I had hoped to buy a new Honda this year, something from 250 to 500cc, keep it for a few years and buy new again, but I simply couldn't find anything suitable in showrooms full of different bikes!
I'm not nostalgic about my fathers Honda Superdream, its just that its comfortable, the long level seat means that I can change the angle of my knees by sitting nearer or further away from the tank to increase circulation & comfort on a long spin.
Also the Superdream looks like a bike should, it's solid, large, with standard geomatrical shapes, (squares, triangles, circles etc) which we male humans have evolved to respond positivly to. Discrete geometrical shapes & symetrical curves & circles, are not only appealing in bikes, but in girls faces too,etc ! Similarily the Superdream is pleasing to look at, I married a reasonably pretty woman and I will only buy a reasonably pretty bike.
Now the new range of Hondas are mostly grotequely pig ugly. I also discovered that each year the designs get even uglier. The same can largly be said for all of the big four Jap bike builders who seem to copy each others designs over time, more or less, but Honda are definetly the ugliest now, which is a shame because the Japs used to design beautiful bikes.I don't care even if they build the most reliable bikes, I won't sit on one of their ugly pigs, and certainly won't buy one.
There is simply no make or shape to most of them. The sports bikes have a pointed tail cowl which looks like the end of a constapated dogs feces which makes the rider look like he is on the toilet, even more so and worse when the single exhaust extends out from under his arse. The Petrol tank which should be a dominant feature of the bike seems to be missing or covered with bits of spikey plastic resembling the shape of a broken umbrella which is very off putting to a potential purchaser
The exhausts even when mounted down low often takes the form of a battered coal bucket or perhaps a badly folded up waste offcut of tin roof cladding.
The front lights if they are twin lights are too near the ground, if its a single light it's often neither round nor square, it looks like a half melted plastic bowl that the child put on the cooker.Most of the modern motorcycles looks like they are a magnified copy of a cheap toy found in a cornflakes breakfast cerial box and made in China, I ain't parting with money for this recycled looking junk dressed up with a fancy price tag.
Now although the cruiser range have a bit of common sence used in their styling, the problem here is that the cruiser seating position don't suit many people for the roads we have in the UK & Europe. Their seat is too low and the foot pegs are too far forward, they are too dificult to steer, so I won't be buying a cruiser either.
The road going mid sized motards have degressed down to the shape of the 2-strokes that the teenage chavs are riding on the council waste ground. The next ones will probably look like pit bikes.
The large Dual Purpose bikes have also turned into ugly pigs where you are forced to sit in the one dip where riders of all heights should conform to, infact nearly all roadgoing bikes have this restricting seating dip now. Finally on a smaller note, the traditional two matching rear springs give a road goin bike a look of strength & completion where by contrast the modern monoshock looks week and half finished (except on scramblers where the monoshock is more practical).
My conclusion is that modern motorcycle designers are no longer designing bikes for practical purposes but instead have gone down a 'fashion' dead end road of their own cult, each trying to out do each with even more rediculous designs than the other. Perhaps they lack mechanical
drawing/engineering training and should designing plastic c
