Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127529
GTEST Honda NR750 ~ ~ By Robert Fawcett Photos by Sean Kell y onda may have the last laugh sort of, anyway - by turning their incredibly clever, outrageously co mp lex 'and embarrassingly unsuccessful oval-piston cer into the most expensive, most exotic and most over-hyped street bike in the history of this pl anet. Bu t is the end resu lt any good? Does it really ma tter anyway, given that most of the two-wheeled $60,OOO-plus hyper-status sym bols are liabl e to end up not actu ally being ridden , ins tead spending th e gr eater part of thei r natural lifespan as an upmarket form of loose change. Not hard to imagine th e 1995 overhea rd-in- thepub-saloon ga mbi t, is it? " Okay, Ni gel - how abo ut your Von T rips T estarossa and th e 356 Po rsch e Sp yd er aga i ns t m y 250F Maser, and I' ll th row in tha t ova lp isto n mo torbike jo bbie I' ve had in the cella r for a co up le of years? Still only go t delivery mil eage, so ap preciat ing nicely, don 't you kn ow, wh at ? Shall we shake hands on it then? Landlord - a bottle of Mon sieur Meet's best, si l vou s pl ait, wh at , ha, ha, ha. " H o ho, indeed. Only it isn 't reall y so fun ny, becau se wh at Honda is doing here is raisin g the motorcycle retail price ante across the board, and while H The most expensive, anyway 20 it may be many moons before even an a veragel y we ll-h eel ed biker, a s o pposed to an obscenely rich on e, can afford oval piston technology for the stree t, that .$60,O O-p lus price tag is O go ing to a ffect us all soo ner than later, just as a similar trend has scored in vario us aspects of the car market, It 's o ne th ing for Bimota to sell $40,000 T esis: sma ll manufacturer, experi men tal bike, han d-made in limi ted q uan titi es, etc. etc. A no t-a-P olen replica Ducati 888 street rod, let's say? Still Ital ian , still not th e real world. A H onda at $60,000 - an y Honda? Won der how clo se to $35,000 th e fuelinj ect ed R C30-successor will be pitched at wh en it fronts up ihis time next year? Compared to $60 ,000 , an yth ing the other side of half th at loo ks lik e a ba rgain . . . G et th e pi cture? After a ludicro usly limited oppor tunity to press the flesh of the NR 750 roadster's twis tgrip at Paul Ricard, I recko n I've go t the picture, anyhow. A combined total of 30 mi nu tes ridi ng time revealed that for all its tech nologica l brill iance, th is mo to rcycle im presses in sub tle rather than dra matic ways - and even disappoints in o thers: All tha t mon ey doesn 't bu y perfection, only exclusivit y - of a kind. Everything is relative - and since Honda current ly plan s a handbuilt pro d uc tio n stream of three NR750 street bikes a day for on e year, there 's go ing to be 700+ in circulation by the time the shu tters come down. Assuming there are enough orders, of co urse: aft er all , o ne lesson we've a ll had to learn pretty well durin g the past decade is that market for ces do of course prevail! Hard to ima gine there'll be NR7 50s unspoken for, actuall y: any bik e so dr am atically and so su ccessfully styled already ha s one foot o n the Sold Out sticker : I mean, how many people read the Jaguar XJ220's spec sheet before p lacing their order? More to the point, the NR7 50 has not onl y been styled bu t designed too , in the ergonometri c sense, It may appea r to be the ne plus ultra of spor ting motorcycles, but in fact it's more the gran turismo of sing le seaters: it's actuall y comfortable to sit on and ride, not a factor wh ich seems to feature very high up the scale wh en it comes to co ncocting the modern breed of 750cc race replicas. The NR' s 1433mm wheelbase is a good 35-50mm (or a couple of inches) more than H onda 's own RC30 or its superbi ke-bred il k, and the 787mm seat heigh t (where DO they get these fracti onal measurements from ? Hav e you ever tr ied measuring ' the differen ce between a 787 and 788mm seat height?) is average, rather tha n ultra-high to give lo ts of clearance for a G P-style suspens io n system . Wh ich is not to say it co u ld n 't perha ps have been higher: the radi al Michel ins , the front a special 130170 16-in cher with the same rolling circu mference as a modern 17-inch front, but less gyroscopi c effec t on the steering plus a greater contact area at (Above) At $60,OOO-pl us, the ovalpiston N R750 is the most expensive p roduction street bike ever p roduced. It was tested at the Paul Ri card road race circuit in Fra nc e. (Below) R emoving th e p lastic bodywork reveals the 9O-degree V-4 engine that prod uces 125 bhp at 14,000 rpm. full lean , a llow ei the r footrest to gro und its tabs on fast sweepers under normal riding co n di tio n s - the NR750 has quite a bulky lower girth. But nor is it to say that the NR 's suspension is not superlative, proof positive that when cost is no object and time no more a factor, production motorcycles can not be equipped wit h suspension that is as good in its own way as Wayn e Rainey's Yama ha's is . in its. Though at a hefty 489.5 po unds (those fractions again: everything m ust