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wait, I thought the 2012 whatever color bike was the ugliest? then the 2015 whatever color, and so on and so on. Seriously, every time a manufacture comes out with a new model the first thing is, "its ugly! the side plates are too small!" "shrouds suck!" Then a year later, its the best bike ever and everyone is riding it!
Looks good to me. Mix between current shroud n 24 kawi shroud. The rest looks honda clean. I laugh when everyone freaks out over stupid little body changes. Once they release more info people gonna be drooling just like i did when the 21s dropped.. Most people freakin out aint buyin a 2025 till 2028 anyway.. lol
Main frame spars look slightly beefier in size. Maybe just the way I'm seeing them.
The current Honda is about the best looking modern bike around.
This new one, hopefully it's damn good because it's ugly as sin.
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Sometimes I wish I kept it just to look at it...
Good looking bike! What year was that?
How did you like the Akra on it?
2022. Quite honestly, I did the Twisted Development ecu mapping and the Akrapovic setup at the same time so I can't give you a true answer as far as what the exhaust switch would do on its own.
TD mapped it specifically for my setup (with the akra + insert in) and it was insane how smooth and powerful it was. Took away the bottom end jerkiness of the stock setup and made it strong all the way up. Not sure if I ever even found the top... Pulled forever and I ride in the low to mid range. Overall the bike was a lot easier to ride.
Side note, insert in on the akra is awesome. I hate loud 4 stroke exhausts. There's a couple competitor companies that always sound raspy and blown out and I'm just not a fan of that.
it looks like an early 90s KTM shroud.Maybe ugly will help it work better.
Hey is that Too Tech suspension near Torrance? I remember meeting him in his garage in '87 and he greeted us with "Hi, I'm Rick Johnson, but not that Rick Johnson" ha. Good guy. That was a while ago! He used to have those small ads in the back of cycle news and mxa, etc.
It’s funny. I remember people complaining that Honda had a dual exhaust and when the 21 came out with a single exhaust again, they disliked that and thought the bike was ugly!
Somethings will never change when it comes to change. I remember seeing the current gen Honda and going “It looks kinda strange compared to what they’re on now” But sure enough the new look grew on me (and seemingly all of us.) Now when I look at the 2020, it looks so bulky comparatively but it was/is a beautiful bike. I’m sure the same thing will happen with this.
The one and only! I haven't talked to Rick in awhile though. I need to give him a call.
Idk .I thought they looked awesome at time of release. They are really good looking bikes
As soon as I saw the 2021, I knew (at the time) my next bike was a CRF450. Such a beauty!
I bet once we get some clear pictures not video screen grabs it looks much better.
Yeah, that's a fugly trend I don't care for. I hated it when KTM first tried it around '08 and haven't changed my opinion. What's odd is that after that birth-defect-looking generation, they came out with the sharp cladding-style sidepanels on the next cosmetic redo ('11-'16?) and then resumed the whole "lopitoffofme" trend on the sidepanels again. Not sure who has something against them or thinks a lack of them is stylish, but it seems to have infected almost all the manufacturers to varying degrees.
Makes them look like the sort of junk you could buy at the flea market or Pep Boys.
Then again, it could be that it's not anything intended to be production since it's just some bolt-on plastic. One can only hope.
Of course, I thought my '79 YZ250 looked soooo much better than my '78 YZ125 just because they put the rearset sidepanels on them in '79, so I might be biased (but maybe they're going for the 50-year-old retro look?).
So funny. I think exactly the opposite. Those giant billboard-sized side-panels bikes used to have never made any sense to me whatsoever. From an aesthetic point of view, I thought they made the bikes look heavy and slow, but beyond that, the one thing a motocross bike doesn't need is someplace to catch and store giant clods of mud.
And just as a way of saying there's no accounting for taste, consider this: I'm presently restoring a '78 RM125 precisely because '78 is the last year before those godawful big rear side panels came into vogue.
We both know they were originally moved to the rear so scorekeepers could more easily see the rider's number and they obviously aren't as necessary with the advent of transponder scoring, but style-wise, I just like the lines better. Not a fan of the Slater Moto-skins look from the '90s (waaaay too much surface area and ruined the lines, IMO) but I like more sidepanel than the current trend provides. Got a '13 KTM 250SX and '14 CRF250R with the similar clad design and think it looks racy as all get-out, but to each his own.
Probably why there's vanilla and chocolate.
But then Baskin-Robbins had to come along and screw that up, too!
Hello ! I have a question about the shrouds, there is a difference between bikes when they run and photo shoot. There is a big hole and a grid on race bikes but only 2 holes without grid on official photos, why ?
Pit Row
Better cooling more air flow on the race bike.
I agree. And the grid is there to prevent the holes from hindering the movement of the legs ? I think...
Why not put the same vents on the production model ? More fragile ?
Others views
The shroud without the "grille" is probably marginally cheaper to produce. When you're making a few thousand bikes that marginal cost difference can add up.
The same reason we get sold stock bikes and not factory bikes. Cost.
I would think the ones on Tim’s bike now maybe are the production versions? When the bike was first revealed it was still probably being finalised for what’s production and what’s not. Would think by now everything would be set.
Dear baby Jesus, praying that they keep the look of the split shroud. The one big hole really makes the shroud look super clunky to me.
You can definitely see how *functional* that design would be for maximizing airflow through the radiators so... IDK I woud ride it and get over it pretty fast
I wonder if it's a 'Mud Set Up' Radiator shroud?
But, it's a Prototype / Works bike, so probably constantly changing.
Those shrouds look like the mold short filled and they said screw it and used them anyway.
First photos without mesh and now they are running updated iteration. First ones are not production bike fotos but their first prototype ones.
Rick's a good guy and I had him re-valve my 2022 CRF450R-S (yeah, I know it's a 2020
) and it works like magic now.
I'm super slow and don't know what my rev limiter even sounds like, LOL, but he gave me renewed confidence in my bike versus the stock setup, and now I feel like I can ride any track in any condition.
Oh, and he replaced my standard map setup to smooth out the notoriously abrupt, but powerful, bottom end. A real game changer for a ham-fisted C rider with bad knees like myself.
MK301
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