, which debuted last year. BMW, it would seem, has beaten me to the punch.

Officially official, the 2014 BMW R1200GS Adventure has broken cover now, and is ready for you to ADV on until your heart is content. Not only does the new R1200GSA do away with the oddities in BMW’s 2013 lineup, where the old “air-cooled” GSA sat next to the new “precision-cooled” GS, we really wish this bike had been available for A&R‘s recent Broventure.

C’est la vie, as the French would say. We’ve got all the changes, photos, and so forth for you after the jump.

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Bikes

Ducati 1199 Terracorsa by MotoCorsa

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The Ducati 1199 Panigale is a formidable machine on the track, something I witnessed first-hand with the at the international press launch for the Ducati 1199 Panigale R at the Circuit of the Americas.

Between the Panigale’s frameless chassis design, high-revving Superquadro motor, and bevy of electronics, Ducati has refined its superbike offering to consumers, and really honed in on making the best street bike possible.

But what if your calling takes you off of the asphalt? Enter the Ducati 1199 Terracorsa by MotoCorsa — yes, the same crazy bastards that made the SeDUCATIve and MANigale calendar photo shoots.

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Photos

58 Hi-Res Photos of the 2014 Suzuki V-Strom 1000

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In case you missed it this morning, Suzuki dropped more details on its upcoming 2014 Suzuki V-Strom 1000 adventure-touring bike. Building off its predecessor’s v-twin engine, Suzuki have coaxed nearly 100hp from the 90° twin, while adding the company’s first traction control system ever on a production-model motorcycle.

We expect the new Suzuki V-Strom 1000 to hit US soil with a price tag in the $12,500 range, making this ADV bike a very lucrative two-wheeler for any price-conscious motorcyclist who wants to get his (or her) feet dirty, while still having a great on-road experience.

To help whet your appetite on the new V-Strom’s impending official release, there are 58 high-resolution photos waiting for you in the gallery after the jump. Enjoy.

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Trips

Broventure Update Day Eight – All Good Things…

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All good things must come to an end, and so too must this Broventure. Our travels have forged our buttocks into iron, impervious now to the long days in the saddle; our minds have been steeled against the lonely nature of navigating the back roads of America; and our road beards prevent us from stopping within 500 feet of an elementary school — talking to members of the opposite sex has been proven to be difficult as well.

Our bodies show that we have gone to Moab and back, and along the way we took in many of the breath-taking sights that the Southwest has to offer. We traded in our track leathers for some ADV gear, and tipped our toe into the off-roading waters — there is a reason this site is called Asphalt & Rubber, but this whole dirt thing is starting to look appealing as well.

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