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The Ducati SuperSport Gets Teased Ahead of INTERMOT

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The start of “New Bike Season” is nearly here, with various brands getting their teaser campaigns ready for next week’s INTERMOT show. One of the best in the business at this, Ducati is ready to unveil its long-awaited Ducati SuperSport model.

The rebirth of one of Ducati’s more popular models in the past, the 2017 Ducati SuperSport works on the same idea of making a sporty street bike, which is not only good for spirited weekend rides, but also capable of doing some short-distance touring.

As such, the SuperSport fits a narrow niche in Ducati’s lineup, somewhere between the Hyperstrada 939, the Monster 821, and the Panigale 959.

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New Honda CBR1000RR Videos Confirm Inline-Four Engine

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After seeing the spy photos of the Honda CBR1000RR filming in Croatia, we already have a pretty good indication that Honda isn’t going to stray too far from the current Fireblade design. The chassis looks almost exactly the same as the current generation model, as does the engine.

The most recent teasers from Honda confirm this notion, with the Japanese brand showing us four glowing header pipes off an inline-four engine. The exhaust note should end speculation that a crossplane crankshaft has been added to the CBR1000RR, with a distinct “screamer” tone coming from its pipes.

Honda’s next video gives indication that the 2017 Honda CBR1000RR will have an LED headlight, a tip to the likely robust electronics suite that Big Red is bringing to its new superbike, which will compliment the major fairing design upgrade

With the tagline “Total Control” being touted by Honda, we can expect the 2017 Honda CBR1000RR to come with the bevy of electronic rider aids that we have come to expect from this segment: ride-by-wire, traction control, wheelie control, launch control, etc.

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2017 Husqvarna 701 Supermoto Updated with New Motor

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The Husqvarna 701 Supermoto and Husqvarna 701 Enduro will be getting an update for the 2017 model year, with both bikes receiving the updated 690cc single-cyliner engine that is currently found in the new-generation KTM 690 Duke.

The biggest highlight of the new engine is its secondary balancing shaft, which reduces vibrations to the rider, and also allows the big thumper to rev higher and thus create more power.

This means that the 2017 Husqvarna 701 Supermoto will have 74hp (+6hp), as well as 52.6 lbs•ft of peak torque (+4.4 lbs•ft) – a modest gain for this already stout package.

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Two Enthusiasts Podcast #33 – Wankeled

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I’m not going to lie to you, Episode 33 of the Two Enthusiasts Podcast starts off a little rowdy, and never really stops partying. In it, we look at the recently spied 2017 Honda CBR1000RR and recently teased 2017 Yamaha YZF-R6, two incredibly important machines in the sport biking side of the industry.

We also talk about the Wazer water jet cutting project, and how that’s going to affect builders and makers. From there, we pivot to a discussion on the consumerization (that’s a word now) of high-tech manufacturing techniques, which has made things like water jet cutting and rapid prototyping accessible to the masses.

The show ends with a listener question about ABS brakes, which is good timing, considering our interesting discussion about electronics as a whole, and the progression of rider aids in the motorcycle industry. Wankel jokes aside, it is a pretty interesting, and dare we say entertaining show.

As always, you can listen to the show via the embedded SoundCloud player, after the jump, or you can find the show on iTunes (please leave a review) or this RSS feed. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter as well. Enjoy the show!

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A Baby Version of the Ducati Multistrada Cometh?

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The above photo was sent to the Italian website Moto.it by one of its readers, and it is supposedly a photo of an upcoming new version of the Ducati Multistrada, which is physically smaller than the current 1200cc model.

Presumably, this would make the machine in question then the Ducati Multistrada 939, thus adding to the Euro4 compliant engine’s call to action for the 2017 model year.

We say this all hypothetically however, because it is hard to verify anything from this photo…beyond the very obvious double-sided swingarm setup.

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Honda Begins Teasing the 2017 Honda CBR1000RR

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Honda launched a dedicated website for its arriving 2017 model year motorcycles today, giving us a glimpse into what Big Red has in store for us at INTERMOT, EICMA, and the IMS Show in Long Beach, and the first machine they’re teasing seems to be the 2017 Honda CBR1000RR.

While the current teaser is set in the United States, at Thunderhill Raceway Park, we first caught glimpse of the new Honda CBR1000RR while shooting at a similar promo video in Croatia, strangely enough.

From those photos, we know that the 2017 Honda CBR1000RR (that’s the 2017 Honda Fireblade to our European readers) is based off the current model’s design, with the two machines sharing a chassis, and likely many engine parts.

