The Power of Dreams

The Power of Dreams

UP FRONT

MARK HOYER

VF750F. NR750. RC30. RC45. These are the modern-era sporting road motorcycles that have helped build Honda’s reputation for incredible engineering and technical prowess, the racing-inspired exotics that blew our performance-loving minds.

Add to this all of Honda’s pure racing machines that have continually explored new designs and technology, often translating the company’s thirst for experimentation into lasting dominance at many levels of competition around the world— including that big one called MotoGP.

But somewhere along the way, the desire of the great engineers to freak us out on the street with trickness has somehow flagged. Or maybe it’s still there, just muted by more practical concerns.

Speaking of practical concerns, we do really love the CBR250R (our latest longtenner) and look forward to testing the new-think NC700X. We were really surprised by the Fury, a chopper that handles, but we want that adventuresome, technicaltour-de-force exotic engineering back, that definitive, powerful Honda personality.

Clearly, Honda has done a lot of interesting technical things with motorcycles in recent years, and as you can read starting on page 36, Big Red is still quite competitive in the liter class with its mildly-tunedup-for-2012 CBR1000RR. But as we had all the machines together for our superbike shootout, we wondered where the jewellike, exotic Honda has gone. Particularly when you look at the Aprilia RSV4 Factory APRC, it seems like the Italians built the superbike that Honda should have.

Maybe we don’t need the NR750’s 32 valves, eight conrods and four oval pistons, but look at the RC30 pictured, its gear-driven-cam setup, the beautiful valves and other parts, and imagine it updated in a package exercising all of Honda’s current knowhow.

We’ve had insiders tell us about the V-Five streetbike inspired by the 990cc RC211V that was in development. Was it killed when rule changes for the 2007 season resulted in Honda needing an 800cc V-Four in MotoGP? And now the class is back up to lOOOcc.

Which leads us to ask, where is the V-Four exotic streetbike inspired by the current RC213V? Surely, there is one circulating Twin Ring Motegi in testing right now...

While we were all mighty impressed by the speed and predictability of the CBR1000RR, its supernatural connection between the throttle and rear contact patch, it is just so hard to believe that Honda, powerhouse of technology, doesn’t have a flagship road-going superbike with traction control, wheelie control and titanic horsepower made useable by such rider aids. 1 mean, we love C-ABS, but Honda usually doesn’t want us to use the anti-lock-brake model in comparison testing.

The CBR1000RR also makes a capable road mount, where the slight softness of its seat and shock are of great benefit to most buyers, since the vast majority of RRs never see the track.

This reminds me of the CBR929RR and RC51, two models with distinctly different damping/springing. The underlying philosophy on the CBR was very sporty street damping that was more forgiving but also worked reasonably well at the track. The RC51 was noticeably more taut and controlled, like Honda had tuned it for the track and then tried to civilize it just enough for the street. Recall that Honda used the RC51 and the riding skills of Colin Edwards to beat Ducati at its own 1000cc-V-Twin game in World Superbike in 2000 and 2002.

Honda isn’t racing in AMA SuperBike at the moment, and as well as Johnny Rea has been doing in World Superbike, it was clear at the Miller Motorsports Park round this past May that his CBR1000RR was a little down on power to the Aprilias and BMWs on that long front straight.

From the outside, it looks a lot like Honda should have a new RC model or maybe just call it an RVF1000RR. Steal the look from the RC213V, give it a V-Four with all the racing tricks and throw the digital book at the bike, including electronically adjustable suspension, to show the world what you’re made of, Honda.

Maybe this isn’t an economic reality in the current financial climate. But that doesn’t mean we can’t dream.