Sorry… had to mis a few days of posting… Got trapped at work on a big project. 36 out of 48 gets a bit rough… Anyway I did find some nice surprises in my inbox starting with this beauty. You know, if Honda were to build another modern retro they could do a lot worse than looking to their own past for inspiration.
Thanks Much to Shannon Hayes for these great shots.
Motorcycle Photo Of The Day 
Honda have already gone retro on one of their own bikes.The CB1100 is a great take on their superbikes of the70s
Is the CB1100F now available in the U.S? It was originally only released in Australia and Japan due to ease of compliance.
All we need now is for Kawasaki to produce a retro Z9 and the world will have completed a full circle. My old bones love this retro shit!!
MY RANT!
Nope, Honda never released the big retro here in the US. I know this because if they had I Would freaking OWN ONE!!! People will also say that Honda essentially failed with the GB500 but the truth is that it was more a total failure of marketing (as opposed to engineering) on their part. A fantastic bike that got no support and NOW is considered a quite the cult classic. And exactly the same can be said with the Kawasaki Zephyr lineup and the W650. Fantastic bikes that were ignored by the marketing department which are now highly sought after. Freaking shame…
I mean hell Triumph PROVED it can be done with the (now extensive) Bonneville lineup. Just need to stick with it for more than a 2 year limp wristed effort. Moto Guzzi is well on their way with the latest V7 and don’t even get me started about how Royal Enfield and Ural have succeeded with warmed over vintage tech… I also hear a lot of good noise out of the TU250 Suzuki universe. Some nice customs starting to appear there. If they were smart they build a TU650 parallel twin and go from there but they’ll likely just sit on their hands with it… idiots.
And wile I’m ranting what the hell is wrong with Yamaha. The XS650 was a MASSIVE success for 15 years or so and they simply let it fade as a sad warmed over chopper-esque bastardization. model awareness and the aftermarket on those bike is ENORMOUS so fer gods sake don’t even think of going with a modern retro of it. You’d probably only sell 100,000 a year if you did it correctly! Yeah I know emissions blah blah but if Royal Enfield an URAL can get around it with 50’s technology then WTF is Yamaha’s problem?
Rant off…
Failure or success in operation is caused more from the mental attitude even than by mental capacities.
Most of the important things in the world are already accomplished by folks who suffer from maintained trying when there seemed to be no hope whatsoever.
absolutely right.more speed restrictions,more traffic means 200mph machines don’t make sense.an improved,lighter xs650-type machine for reasonable money would be great.
a 150mh “starter” bike that revs to 16000rpm,is crazy