#Honda

There are a variety of options to choose from when you think of beginner bikes, many of them centered around sport-type models or standards. This is often because manufacturers spend more of their marketing dollars hyping their beginner sportbikes or standards. But fear not, cruiser rider – there are great entry-level models for those craving the feet-forward stance. Here, we’ve gathered eight of those great choices for your viewing pleasure.

The 2018 MotoGP World Championship chase came to a screeching, grinding halt today in a Japanese gravel trap on Lap 23 of the Motul Grand Prix of Japan. It fell to earth in the person of Italian Andrea Dovizioso who, chasing Marc Marquez for the lead, lost the front in Turn 10. Everyone know there was going to be no stopping Marquez this year. Still, the moment the title is decided, weeks too early, is just a big ol’ bummer. But there it is.

And so the 2018 MotoGP season comes down to this, a showdown in The Land of the Rising Sun. Home MotoGP track for Suzuki, Honda and Yamaha; much face at stake. Two samurai riders, Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso and Honda’s Marc Marquez, expecting to go one-on-one for a title so close Marquez can smell it. Much too early in the season for all this. Elsewhere, Yamaha will be watched closely for continuing progress from their recent knees-up in Thailand, or will it be back to the drawing board again?

Today, we arrive at the end of Motorcycle.com’s award season. Up to this point, we’ve named motorcycles in nine separate categories, the very best bikes that each class has to offer. The Motorcycle of the Year draws upon these winners and then looks deeper for the selection of the motorcycle that not only beat its direct competitors, but also embodies that special something that points to the road ahead for motorcycling as a whole. The 2018 Motorcycle.com Motorcycle of the Year does just that. The 2018 Ducati Panigale V4 S is a special motorcycle – one that simultaneously defines the current two-wheeled state-of-the-art while also expanding what we can expect from motorcycles in the future regarding the role technology will play.

In a race he really didn’t need to win, on a day he might have preferred sitting in an air-conditioned hotel suite ordering room service and watching Ozzie & Harriet reruns, Marc Marquez dismissed his main MotoGP title challenger without so much as a “by your leave.” Turning the tables on Andrea Dovizioso in a final turn cutback, Marquez now has a magic number as the Pacific Flyaway beckons. Otherwise, the inaugural Grand Prix of Thailand was a smashing success all around.

From the moment that the 2018 Honda Gold Wing Tour was only a product of the rumor mill, we knew that it was going to be a big deal. After all, how many manufacturers can claim to have a model in continuous production for 43 years? This also means that there was tremendous pressure on Honda to make sure that the newest Wing had the proper acknowledgement of the model’s storied past while still being a radical enough update to carry the bike into the future. We here at Motorcycle.com think that Honda succeeded.

The 2018 MotoGP season grinds on, a feeling of inevitability having settled over the grid. Marc Marquez will secure his fifth premier class world championship on the Pacific swing, followed by some locally-themed, over-the-top celebration prepared in advance. He has guys for that. Meanwhile, the rest of the grid is flailing away at a top-something finish; in the higher tranches, that would be top three. In the lower tranches, perhaps top ten. What can one say? It’s The Marquez Era.

With the motorcycle industry collected in Cologne, Germany, for Intermot, Honda made the surprise decision to present its latest Neo Sports Café concept at a car show in France on the same day. Debuting at the 2018 Paris Motor Show, the CB650F-based concept follows in Honda’s new styling language for naked bikes established last year by the CB1000R, CB300R and CB125R.

Hot on the heels of our 2018 Big-Bore Adventure Touring Shootout, where the KTM 1290 Super Adventure R took the top spot in our dirt portion and third in our street test, we’ve chosen the KTM 1290 Super Adventure R as our Best Adventure Motorcycle of 2018.

All I remember was walking down the street in Long Beach, CA, minding my own business when I heard it. Was that the sound of an irate primate? Living in Long Beach for a few years now, between the cacophonous flocks of bright green parrots and unmistakable roar of Indy cars once a year, the sound didn’t concern me, that was until I felt a heavy blow to the back of my head.

Honda has teased another Neo Sports Café motorcycle on its social media channels, with many speculating it will be a new CB650R model featuring the company’s current retro-modern styling for naked bikes.

By now, hopefully you’ve already read our street installation of this two-part test. If not, STOP! Please do check it out because it outlines and dissects each and every bike in great detail, and it very well might answer a slew of questions you might have that aren’t addressed here, in the off-road portion of the shootout.

Since Sachsenring, Marc Marquez had grown weary hearing about how great the Ducati is, how great Andrea Dovizioso and Jorge Lorenzo are, how they’ve been making a chump out of him since August. Marc Marquez, despite his calm exterior, is a fiercely competitive young man. Today, with no pressure and no real incentive other than pride, he went out and beat Dovizioso in front of his home fans, assuring them that he may be many things, but one of them is not a chump.

Mid-September and it’s come down to this, for the handful of riders (other than Marc Marquez) entertaining increasingly unlikely notions of winning the 2018 title. For the remainder of the season, it’s win or bin. No more brave smiles from the second step of the podium. In the lasting words of the late Roy Orbison, “It’s Now or Never.” Unless you get stoked finishing, you know, second, or third.

Lo and behold, and thank frickin’ God, the 2019 Honda CRF450L is finally here. Every so often, a new motorcycle will come out, and it’ll shake things up and get people thinking. Perhaps it’ll make them see motorcycles in a different light, change their minds about them, or even convince them that, maybe owning a motorcycle could be awesome… Ain’t that just the craziest idea?