HONDA CBR 929 RRY
What's All The Fuss About?
 If last year's Suzuki Hayabusa was an indication of how hot the sport bike
market is, then Honda's new CBR 929RRY is poised for being the hottest sport
bike, and possibly the second hardest to get this year.
The first will no doubt be the RC-51,also from Honda, but
why waste editorial space on a bike that will be so minimally produced. What
a way to start a century. Honda has this reputation of lagging on hot new
trends and updating styles after the underdogs do, but in the sport bike arena
this has hardly been the case. From the inception of the F series, along
with the hawks, Honda has delivered sport bikes to the market that stand the
test of time. While Yamaha has led the way the last few years with their
impressive YZ's, Honda's on a quest to not be outdone. Puget Sound dealers we talked to in January, for the most part, had already
accepted pre-orders sucking up more than 50% of what they expected to attain from
Honda this year. In a matter of only a few more weeks it's likely they'll
be sold out as these already-classics just begin to arrive.  So
what makes this bike so special? In Ray Blank's words, head of sales and
operations for Honda, he puts it this way, "It's the innovator. It's the
machine that flatters us by the copiers. It is the fundamental equation of
motorcycling and it's probably more indicative of the sport motorcycle than
anything else that I can think of."
The bike is
lighter and faster than CBR's previously in it's class, cranking out upwards of
160 horse power with a new 929 cc engine, and tipping the scale at 374 lbs.dry.
Throw a little 21st century engineering ingenuity on top of that and you've got
a rival for all other makers. Consider the lightweight, twin-spar extruded
aluminum frame featuring a pivotless swing arm design utilizing a cast aluminum
bracket attached to the swingarm pivots. In the end, time will tell if
indeed this bike is what it's all cracked up to be. Suggested
retail is $9,999, but don't be surprised if you find a dealer offering to sell
it at a higher price since the supply and demand lines are out of whack here. Some
of you already know this is the case with some of the Yamaha series and many
RC-51's have been pre-sold at 25% above list and higher. From
what we've seen thus far, Honda realizes there's not much marketing they need to
do on the bike as it seems to be selling well enough through word of mouth. A
look at their website reveals nothing more than a photo of it. In
a more general sense, Blank makes a strong point when he says "Motorcycling
is on its way to going mainstream, really mainstream in the U.S. and Honda wants
to do what it can to help that happen." In this category of bike they
seem to be doing this just fine. Ted
Knecht |
