The TT Motion Events Racing team rider was slapped with a disqualification penalty related to the incident with Jerez’s marshals last Sunday, where he refused to obey instructions given to him after his crash and then pushed one of the marshals, who didn’t want to help him return to the race.

The last time we saw Olivé on track was the 2011 season where he took part in the last six races for the Aeroport de Castello team on a FTR/Honda and in 2012 didn’t find an official ride, so he is currently mentoring KTM riders like Danny Kent and Arthur Sissis.

Source | plusmoto.com

Slovenian freestyler Rok Bagoros has a brand new toy to play with: after stunning the international crowds on the KTM Duke 125, the skillful 22 years old has now recived from personal sponsor KTM a special 690 Duke stunt factory bike that will soon become part of his show. All Rok needs to do now is get acquainted with the new machine: take a look at the video above and at the photo gallery to see him in action on th new machine.

“There’s a BIG difference between the two bikes - Mr.Bagoros said - The bike has five times more power then the Duke 125 and any mistake can result in a crash, as I’ve already discovered. The bike has amazing power but I’m slowly getting it under control. I have to remember that this is my first big stunt bike and so I have to learn how to handle the extra power and convert it into spectacular tricks that will be fun to do and thrilling for the fans.”

The move doesn’t mean that the 125 Duke is now going to collect dust in Rok’s garage: the talented stunt rider will in fact use both bikes in his show to make it more exciting, more noisy and more spectacular than ever. His new 690 Duke was especially tuned for stunt riding at the KTM headquarters in Mattighofen, Austria, and comes with a number of special features that you can read after the jump.

KTM 690 Duke stunt factory bike specs:
70HP
160KG with full gas tank
Special rear dual Magura brakes
Akrapovic slip on exhaust
Stunt crash cages,wheele bar made by KTM
Sava soft radial tyers
52 tooth rear sprocket
Grip tapes all over the bike

Italian industrial designer Mirco Sapio has presented our colleagues from Motoblog.it with his own rendition of a pretty interesting concept bike, the SuperDuke 1200 R, based on chassis and engine of the oustanding KTM RC8. Mr.Sapio drew some inspiration from the KTM SuperDuke suries, and in fact the final outcome bears some resemblace the 2005-2006 SuperDuke 990. Actually, we detect some similarity with the current KTM 690 Duke Track racer too. The author of this cool graphic concept would like to know what people think of it, so feel free to post your comments about the SuperDuke 1200 R Concept.

Slowly but steadily, Indian automotive giant Bajaj Auto keeps on building up its stake in Austrian manufacturer KTM and, following the recent acquisition of another 6.3%, it is now a little over the 47% mark, reinforcing its position as second shareholder within the company. Still holding the top spot in KTM’s food chain is the homegrown pair Stefan Pierer (CEO) and Rudolf Knuenz (President), whose combined quotas make for a little more than 51%.

Bajaj Auto main man Rajiv Bajaj has already denied any interest in becoming the majority shareholder in KTM, but not many people in the financial business seem to believe that. The Asian company got into KTM’s capital in 2007 with a starting 14.5% quota, a move that was supposed to help KTM to break through the Indian market as well as paving the way for a new KTM production plant in India. The first outcome of the partnership was the KTM 125 Duke, which turned out to be an outstanding success.

In 2011, 1 out of 8 bikes sold by KTM were built by Bajaj, but the plan is to have this percentage boosted to 50% by 2015. In 2012 KTM aims at selling between 25,000 and 30,000 in India alone, projecting to hit the 200,000 unit sold target by 2015. Thanks to Bajaj involvement in the company, KTM managed to be the best selling motorcycle manufacturer in Europe in the first two months of the current year, scoring 8,400 sales against the 8.250-8.300 units sold by BMW.

via | The Economic Times

Young Slovenian stuntman Rok Bagoros, testimonial and ambassador for KTM, has given yet another startling demonstration of its skills at the recent MotoXpo in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Its outstanding performance has been documented in an official video and a few pics that have been released by the man himself, who also provided his own thoughts on what he did not hesitate to define as its best show ever.

