Honda NC 700 X – tested by MOTORRAD readers

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Honda NC 700 X - tested by MOTORRAD readers
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Honda NC 700 X – tested by MOTORRAD readers

“Now let’s test”
Readers test the Honda NC 700 X

Honda had invited MOTORRAD to participate and 1700 readers wanted to go to Portugal to test the Honda NC 700 X. Finally eleven lucky guys went on tour.

Ralf Schneider

December 21, 2011

The weather was very pleasant, the view from the hotel terrace was wonderful, the hotel itself was a dream. But these conveniences were only incidental; they didn’t match the main thing: from arrival to departure, at the pool, while eating, at the bar there was talk about motorcycles, motorcycles discussed from all perspectives, motorcycling gestures, motorcycling lived.

The topic would have become the self-running perennial even if one hadn’t also ridden a motorcycle. But you are. A test lap of around 140 kilometers on ten NC 700 Xs, first along the Algarve coast to Cabo de São Vicente, then on winding roads northwards to lunch, which was served in an enchanting bay under the blossom of the sea – about Gottfried’s unsurpassable verse To quote Benn.

But that kind of poetry didn’t catch on. Instead, they stayed hard on the bike and talked about engine performance. “Isn’t 48 hp too much for a newcomer?” Asked Florian Vincze, who tried out the NC 700 X on behalf of his son, who was not yet 18 years old. In any case, they are not too little, stated Eberhard Janzen, who usually drives a Deauville, and asked the MOTORRAD editor why he needed the 178 hp of his Fireblade. For the racetrack and because it is nice to have it, that is the answer. “Anyone who can have a racehorse does not want to ride a donkey,” added Gerhard Bornschein, the oldest participant at 65. Janzen kept it with the donkey anyway. An inexhaustible topic had been found in the motorcycle theme and an important one for the new NC. Alex Hearns, the tour guide for the faster of the two groups, had promised “Long, sweepin bends” for the last part of the route. And so not too much.

Driven by the youngest driver in the bunch, the 21-year-old Gixxer 600 driver Phillip Steinmetz, Hearns let the NC 700 X swing through the hilly country towards the southeast. With extremely economical use of the brakes.


Honda NC 700 X - tested by MOTORRAD readers


Honda

Honda had invited to test the Honda NC 700 X..

“I like to ride in a sporty way and I would never have thought that I would like such a motorcycle as much,” said the stonemason, who is already experienced in racing, welcoming this expansion of his horizon of experience. He was particularly impressed by the feeling of always having the NC under control and by its completely different engine characteristics compared to the GSX-R 600: “So much pressure from below – unusual, but great.” From the perspective of the MOTORRAD editor noted that Deauville rider Janzen also drove quite well on this final stage.

Soya Uchida and Takanori Osuka, test engineer one and engine developer the other, both involved in the development of the NC model series, were already waiting in front of the hotel. The technicians who traveled from Japan especially for the presentation wanted to find out what their potential customers thought about the new development.

They heard a lot of praise, but also criticism of a detail that they did not expect. The tall ones among the readers bumped their heels against the passenger pegs when they tilted the inside foot on the driver peg backwards. “Is that what you do in Germany when driving on the country road?”, Uchida-San asked in disbelief, “I only ever did that while racing with my 125cc.” They explained, asked, and translated with a lot of perseverance. Even at dinner there was feedback from Japan: Before the start of series production, the passenger pegs could no longer be changed, but the criticism would be taken into account in the next update.

Before heading home the next day, the test guests were allowed to sleep longer than the Honda delegation and the editor. It is therefore not known what they talked about during the waiting times, for example between check-in and boarding. But there is a guess.

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