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2016 Benelli Leoncino Brings Back the Lion Cub

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Benelli is not a brand we usually talk about with great reverence, as the Italian company has steadily lost its luster since its acquisition by China’s Qianjiang Group.

Benelli’s motorcycles were never known for being terribly reliable, and unfortunately the artful designs that they exuded have slowly eroded away over time.

The big announcement for Benelli at the 2015 EICMA show is the new Benelli Leoncino, the “lion cub” model that’s rooted in Benelli’s post-WWII history.

This modern take on the classic Benelli Leoncino is an attractive scrambler model, which makes 47hp from its 500cc parallel-twin engine.

This also means that the Benelli Leoncino a well-suited A2 license machine in Europe, and its wire-spoked wheels are 19″ in the front and 17″ in the rear, and should make the Leoncino surprisingly adapt at light off-road use.

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Bikes

Bimota Tesi 3D RaceCafe Is “Pinnacle Weird”

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If you’re not listening to the Two Enthusiasts Podcast, you should…there is some good two-wheeled gold in the show. So, with a hat-tip to my co-host Quentin Wilson – whose new favorite phrase is “pinnacle weird” – we present you with perhaps the strangest motorcycle to debut at the 2015 EICMA show.

The Bimota Tesi 3D champions the hub-center steering chassis design, and is one of the more unique motorcycles in the industry right now. Its design is positively futuristic, so it is a little strange that Bimota is trying to make the Tesi 3D into a café racer with the launch of the Bimota Tesi 3D RaceCafe.

Powered by the same 803cc air-cooled v-twin engine that’s found in the Scrambler series, you can tell that Bimota is trying to latch onto the post-heritage trend that is dying a slow death in the motorcycle industry, but hasn’t quite figured out how to do it yet.

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Bikes

Bimota Impeto, Supercharger Optional

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The Bimota range has a long history of Ducati-powered machines, as the Italian brand has been used the most out of all the motorcycle manufacturers to power Bimota’s street and race bikes.

The Bimota Impeto adds another Ducati-powered model to the slew of others, but it differentiates itself as the only 162hp streetfighter in the lineup. If the Impeto looks familiar to the Bimota DB8, there’s good reason, as the two bikes share the Ducati Diavel’s Testastretta 11° DS engine.

As such, the chromoly steel chassis share a number of components, leaving most of the differences down to styling choices between the two liquid-cooled models. Our personal favorites are the exhaust and seat, which mirror each other with a rising flair.

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Bikes

The Aprilia RSV4 R-FW Misano Is Basically a MotoGP Bike

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The Aprilia Factory Works program is easily the most ridiculously awesome thing to come out of the 2015 EICMA show because it offers regular consumers (with a healthy pocketbook) the chance to own a 230hp+ Aprilia RSV4 superbike, just like what they race in the World Superbike Championship…and very close to what they race in MotoGP

Aprilia was a little vague though on what the Factory Works program entailed, but thankfully today at the EICMA show they clarified what exactly would be available from Aprilia Racing.

Coming up with five trim-levels for the RSV4 superbike, Aprilia has basically answered every track day enthusiast’s / amateur racer’s wet dream, and distracted us from the fact that the Noale company has a woefully aging product lineup.

However, this news is certainly less about a motorcycles with ridiculous horsepower figures, and more about a proven racing division opening up its service to a broader range of clientele.

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Bikes

Here is What the 2017 Suzuki GSX-R1000 Will Look Like

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As we predicted, Suzuki has debuted a new Suzuki GSX-R1000 superbike at the EICMA show, though before you get your hopes too high, we should preface that the model is actually the Suzuki GSX-R1000 concept.

Suzuki clearly isn’t ready to bring the GSX-R1000 to market in-time for the 2016 model year, and our sources tell us that the Suzuki GSX-R1000 Concept will in fact be the 2017 Suzuki GSX-R1000, which will debut in the second half of 2016.

