According to Visordown, Honda has been forced to push back the release date of its new CBR300R small-displacement sport bike, which was scheduled to roll out next month. The replacement for the Honda CBR250R, the CBR300R will not be rolling into UK showrooms until late 2014, nine months behind schedule.
It’s Wednesday, so that means another installment of the “TT Legends” documentary. For Episode Five, we find the boys still at the Isle of Man TT, the namesake for the Honda TT Legends team.
2012 was a particularly eventful year for the TT, as Simon Andrews escaped with his life in a harrowing crash, the Senior TT was cancelled, for the first time ever on account of rain, and John McGuinness finally won a Superstock TT race.
As usual, the episode is a great watch, and this time around things focus pretty heavily on John McGuinness (we even get a glimpse of him on his electric superbike, the Mugen Shinden).
With 20 TT wins to his name now, McPint will be looking to make further progress on Joey Dunlop’s record during the 2014 outing. Standing in his way will be a bevy of powerhouse riders, including the recently announced Michael Dunlop, who will be racing with a factory-backed BMW S1000RR.
One of the great privileges which holding a MotoGP media pass allows is to stand behind the armco and watch and listen to the bikes as they go past. At the Sepang test, I made full use of that opportunity, and wandered over to Turn 3 – the glorious, fast right hander, where the riders get sideways driving through the turn and onto the short straight to Turn 4 – to enjoy the spectacle of the best riders of the world showing off their skills.
There is more to be learned from watching at trackside than just how spectacular MotoGP bikes are through fast corners, though. The careful observer can pick up clues to what both the riders and factories are doing. With electronics such a key part of MotoGP nowadays, the track is one of the few places where updates are visible.
Updated vehicle dynamics algorithms may be invisible from pit lane (or nearly so, with the occasional addition of sensors or torque gauges the only visible clue), bike behavior on the track will sometimes betray them.
At the end of 2013, Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa had asked for more stability under braking, and some more corner speed. Listening to the bikes at Sepang gave a possible clue as to how they had achieved that. The differences in engine note between the various bikes were instructive of the varying levels of electronics, engine braking strategies, and gearbox function.
That Honda have been working on braking and corner entry was audible at Sepang. Though the RC213V always sounded smooth under braking, braking for Turn 4 the improvement was noticeable.
They say that in the future, most of the human race will be brown-skinned as racial-mixing will have run its course. That is, assuming climate change doesn’t induce a worldwide weather catastrophe or Russia doesn’t decide to sell some of its nuclear weapons cache to Christian extremists.
Similarly so, as time moves on, motorcycle manufacturers are picking their new conceptual product ideas out of the metaphorical melting pot. Dual-sports and crossovers like the Honda NC700X point to a design paradigm that favors a jack-of-all trades mentality towards practicality over specialization.
The Honda CX-01, a conceptual prototype revealed at 2014 Indian Auto Expo, represents Honda’s vision for a youth-targeted crossover motorcycle.
We are now halfway through with the “TT Legends” documentary, with today’s fourth of eight installments featuring the venerable Isle of Man TT. Part one of two, Episode Four introduces one of the most iconic races in motorcycling.
Over 100 years old, every motorcycle enthusiast should make a pilgrimage to the Isle of Man — the only downside is that once you go, you will want to go again, and again, and again…
Raced on city streets, with speeds hitting over 200 mph down the Sulby Straight, it is easy to see why Honda Pro Racing’s factory road racing and endurance squad borrows its name from the TT.
Featuring some of the best IOMTT riders on its team, to keep things honest, the Isle of Man TT is really where the Honda TT Legends team shines. Enjoy!
With the introduction of Honda’s 500cc bikes last year (Honda CBR500R, Honda CB500F, and Honda CB500X), Honda provided newer and experienced riders with a practical and cheap option in an otherwise relatively polarized motorcycle market. While those bikes were sensible choices indeed, they were commonly criticized for their relatively modest power.
So here comes yet another color in the choice spectrum from the Japanese maker: a middleweight faired sport bike, with street-centric aspirations, and a palatable price tag. So if the Honda Interceptor is too rich for your blood, the inline-4 Honda CBR650F might just be the bike for you.
