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Video: 2014 Honda CRF450 Rally

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We’re having dirty thoughts here at Asphalt & Rubber, mostly as we drool over HRC’s new Dakar challenger, the 2014 Honda CRF450 Rally. Based off the Honda CRF450X enduro, HRC says that its new Honda CRF450 Rally race bike has an improved engine output, aerodynamic performance, durability, and maintenance requirements. We just think it looks like awesome in two-wheel form.

The Honda CRF450 Rally factory race bike will be the work horse for the Team HRC rally team, as it aims to unseat KTM from its Dakar Rally thrown in a few months. With zie Austrians debuting an all-new KTM 450 Rally race bike of their own, and Yamaha Racing now benefitting from the talents of Cyril Despres, HRC might have its work cutout for it. Until then, we’ll just spend some alone time with this video.

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Bikes

More Video Goodness of the Ducati Superleggera

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Sure to be the talk of EICMA, the Ducati 1199 Panigale R Superleggera is slowly leaking out from Borgo Panigale. We already broke the news about the Superleggera’s 220hp crank horsepower, and the “superlight” superbike’s insane weight trimmings. Looking at the special parts that comprise the Superleggera, it is not hard to see how Ducati dropped 40 lbs from the bike’s mass.

A magnesium frame/headstock, a carbon fiber rear subframe, magnesium wheels, titanium bolts, tungsten inserts on the lightened crankshaft, titanium/carbon fiber exhaust cans…we could go on with our pairings of motorcycle parts and elements from the periodic table.

Ducati hopes to whet our appetites with this machine with a proscribed trickling of information and media. We don’t like that idea too much, so here are eight unreleased teaser videos of the Ducati 1199 Panigale R Superleggera from Ducati’s invite-only microsite. Don’t ask how we got them.

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Bikes

Ducati Teases the Superleggera with a “Project 1201” Video

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Earlier today we brought you a photo of the parts used to make the Ducati 1199 Panigale R Superleggera, and we ended our thoughts with the knowledge that Ducati would begin teasing the “superlight” superbike this week, likely later today…well, here you go.

The first of many videos planned by the Italian OEM, Ducati’s pitch for the Panigale seems to focus around the use of elements from the periodic table, and how they were implemented to make the company’s lightest superbike ever. With a little change in the music, this could easily be a Breaking Bad intro, no?

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Bikes

Video: Developing the KTM Super Duke 1290 R

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In order to develop the KTM Super Duke 1290 R, KTM employed ex-GP racer Jeremy McWilliams to put The Beast through its paces, and make it the asphalt terrorizing machine that it is.

Helping go over those developments with us, McWilliams is aided by Toby Moody (his voice may sound familiar to MotoGP fans of a Eurosport persuasion), as the duo speaks from what looks like Kiska’s design studio.

The six-minute video is a PR piece of course, but it is interesting to hear McWilliams’ thoughts on the machine.

He and Moody spend quite a bit of time going over the Super Duke 1290 R’s electronic systems, with the clear intention of addressing the concerns of motorcycling’s Luddite contingency — we think they succeeded in this regard. KTM, just stop teasing us and take our money already!

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Bikes

Crighton Racing CR700P – Because Pistons Are So Passé

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At 300 lbs dry and producing 200hp, the Crighton Racing CR700P should catch your attention right away. Diving deeper into the machine, the CR700P’s 700cc twin-rotor rotary engine should further pique your interest — and then of course there is the Crighton Racing’s interesting past.

Astute observers will note that the Crighton Racing CR700P looks exactly like the Norton NRV588, and that is because of the involvement of Brian Crighton in both projects. A continuation of the project that started out in the Norton Motorcycles R&D laboratory in 1986, the Crighton Racing CR700P is the realization of Crighton’s dream to build a rotary-powered motorcycle that can top the very best racing bikes in the world.

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Lifestyle

And Now for Something Completely Different…

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Motorcycling has been serious stuff lately, thanks mostly to the shenanigans afoot in New York City with the Hollywood Stuntz Doofus Crew, and that’s ok…it’s ok to be serious from time-to-time. I try it myself occasionally.

I bet dollars to donuts though that most of you got into motorcycles because they are fun, because motorcycles are an escape from this very serious life. Thanks to the folks at See See Motorcycles, we return you to that lost world. Enjoy, and get your Wednesday on with renewed vigor.

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Bikes

HRC Shows Off the 2014 Honda CRF450 Rally Race Bike

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HRC already showed us its 2014 Honda CRF450 Rally race bike earlier this year at Mugello, during the Italian GP. Announcing a five rider team, Helder Rodrigues (Portugal, age 34), Sam Sunderland (U.K., 24), Javier Pizzolito (Argentina, 33), Paulo Goncalves (Portugal, 34) and Joan Barreda (Spain, 29) will race for Big Red in the 2014 Dakar Rally and other rally events.

Improving on its 2013 design, which in-turn was based off the Honda CRF450X enduro, HRC says that the 2014 Honda CRF450 Rally has improved engine output, aerodynamic performance, durability, and maintenance requirements. It will be campaign by the Team HRC factory team, and also be made available to other rally teams as a production racer.

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MotoGP

Casey Stoner Tests the Honda RCV1000R Production Racer

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While the 2013 MotoGP season has been favored with fair weather, Casey Stoner’s testing duties for Honda have been severely hindered by rain.

The previous test was a washout, and most of the last two days at Motegi were also badly affected by rain. However, the Australian managed to cram the better part of two days’ work into a single day on Thursday, riding both the 2014 RC213V and Honda’s production racer, the Honda RCV1000R.

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Bikes

Come Watch the KTM Super Duke 1290 R Do Its Thang

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Nine months ago, KTM unleashed “The Beast” on the unsuspecting roadways. Devouring turns, chewing tires, and lofting wheelies ever since, The Beast has become the new KTM Super Duke 1290 R — or at least that’s what the marketing folk in Austria would like to have us say for the bike’s genesis story.

At 177hp, 417 lbs dry, aggressively styled, and fitted with ABS and traction, the 2014 KTM Super Duke 1290 R is a potent street-hooning machine, and if the response to its debut earlier this week is any indication, you are going to enjoy the video we have after the jump. So what are you waiting for? Click through already!

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Bikes

2014 Kawasaki Z1000 Debuting at EICMA

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With the KTM Super Duke 1290 R debuting today, and BMW Motorrad set to show its BMW S1000RR-based streetfighter in a couple weeks, we get news that Kawasaki will be upping its game in the street-naked category as well — debuting an all new 2014 Kawasaki Z1000 at the 2013 EICMA show in Milan, Italy.

Teasing the bike for the past few weeks, this is the first news confirming the date and model in question from Kawasaki. Big Green isn’t talking specs at this point in time, but instead is using the Japanese word sugomi — “the intense aura or energy given off by a person or object of greatness and felt by the viewer” — to pitch the new Z1000.

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