That being said, the news is an exciting development from Suzuki, which says that the new Suzuki GSX-R1000 is the lightest and most powerful superbike ever from the Japanese manufacturer. To our eye, it looks to be the most advanced as well.

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News

Erik Buell Racing Deal Falls Thru – Will Be Sold…Again

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The situation around Erik Buell Racing is rapidly becoming comical, as the American motorcycle brand is headed back to auction, after its sale to Bruce Belfer failed to close.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports that Erik Buell Racing will go back to the auctioning block on December 10th, because Belfer was unable to secure financing on his $2.25 million purchase price for Erik Buell Racing.

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Bikes

The Yamaha MT-10 Is Not Your Grandpa’s FZ-1

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Perhaps a model whose debut is obvious to us now, hindsight always being 20/20, Yamaha has just dropped the 2016 Yamaha MT-10 on us at this year’s EICMA show.

The Yamaha MT-10 helps round out Yamaha’s MT brand, with affordable and edgy models available from 125cc all the way up to now 1,000cc.

Without even riding the Yamaha MT-10 we are fairly certain that this street bike, with its Yamaha YZF-R1 race track DNA, is a hoon to ride with its over-abundance of personality – it would have to, with a face like that.

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Bikes

2016 Ducati Multistrada 1200 Enduro – More ADV

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This is Ducati’s first real foray into the adventure-touring segment of motorcycles, and the 2016 Ducati Multistrada 1200 Enduro promises to up the ante on the Multistrada 1200’s off-road ability, with a purpose-built trail stomper.

As we can see from the photos, there have been several changes to the Multistrada 1200 to make it more ADV capable, the most important of which is the double-sided swingarm, for added strength and rigidity.

Other changes include a 19″ front wheel, shod with knobby tires, a skid plate, and a higher-mounted single exhaust can. We are told the fuel tank has been punched out to 30 liters, which is almost 8 gallons – certainly enough fuel to get you properly lost in the great outdoors.

Of course, with any ADV bike, the scales are the machine’s worst enemy, as the Ducati Multistrada 1200 Enduro weighs a hefty 516 lbs.

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Bikes

Bimota Impeto “Hyper-Naked” Debuting at EICMA

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In addition to the Bimota Tesi 3D RaceCafe that will debut at the EICMA show in Milan next week, the boutique Italian brand has another new model for our two-wheeled consumption, the Bimota Impeto.

Bimota is calling the Impeto a “hyper-naked” model, which we take to mean a nasty-fast streetfighter machine, which will take over from the Bimota DB9. We say this because sometimes things get lost in translation when it comes to Bimota press releases.

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Bikes

Bimota Tesi 3D RaceCafe – Hub-Center Steering Café Racer

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Bimota has a number of things to debut at next week’s EICMA show, the biggest being the company’s latest model: the Bimota Tesi 3D RaceCafe.

The concept seems pretty simple, take the hub-center steering design of the Bimota Tesi 3D, and style it to look like the café racer of the future – if that oxymoron makes sense to you.

The above image is the teaser for the Bimota Tesi 3D RaceCafe, which shows a more traditional headlamp on the futuristic machine. Other changes include the use of Ducati’s air-cooled 803cc v-twin engine, which is currently powering the Ducati Scrambler line.

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Bikes

2016 Triumph Speed Triple Models Revealed

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We already showed you leaked photos of the 2016 Triumph Speed Triple, and now the British marque is ready for you to officially see its streetfighter model.

Though Triumph is speaking too much about technical details, we can see that the now-called Triumph Speed Triple S and Speed Triple R don’t deviate too far from the previous iteration of the venerable street-bike model. They do boast some important improvements though.

As is readily apparent, the two Speed Triple models have an updated look, but a closer inspection of the spec-sheet reveals an updated engine as well.

Triumph says that it has made over 100 changes – 104, to be precise – to its 1,050cc three-cylinder power plant, which include a new combustion chamber, new cylinder head, new machined crank, new piston design, and new ‘ride-by-wire’ throttle bodies.

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