Honda preparing Dakar assault

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Pretty damned exciting. Going to be even more intrigue this year.

Nice video,those honda rallys sound like a v twin in a few places.

Seems like germans are one step in front netherland/japo in the electrical system..

Also seems like also a lot more to shake loose?

Hi there.

I was just wondering, why the two different forks? Some with Showa, others with Reiger.

What do you think about the use of Leo Vince exhaust? Are they any good or rubbish?

I love that HRC is back, i ride Africa twin, and love it and its heritage.

Twiniver.

2 of the bikes are the new HRC developed bike, the others are bikes built using kits from last year from non Honda vendors.

Ya, everyone is stoked to see another factory dump money into the race as its been a one hourse pony for too long

And what about the exhaust issue?

Lets see another king on that throne.....

Both Leo's aren't they? What's the issue?

As i wrote at first, are they any good og rubish?

Things is that some gues from my motorcycle club says that they are rubbish.

Regarding the Leo Vince exhaust. While I do not own one I have to assume that a major motorcycle corporation that could choose to put any exhaust on the bike that they liked wuold be very unlikely to put anything but what worked best for their application.

- Ken

I was chatting to a guy from HRC at the Motorcycle Live show (here in the UK) yesterday, he works on the Endurance Race team and claimed not to know "much about the Dakar" but actually turned out to be rather well informed!

They had a 450 Dakar, fully prepped with Helder's name on it and although it was clearly a promotional bike, the guy conirmed it was exactly the same as the genuine article as HRC don't build "PR Copies" as he put it.

My mate asked about the Leo Vince exhaust as the HRC road race bikes on the stand all wore Akro's.

Our guy explained that they wanted to run with Akropovics on the 450 but Honda wouldn't allow a factory bike to go the Akro factory "as they knew that even it didn't get sneaked out to Mattighoffen (not too far from Slovenia) for a few days, the KTM technicians would be down there in a flash to have a good look".

He also said that he didn't think they will be running Leo Vince's at the Dakar and said they were almost certainly replacing them with Termingonis for the race :huh

Dunno if it's true or not (maybe they weren't happy with the Vince's at the Maroc?) but will be interesting to see.

He let us inside the barrier to have a good look and I took some pictures (sorry about the quality, autofocus wasn't playing ball)...

Nice, thanks Mad Cow!

They are running their final test in Ca next week with the Dakar engine and final set up - rumour has it that it is a brisk 4,000 Km's !! :eek1

So maybe all will be revealed soon; well it will be by the 6th of Jan

Hi guys. Thanks alot for the many replys on my post regarding the exhaust issue. I will be looking very closely when the CFR 450 rolls over the starting line to see what exhaust they choose, and to see how the bike handles once its in its favorit environment. Some may say that im a bit of a nerd, since i pay so much attention to what they fit the race bike with, but in here i fell free to be nerdish

I have a Leo Vince fitted to my African Twin, and is very happy with it, and find that the quality is very satisfying, and dont really care for what others think about it, but then again.....

It seems like they are running Renthal handlebars (so am i ), and i have read that allthough the old NXR that they race with in the "African Twin days " had Renthal on in PR relations, it really raced with stock iron bars. If its true or not i dont know.

Sorry if you dont understand all that i write, but my english could be better.

Well Termignoni is not actually so famous for their Enduro exhausts, but I see they had a long story with Honda, starting with Freddy Merkel's RC30...

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What a bl¤¤dy shame that GHR/Honda could not get BOTH of these guys to the "BIG SHOW" in january... with his (33rd?) placing on debut in 2011 (and a few top 15 leg results) despite some problems along the way, Jake would have been an ideal two man assault team paired with brother Todd.

Aside from Ben Grabham (riding with KTM australia support in Dakar this coming event), Jake and Todd are the TWO most dominant and repeatedly successful riders from Oz in the safari/cross country scene.

A shame HRC can't find a spot for one of them?
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HRC Team "final testing" in California... to be continued...

Yea! More pic's!