Still…those things are beautiful.
I’ve always wanted an Mv Agusta F4 750 (the first one) a benelli tornado and a Bimota SB8RS to put in the shed and look at (along with the duke)
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It was actually a toss-up between the 1098S and a MV F4 1000 - I could afford both.
The choice came down to. I could get a luggage rack for the Duke but not the MV.
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That 1098 with Termis…makes my knees go weak
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I was trying to say “R (3 or 4 digit size) GS. So, yeah, R1150GS, for instance.
Thanks for the sage advice all. Probably not gonna happen. My wife has no objection to this weekend’s safety course. The bike itself will be a tougher sell. To sell her, I need to buy something not too expensive and keep it in the hangar. If I am not riding daily it becomes a safer numbers game. I’ve always dreamed of the boxer, made stronger by watching all of Ewen Mckewan’s “Long Way…” series. But that Africa Twin looks and sounds nice!
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Dunno if it’s ok to post this, but it happened in my Youtube algorythm so…
Insane!
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That’s cool and so typical Honda
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I can appreciate the tech as a ‘demonstrator’, but for me riding a bike is about that direct connection with a machine, without a computer intervening and saying ‘you’re doing it wrong’.
I know that I will be in the minority here but IMHO ABS and traction control are almost a step too far and detract from the ‘purity’ of riding a motorcycle.
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That’s the conundrum though… That tech is for motorbike driver who are not good, but learning to drive with that aid means they will hardly learn any better…
And what happens when it breaks?
I’m impressed they pulled it off but I’m not sure about the implementation.
It’s quite a flex though.
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Eh, I’d disagree, it helps in an emergency. BMW is already using this as well. A modern bicycle has a ton of stability aids to make it a lot safer. We don’t learn on a bike without TC/ABS anymore either nor do we need to figure out how the choke works and what it can mess up.
That said, I do enjoy riding old bikes a lot, and the beamers always lack character despite being extremely comfortable.
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I’ve given motorcycles little thought since 1998. This recent interest has me learning about significant changes in the machines in my absence. One is clutch-less shifting. Why? The interplay between clutch and throttles is part of the art. I am seeing now how so special is the hairsbreadth of human history that we all have been blessed to live in. Between the horse that did nothing for us unless forced to, to the the robot who will do everything for us (and it stops being optional) was just 150 years. Future generations will never understand the joys of running through the gears or making a perfect crosswind landing. And our tech lords like Honda think this is a good thing.
Clutchless shifting has always been a feature of motorcycles, surely that is not new? You can do it on a 1960’s clunker if you’d want!
OK. Didn’t know.
It’s very easy, put a little pressure on the shifter as you accelerate, then blip the throttle and it will shift up as the gearbox gets unloaded, it’s so much fun to do on a motorcycle!
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I actually was aware of the ability. Just not that it was an acceptable thing to do over time.
Horses for courses and if anyone wants all the tech aids they can cram into a vehicle (car or bike) then more power to them. I feel differently.
Look at MotoGP and F1 (top level racing in general). All the electronic aids that had their debut there. Can’t lock a brake, they improve stability, get power to the ground without wheelspin, etc and sure that translates into a ‘safety feature’, but the reason that technology exists is to enable a rider or driver to go faster.
My distrust of that tech is that it can lure a rider into going faster than they should outside of the controlled environment of a racetrack, especially when 200HP is nothing for a road bike that you or I could buy these days. It also lures them into what I consider a false sense of security that the tech will ‘save’ them from their own inexperience or stupidity.
Overall, my opinion is that while all these ‘safety features’ we now have in our cars and bikes might make us safer, they aren’t making us better riders and drivers.
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Just about all motorcycle gearboxes are of the constant mesh type, with a ‘dog’ that engages the required ratio… Going up through the gears is no problem. A ‘quick shifter’ does this for you - cutting the spark and unloading the gearbox on upshift. The real fancy ones will also enable clutch-less downshifts.
I’d disagree, being a better rider isn’t dependent on technology but on training. The best money you can spend after getting your AVB/AVD(Algemene Voertuig Beheersing/Algemene Verkeers Deelname. Bike Control Exam and Traffic Exam) is to do a follow up course at something like the royal motorcycle organization that offers a host of ways to improve your skills on and off track.
The actual technical features of the bike do not influence it all that much, getting to actually experience braking in dozen centimeters of standing water and other such conditions and how to handle them(and honestly it’s instinct so the only way is to train) is way more influential.
Motorcycle driving is about the right mindset, the bike’s features help with that. I don’t think those features will make anyone less safe whilst driving because you can screw up just the same way on a old gixxer if you will. If people are not willing to change their mindset it doesn’t matter much at all.
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Oh yeah it doesn’t really matter for the motorcycle, as harry mentions quickshifters cut the spark and blip a throttle if needed when going up or down. On the old motorcycles you have to blip the throttle yourself to unload the dog bone and allow the gearbox to shift up.
It’s totally fine!
I could not agree more. But very few riders here do that and as soon as they have finished their 12 month probationary licence period where they are restricted to motorcycles with a quite low power to weight ratio, they are straight onto a R1/GSXR1000/Panigale. No level of driver aid is going to help a young twenty-something who thinks they are the reincarnation of Mick Doohan and the Reefton Spur is a race circuit… As you say it is all about the mindset and (over) confidence in ABS/TC, etc exacerbates the problem IMHO. Especially when they have done their practical riding test on a bike with ABS and TC and have no idea what loss of traction means.
One piece of advice I have always given to anyone who has expressed an interest in riding a motorcycle is. Get a dirt bike. Get used to it squirming and bucking underneath you. Get used to loss of traction - front and rear - under power and under brakes. Get used to coming off at comparatively low speeds and realise how much that hurts even at 30km/h. Then when you do hit a patch of black ice on your R1 where even ABS is useless, you aren’t just a few seconds from the scene of the accident.
Plus when you do get that nice fat rear on a road going sportsbike spun up exiting a corner and laying a 50ft black line, you will be the coolest kid on the block 
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