Obviously, Honda has wrapped the 2017 CBR1000RR in very different fairings, and updated the superbike for Euro4 emissions.

Logic also dictates that Honda’s updated superbike will have ride-by-wire, traction control, and other electronic aids, and we can likely expect the engine to get a little bit more pep as well, just to keep us from moaning too loudly that the aged platform is seeing yet another year of service.

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Two New Ducati Scramblers Spotted in CARB Docs?

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More new model news, as filings with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) suggest that we will see two new Scrambler models debuting, later this year.

We come to this conclusion because emissions papers from CARB state that “Scrambler CR” and “Scrambler DS” models are coming from Ducati for 2017, in addition to the models we already have from the Italian manufacturer.

The two-letter designations imply that we are likely to see a café racer (CR) version of the Ducati Scrambler, as well as a dual-sport (DS) version of the machine, which we have already seen in spy photos.

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2017 Yamaha YZF-R6 Hinted for INTERMOT Debut

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For a couple months now, we’ve had some indications that Yamaha was getting ready to release a new sport bike. With the Yamaha YZF-R1 coming up on two-years-old, the timing suggested that Yamaha was ready for a follow-up to that hit. That is to say, it is time for a new Yamaha YZF-R6.

Yamaha seems to agree, today posting a teaser video to its website and social media accounts. The video is sanitized from giving away too much information, with us only seeing a rider going around a race track. The sound though, is a strong giveaway.

The video’s soundtrack is filled with the screaming of a multi-cylinder machine. Our ear hears a four-cylinder engine, with a flat-plane crankshaft, that is revving to the stratosphere.

This give us a strong indication that a supersport bike is just around the corner, and the video ends with the promise of showing more on October 4th, the first press day of the INTERMOT trade show in Cologne, Germany.

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Spotted: The Subtly Changed 2017 BMW S1000R

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Yesterday, we were the first publication to bring you photos of the 2017 Honda CBR1000RR, and today, we are the first to show you the 2017 BMW S1000R.

Thanks to our loyal readers, we were pointed in the direction of some photos of what looks like a pre-production version of the upcoming 2017 BMW S1000R streetfighter (one of the machines we tipped for an update this coming model year).

It appears that the new BMW S1000R  is going to get a bevy of changes already found on the current BMW S1000RR superbike, both visually and mechanically.

Caught at the Oschersleben track in Germany, we can’t imagine how many people walked by this parked motorcycle, without realizing what it was.

We can’t blame them though, because the updates coming to the 2017 BMW S1000R are subtle, and you’d really have to know what you’re looking at, in order to see the changes. Thankfully, that’s what A&R is here for.

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Two New BMW Models Debuting a INTERMOT

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Every other year, the motorcycle industry gathers in Cologne, Germany in October, for the INTERMOT trade expo. The show provides a good alternative for the Germanic brands to launch new machines, with BMW and KTM often showcasing new models at the show. This year will be no different.

To that end, BMW Motorrad is already getting its hype machine warmed up, telling us that several models will debut updates in Cologne. More importantly, zie Germans tell us that two new motorcycles will also debut at the INTERMOT show.

What those models will be is certainly the conjecture du jour, since there are several possibilities that BMW Motorrad could be working on.

Adding to the mystery is the fact that BMW often leaves something interesting for the yearly EICMA show in Milan, Italy, which happens a month later, in the first week of November. This might make decoding BMW’s game plan all but impossible, but we can still give it a try.

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Another Ducati Scrambler Is Coming

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The Scrambler Ducati models started out as a bid to capture the budding crop of millennial riders, who eschew from the current crop of values and segments that prop-up the motorcycle industry.

The Scrambler has become more for Ducati though, as it has given the Italian brand two things: 1) a pathway to sell more classic and affordable motorcycles, and 2) a pathway from being a pure on-street brand. This makes the Scrambler line very important to Bologna.

For the past few months now, we have been hearing about the next model(s) to come for the Scrambler Ducati line (you can hear more about it on this episode of the Two Enthusiasts Podcast, by the way), and now we are seeing our first glimpse of those machines.

Recent spy shots have been circling the internet this week, and they give us our best glimpse of what to expect from Ducati at the upcoming motorcycle trade shows.

I’m talking about the “Scrambler 1100 Enduro” – as the press is calling it – which will slot in above the Ducati Scrambler “800” bike, and offer more off-road prowess to the Scrambler name.

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