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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.

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.

We haven’t seen a good solid stirring of the motorcycle rumormill in a while, but today whispers of a BMW six-cylinder naked bike, a K1600R if you will, have be filtering through the web forums and into our ears. With the rumors centering mostly around the fact that BMW introduced its 1,600cc inline-six motor at EICMA in 2009 by sticking it in a very attractive street-naked motorcycle, speculation has begun as to whether the Bavarian firm would follow that concept up with an actual production model (we always did find it strange that the concept for a touring motorcycle was a street-naked).

Asphalt & Rubber spent the last week waking up at 2am everyday to muster up to the staging grounds for the 89th annual Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, and upon arriving at the second oldest running race in the United States (the Indy 500 being the oldest), we were surprised to see our old friend Carlin Dunne, owner of Ducati Santa Barbara, pitting in the motorcycle paddock with a Ducati Multistrada 1200 race bike.

Now, we’ve always known that Carlin was a wicked fast rider, as this humbled author recalls that at his last track day with Dunne just a year ago, the 28-year-old dirt and street racer lapped him about every third lap at Big Willow. Despite this fact, the hard part has always been describing to other people how fast Dunne truly is, that is until now.

Riding Pikes Peak for the very first time, Carlin Dunne not only stood at the pole position on Sunday’s race to the clouds, and not only did the Santa Barbara native also win the checkered flag in the 1205cc motorcycle class, but the Desmo Devil himself dropped some two-wheeled knowledge on Pikes Peak when he set the outright fastest time ever for a motorcycle on the fabled mountain road and its 156 turns.

Motociclismo.it continues to be Ducati’s favorite channel to leak teasers of its upcoming Superbike, the 2012 Ducati Superbike 1199. Promising to be a revolutionary design for the Italian brand, we know already that the bike will shed roughly 20 lbs from the 1198 model, while adding 20hp to its peak horsepower figure. This astonishing power increase comes from the “Superquadrata” v-twin motor, which features an overly-square cylinder design, that should rev to peaky power delivery delight (if you’re into that sort of thing).

From this latest photo we see that the new 1199 (we’ve been enjoying the rumors that the new Superbike would be called the Xtreme) borrows from the 916’s squinty highlight design, while adding the 1098/1198’s more pronounced air intake structure. The Ducati Superbike 1199 will be fed that healthy dose of oxygen through a stressed aluminum airbox/headtube design, à la its MotoGP frameless technology, and for which we’ve already seen patents of the design.