“My hands were hurting like hell and body was beaten, but I’ just couldn’t stop. When I thought: man that’s enough I can’t do it anymore, people just continued to cheer and with so many people wanting more, you really can’t say no! I didn’t and all I can say now is that this was my best show ever and for sure I can’t wait to do it again.”

“Kuala Lumpur is a fantastic city - Bagoros continued - with great people, food, relax atmosphere. The only thing I couldn’t cope with was the damn heat and humidity. It was quite a big change coming from Central Europe, where spring is slowly arriving to full summer temperatures of Kuala Lumpur. It also felt fantastic to jump on my KTM Duke 125 and burned some Sava rubbers after short winter break’”.

Most riders like to train with motocross bikes, but if you live in Finland where in the winter off season the ground is covered with ice and snow, you end up occasionally training on it, like Moto2 rider Mika Kallio.

Kallio was the 2009 MotoGP rookie of the year and currently rides for Marc VDS Moto2 Racing Team and is passionate about ice racing. So passionate that back in 2010 he took two national titles in his homeland and this winter he had time to train and also ice race for a week, but unable to repeat his 2010 wins.

Not only did he ice race, he also took part in one of those motorcycle vs car battles - on ice - against a formidable opponent like the former 23 time International Rally winner and four time World Rally Champion Juha Kankkunen. The event took place at the Kuusamo ice circuit where Kankkunen has one of his driving schools. Kallio was riding a KTM EXC 450, while Kankkunen was driving a Subaru Impreza STi. No times were released, but apparently Kallio was a couple of tenths faster.

Remember this promotional video of the KTM Freeride 350 with Dakar winner Cyril Despres and mountain bike rider Cedric Gracia riding around the Andorran mountains?

Apparently the film crew did not obtain the necessary permits from the Ministry of Tourism and Enviroment to ride along the Casamanya Peak and other spots of the Andorran Pyrenees and one of the city councils has started legal action to fine both two riders (Despres resides in the Andorran town of Arinsal) for ‘violating’ the area without permission and the fine could be between 50 and 500 euros, which is really peanuts if you compare the feedback and publicity that the Freeride 350 received after this video.

Source | motofan.com

One of the most visited stands at the 2012 Motor Bike Expo in Verona is the one of Austrian manufacturer KTM, which showed up at the event with its three brand new models: the 690 Duke, the 350 Freeride and the ground-braking, all-electric Freeride-E. All three bikes seem to have met the taste of old and new fans alike, and it is pretty easy to predict a successful fate for all three of them. However, the orange army never disappointed its loyal custom base, which will probably grow even further thanks to its streak of victories in the Motocross World Championship.

View the full KTM Live @ Motor Bike Expo 2012 photo gallery

If you enjoyed seeing Red Bull slo-mo video of James ‘Bubba’ Stewart earlier this morning, this promo video by JDR Motorsports dubbed Dream Ride will make you green with envy.

Filmed in the rain forest of Cairns in Australia, it stars JS7s younger brother Malcolm who was the 2011 AMA MX “Rookie of the Year”and Josh Cachia who ride for JDR/KTM team whipping it up in this exotic location.

Enjoy.

Ahead of the 2012 Dakar ready that kicks off next Sunday, multi-rally champion Marc Coma did a little promo work for title sponsor MRV for their campaign Marc Coma, Our Messenger.

MRV is a courier service and they had the Spanish rider take to the streets of Barcelona with his KTM 450 and deliver packages to clients.

While riding the streets of the traffic filled streets of the Catalan capital isn’t easy, nothing can compare to the gruelling 9000 km 14-day Dakar rally that takes riders across Argentina, over the spectacular Andes into Chile to take on the Atacama Desert and then head for the final stages in Peru.

If you follow the Dakar rally you know who Cyril Despres is, while Cedric Garcia is a mountain bike rider who has won several MTB championship races and both take to the rocky hills of the Grandvalira in the Andorra mountains with KTM’s Freeride 350.

Debuted at this year’s EICMA show, the KTM Freeride 350 is an entry-level, user-friendly and street-legal enduro that - which also comes in a zero emissions version - and is set to hit the European market in 2012.

A cute little video from the Red Bull KTM Factory Racing Team, with Ryan Dungey, Marvin Musquin and Ken Roczen wishing everyone a Merry Christmas KTM style.