Spy shots from Europe show that the 2020 Aprilia RSV4 1100 Factory (say that three times fast) is set to show off a new suspension upgrade for the EICMA show in a few weeks’ time.
The news, confirmed by our Bothan spies, sees next year’s Aprilia RSV4 1100 Factory getting semi-active electronic suspension pieces from Öhlins, along with a new tricolore color scheme.
In gearing up for the new bike season, I wrote to our A&R Pro members that Suzuki is a brand that seems lost in the woods.
The new models are uninspiring, the marketing seems flat, and while the brand keeps bringing back names from the glory years, the bikes are shadows of their former selves.
A brand we often don’t hear too much about, Moto Morini is showing some interesting prospects that are set to debut at the upcoming EICMA show in Milan.
The biggest comes in the form of this teaser concept sketch (see above), which outlines the lines of an adventure-touring model from the Italian brand.
Now under Chinese ownership, Moto Morini is actually looking like it will have robust set of bikes debuting for the 2020 model year, with this ADV machine joined by both a scrambler and naked model.
It is finally here! Our favorite time of the year! I am of course talking about the new bike season, where the majority of the new motorcycles for the coming model year are debuted at events around the world.
For this round, the model year is going to be a year filled with new bikes, primarily because of the changes required for the Euro5 homologation. As such, we expect to see virtually every manufacturer coming out with something new, especially at the EICMA show in Italy and the Tokyo Motor Show in Japan.
What is interesting about this year’s edition though is how many bikes we will see before these to stalwart events. This is because the brands are finally catching on that their products get lost in the sea of unveilings that occur in Milan and Tokyo.
Accordingly, we see Ducati setting up its own special event in Rimini for October 23rd. Similarly, other brands have teased late-October and early-November unveiling dates for select models, though we expect more will follow Ducati’s lead in the coming years.
With a number of intriguing models teased and rumored ahead of these events, it will be interesting to see what actually comes true. To get our A&R Pro readers ready for the onslaught, I have put together one big fat awesome guide to the new motorcycle releases for 2020.
This list is as comprehensive as I can make it, and quite frankly a lot more detailed than what I’ve seen elsewhere on the internet, probably because it involves A&R pestering our Bothan spies for info all year.
I will update this story as more rumors surface ahead of the trade shows and unveiling events.
Motorcyclists who bleed green will be happy to hear that Kawasaki has FIVE new models to show us, between its unveilings at the Tokyo Motor Show and what is to come at EICMA.
From the company’s website, two of the upcoming machines will debut in Tokyo, while the other three will be launched at EICMA. Best of all, we have a pretty good idea what those bikes will be.
Not to be outdone by Ducati’s upcoming Streetfighter V4, the folks in Austria are gearing up to revise their highly acclaimed KTM 1290 Super Duke R.
As before, “Beast 2.0” gets teased to us with a variety of quick-cuts in a video, though each of them gives us a glimpse of what is to come from Mattighofen.
What we don’t see though is the spec-sheet, and that is where the new battle in the streetfighter segment is going to be waged.
The new bike season is starting to heat up, and the zenith is only a few weeks away. I am of course talking about the EICMA show in Milan.
As such, the Germans are gearing up for a big show in Italy this year, with an all-new booth design, and more importantly, four new motorcycles to showcase.
We know this, because BMW Motorrad told us so in a press release, but the real information we are craving is which bikes we will see in Milan, and for that, we have some strong guesses.
We know it is coming, a new KTM 1290 Super Duke R for the 2020 model year, but just in case there was any doubt, the Austrians have begun teasing their new “Beast” ahead of its EICMA show debut.
The news comes from a short teaser video, which shows a number of KTM technicians building a motorcycle. With the title and hashtag “#GETDUKED” being shown, the possibilities for the model are quite small.
And, if we scrub through the frames, we can see numerous hints that the bike in question is a high-spec motorcycle, with a single-sided swingarm. The steel trellis frame looks exactly like the one spotted in spy photos of the new Super Duker R.
The eggheads at Kawasaki have been busy readying themselves for the 2020 model year, and it seems that they have something special in the works.
We say this because Team Green just dropped a teaser video for a new supercharged motorcycle – and we expect it to be sporty.
Details are pretty limited, but we know that the new bike will belong to Kawasaki’s “Z” family, which consists of its sport bike models. Could we see the supercharged version of the Z1000? We certainly hope so.
When we rode the Moto Guzzi V85 TT in Sardinia, it was made clear that the Italian brand saw its new 850cc air-cooled v-twin engine as more than a one-trick pony.
Part of Moto Guzzi’s ability to offer the V85 TT at such an aggressive price is centered around the larger plans at hand in Mandello del Lario.
Namely, this strategy centers around several models sharing Moto Guzzi’s new engine platform, and it seems we are set to see the next iteration of the V85 lineup later this year.
This is because rumors are starting about Moto Guzzi debut its next V85 model at November’s EICMA show in Milan.
It seems we will see Ducati’s 2020 model year lineup a bit sooner than we expected, as the Italian brand will host a special unveiling event in Rimini, on October 23rd of this year.
At the special event, we expect Ducati to unveil more than a few motorcycles, the crown jewel likely being the Ducati Streetfighter V4.
Another bike we expect to see is the revamped Ducati Panigale 959, which will get a restyling to look like the Panigale V4, along with other features (and possibly a displacement increase) as the Euro5 regulations may necessitate.
The Ducati Multistrada V4 could make its debut in October as well, though early indications is that it will be a 2021 model, however we would expect another Scrambler model to be in the lineup this October, with revisions coming to some of Ducati’s other machines.