Photo: Marcelo Maragni/Red Bull Content Pool
Honda’s released the latest video teasing their True Adventure motorcycle, and it features great footage from this year’s Dakar rally.
We first showed you photos of the True Adventure prototype when Editor ‘Arris saw it up close and personal at last fall’s EICMA show. Details were slim then (it seemed to have a DCT transmission, and a twin-cylinder engine). Since the show Honda hasn’t released much more information, but they have started a video marketing campaign to promote the bike, although we haven’t actually learned anything about the bike yet.
Instead, we get footage of this year’s Dakar rally, and interviews with HRC racers. Big Red might not have won the big show this year, but their riders put up a stiff fight, and overcame incredible adversity to finish. Now, the reason for their aggressive assault on the world’s toughest off-road race is much more clear: It seems they want to draw a direct line between their Dakar bike and their new adventure bike.
Although Dakar-branded bikes were once common fare from different manufacturers, that sort of marketing hasn’t really happened since the Dakar rally decreed motorcycles must be limited to 450 cc displacement. We can’t see the new True Adventure being a 450, but the fact that they’re trying to tie it to the rally certainly might lead you to believe so. After all there was plenty of gossip saying Honda was building a 500 cc adventure bike. But, seeing that the rally bike’s motor is a single, and the True Adventure is a twin, it seems pretty safe to say the two engines aren’t closely related.
Enjoy the footage!
A 500cc Twin (V?) with 60-70 broad, reliable hp, no more than 400lbs. wet, would be cool. The Aprilia RXV was what I thought a perfect dual sport bike could be. Except it’s an Aprilia, and I can’t justify it without great reliability and good parts support.
Lotta hype – vapourware?