Good news folks, the legendary Honda VFR 800 is returning to US and Canadian shores after a nearly five-year hiatus. If you were disappointed when Honda didn’t confirm the VFR 800 for North America back in November at EICMA, take heart, it’s on its way.
Since 1998, the Honda VFR 800 has combined the seductive power delivery of a V4 with subdued styling, comfy ergos, all-day practicality and bulletproof Honda reliability.
Sure, it doesn’t have the sex appeal of a Ducati 1199 Panigale or the rough-and-tumble attitude of a KTM 1190 Adventure, but what it does have is probably the best blend of comfort, performance and practicality for riders who consider a motorcycle to be their primarily form of transportation.
We are back on track with the eight-part “TT Legends” documentary, which follows the racing shenanigans of the Honda TT Legends road and endurance racing squad. After finishing with the Bol d’Or endurance race in Episode Two, Episode Three finds the Honda riders at the North West 200, one of the great Irish road racing events.
Like the Isle of Man TT, the North West 200 is held on public roads, but unlike the TT, this is not a time trial format. Instead, NW200 riders leave the starting line together, and swap paint and positions throughout the course. One of the fastest road races, riders reach well over 200 mph on their machines at the Irish road race.
In the final part of our look back at 2013, we review the performance of the factories. How did Honda, Yamaha and Ducati stack up last season? What were their strong points, and how did they go about tackling their weaknesses? Above all, what does this mean for 2014? Here’s our rating of MotoGP’s manufacturers.
Honda – Championship Standing: 1st – Rating: 10/10
It seemed as if every technical rule change and tire decision swung against Honda in 2012. First, they found themselves outfoxed over the minimum weight by Ducati, after the MSMA first told the Grand Prix Commission that they had unanimously rejected a proposal to raise it from 153kg to 160kg.
It turned out that only Honda and Yamaha had rejected it, with Ducati voting in favor, which meant the rule should have been adopted and not rejected. As a concession to the manufacturers, the weight was raised in two stages, to 157kg in 2012, and 160kg in 2013.
Then, after being tested at Jerez, the riders voted to adopt the new, softer construction front tires, despite complaints from the Repsol Honda riders.
Honda struggled for much of 2012, first working out where to place an extra 4kg (a problem the other factories did not have, as they had struggled to get anywhere near the previous minimum of 153kg), and then running through chassis and suspension options in search of the braking stability they had lost with the introduction of the softer front tire.
After the test at the Mugello round, they had most of the problems solved, and Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa went on to win eight of the last nine rounds.
Come the 2013 season, and Honda was well-prepared. The factory already had its braking stability issues under control, and the only point left was the extra 3kg it had to carry. Having had all of 2012 to prepare for the extra weight, Honda arrived at the start of the season with few issues.
After a strong showing in the 2014 Dakar Rally, HRC says it will make the Honda CRF450 Rally available to privateer racers next season. This news has been on the wires for a while now, but it comes with added weight after Laia Sanz, the top female competitor in the Dakar Rally, finished 16th overall on the “pre-production” privateer bike – an impressive feat to say the leaset.
Like its counterpart OEMs, HRC will develop each machine to suit the buyer, with prices expected to reach into the $30,000 to $40,000 realm. Like the pricing schemes from KTM and Yamaha, we imagine that sum comes without any technical support from HRC on the race course.
The final stage of the 2014 Dakar Rally, Stage Thirteen was a formality for most, but proved was still another day in the office for these riders as they tackled the 157 km special. Cyril Despres was quickest across the line, but the Frenchman was caught speeding in the liaison stage, and suffered a 15 minute penalty because of it. The error tossed Despres back to fifth for the day, leaving HRC’s Joan Barreda to win his fifth stage in this year’s Dakar Rally.
Barreda would surely have been a podium finisher this year, and possible rally winner, had he not suffered a catastrophic electrical problem on Stage Twelve. Surely disappointed with his result, the Spaniard can take solice in proving the competitiveness of HRC’s Honda CRF450 Rally package.
“Today is the last day of the Dakar. For us it feels tough because I lost a lot of time with a problem after a fall at kilometer 200,” said Borreda. “But today I was back in the saddle like a pro, and I did a really good job in the special. In the end it wasn’t the result that we were working for in the Dakar. Well, now it’s time to go home and try to get to grips with what happened, how and where we went wrong and see how we can sort them out for next year.”