(ED: Updated with a message from Cyril Despres.)

KTM introduced its 2013 Rally Racing team while bidding farewell to five-time Dakar Rally winner Cyril Despres.

Despres won all five of his Dakar victories with KTM, winning in 2005, 2007, 2010, 2012 and 2013. He leaves the team to pursue a new challenge, with Honda rumored to be seeking his services for its newly-revived rally racing program.

Taking Despres’ place on the Red Bull KTM Factory team is American Kurt Caselli who raced in the 2013 Dakar Rally as a replacement for the injured Marc Coma. Caselli is joined by Ruben Faria, a long-time support rider of Despres’ who finished second in the 2013 Dakar Rally. Coma missed this year’s competion due to injury but has wins in 2006, 2009 and 2011 to his credit. He’ll seek his fourth Dakar with KTM in 2014. KTM will also offer full factory support to Francesco “Chaleco” Lopez who finished third at the 2013 Dakar Rally. Continue Reading »

BMW Motorrad announced the winners of its “Ride of Your Life” contest, giving five people the chance to travel on a worldwide tour on the new R1200GS.

The five winners are Stephanie Rowe, a 25-year-old enduro racer who works in the motorcycle accessories industry in the U.K., Herbert Unger, a 50-year-old German metal worker, Alessio Cigolini, an Italian who loves riding through Tuscany, Salvador Echevarría, a 41-year-old businessman from Spain, and Stephane Gautronneau, a 39-year-old fashion photographer from France.

The five winners were selected for their sense of adventure, ability to work as part of a team and physical fitness by a panel of celebrities including actors Adrian Brody, Rick Yune and Charley Boorman and Paris-Dakar winner Jutta Kleinschmidt. Continue Reading »

BMW announced its four-member celebrity jury panel for its globe-spanning “Ride of Your Life” R1200GS adventure contest. The panel is comprised of Academy-Award winner Adrien Brody, Paris-Dakar Rally winner Jutta Kleinschmidt, actor Rick Yune and noted motorcycle adventurer Charley Boorman.

The panel will select five winners for the “Ride of Your Life” contest (also known as the “One World, One GS” contest) to promote the new 2013 BMW R1200GS. Each winner will tackle one of five legs of the around-the-world tour: Laos, New Zealand, South Africa, the U.S. and Europe.

The four jurors were selected to represent four different qualities BMW attributes to the R1200GS: Sport, Adventure, Action and Style. The five winners will be selected based on how well they represent these four traits. Continue Reading »

Today at Intermot 2012, Honda unveiled the CRF450 Rally, the machine it plans to enter in the 2013 Dakar Rally, marking the manufacturer’s return to the race after more than two decades. Honda has competed nine times from 1981 in the forerunner of the present Dakar Rally, the Paris-Dakar Rally. Cyril Neveu of France took Honda to its first victory in 1982, the race’s fourth year, and from 1986 to 1989 Honda won four consecutive titles for an overall record of five victories in nine years.

The CRF450 Rally is based on Honda’s commercial CRF450X enduro racing model, and features electronic fuel injection, auxiliary fuel tanks in the panniers and lower side fairings, and the requisite navigation equipment located behind the windscreen. Interestingly, the navigation device is not a GPS, but instead is a backlit unit designed to hold the “Road Book” — a set of pace notes each competitor receives and is then free to modify. Continue Reading »