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Honda Fury Bike

Honda has added a chopper to it’s line-up.  This isn’t a custom bike like some of it’s other offerings, and it isn’t a heavy looking wannabe chopper based on some cross over frame/engine they happened to have around.  It is a visually light weight bike done in the chopper style.  Whether it is a chopper or not is to be debated, as is if it is a decent bike.

Slice and dice.

What makes a chopper?  Well, getting a bike and chopping off all the unnecessary bits will do it for you.  A factory built chopper?  Making it look like all the bits were chopped off, but leaving enough to keep it certifiable and their lawyers happy.  So here is the Honda Fury, or Furry… It is a Honda after all so the soft fuzzy ‘you meet nicer people on a Honda’ theme is here…  It does look right… big open triangle bordered between the gas tank, top of the engine and the front down tube…. 21″ front tyre tied in with a small… ish… fender.  Slightly longer forks… forward controls and a decent reach to the bars combined with low seat give this bike the right look.  Given that it is a Honda, I would imagine, actually I don’t have to imagine, it will run every time you hit the start button, and will continue to do so with no fail.  It won’t shake it’s self to bits as you ride and you won’t scorch your tenders riding on hot days in traffic.

The good the bad and the not so ugly.

It has a 1312cc engine, or 1.3Litres!… I didn’t expect that looking at the pictures.  It also has a shaft drive and a tiny 200 series rear tyre. Shaft drives have a habit of lifting the rear of the bike under acceleration unlike chain or belt which hunker down.  My Goldwing was a nightmare for this.  Given Honda’s tradition of making motors with more horse power than torque, a 200 series tyre isn’t going to give you lots of room to play.  You are going to be spending lots of time feathering the throttle in rain or on cooler days or you might find yourself spinning around faster than a 78.  I’m also figuring that as a Honda this bike will weigh in the neighbourhood of 550lbs so don’t figure on the bikes weight helping to keep the wheel planted.  Another consideration, that front end is gong to wander… sure the first few months, year or so it will be fine, but give it 10,000km and things will start to soften up and with a 21″ front wheel get ready for walkabout.  The assumed light weight of the bike and given the aluminium rim up front you may not notice too much.

The design, as per Honda’s standard fare.  Clean, precise and penned to make everyone find something they like.  You can’t help but like this form, unless you are a a firm sport bike rider or Harley owner.  As part of the second group, and being a designer, I will say I like the bikes form but wouldn’t buy one.

After the rain.

What you won’t do is find loads of after market parts to help you differentiate yourself from every other Fury rider.  According to the web site, Honda does have a set of factory accessories but no link to them yet.  Given their penchant for doing things complete, they probably already have deals with some after market manufacturers as well so there is little if any overlap in offerings.  I’m sure like everything Honda, they will fit first time, come with all the parts and be weakly chromed or anodized just enough to get you out of the shop.

Cool as …

Just taking a look at their web site gives an interesting picture of their research for the release of this bike.  Right on the front page, they have a Share The Fury button which is an Add This link.  If you don’t know, Add This lets you add a web page with one click to friends through email, Facebook, digg, myspace del.icio.us etc.  They also have quick links to a Facebook group, youTube and flicker videos, myspace page and even a twitter link.  Big ups for marketing in the viral world of 2.0.

The end is nigh.

I would have liked this package, the bike, web site, 2.0 marketing much better had they made this a three bike lineup.  Entry, intermediate and showoff…  I really think that a 400cc entry version would have made a better option for the crowd they are targeting through the social networking.  There just aren’t enough cool looking, easy to ride and afford real bikes available to new riders.  A nice 900cc intermediate and then the 1300cc version.