2010 Honda VFR1200 Spy Shots Leaked

Whitey - VFR  August 13, 2009 01:01 PM
Let see some hard facts about this bike before we start rubbishing a possible great bike, I wonder how many of us have rubbished the majority of bikes just for them to come out totally different and now we ride them.
It is meant to be on show at the end of the year at a motor show that is unknown.
Until then anything that is said about the bike is pure crap.
Heres a rumour haha its a CBR1200 200hp Blackbird just when you thought it was going to be a VFR.
and they have seem to have stuck parts from the CBR1000 spec5 to them spy pics that are circulating.
I Agree with 929 Honda seems to be losing its edge or are they taking the next step towards the future for Hondas sake i hope they do not screw it up.

Barbarian - Why would anyone bash this??????  July 9, 2009 01:23 PM
What sense does it make to bash this? The front end is odd because it is designed for function, not form. The lower part of the windscreen, at the headlight level, is sloped down so that air that strikes at that level will divert into the air scoops, not up over the fairing where it will increase the amount of turbulence. Turbulence will be further reduced by virtue of the vent, which will allow a substantial portion of the air that hits just above the headlight to reach the backside of the fairing through that vent rather than around the edge of the fairing. It could prove to be the best fairing ever put on a production bike, from a functional standpoint. The air that enters the scoops will possibly be vented in a manner that it, rather than the heated air flowing from the radiator, blows onto the rider's legs. If MCN's latest claims are to be believed, the engine will be very novel, particularly as regards the arrangement of the cylinders on the crankshaft. With conventional V and horizontally-opposed engines, the cylinders from the two banks alternate along the crankshaft. This results in a staggered effect, i.e., the two banks are slightly offset from each other. This is readily noticeable on any boxer engine if you look down from the top. Harley engines are an exception because they use that special forked connecting rod on one of the pistons, which allows the two cylinders to be aligned one directly in front of the other, instead of the slight offset that you see with other V-twins. According to MCN, which finally seems to have some reliable information on this bike after years of wild speculation, the two center-most crank position belong to the two cylinders of the rear bank, and the two outer-most crank positions belong to the two cylinders of the front bank. If this is correct, it is truly radical. There will be a gap between the two front cylinders, and it will be interesting to see if this will be apparent when looking at the cylinder block, in which case it begs the question of whether something else, horns maybe, will use that space, or whether the cylinder block will be flat across the front with the empty space contained inside the block, in which case the interesting question will be whether and how that space is used within the block. The advantage to this, which is noted by MCN, is that the bike will be more narrow at the rear. Those two cylinders would be spaced closely to each other anyway, but difference is that ordinarily these two cylinders would be shifted slightly to one side of center, which increases the width in the area of the rider's knees by a few inches. So this arrangement will make an appreciable difference in the width of the bike in this area. Beyond that, this arrangement will eliminate the rocking motion of the engine that is endemic to V and horizontally-opposed engines (Harley excluded), i.e., the type of vibrational motion that resembles a twirling baton, except that it only goes a very short distance in a very short amount of time before reversing direction. In-line 6-cylinder and 4-cylinder engines do not exhibit that sort of rocking vibration, and neither do in-line twins as long as both pistons move up and down in unison, however in-line twins exhibit a pronounced up-down vibration in lieu of rocking, and in-line 4-cylinder engines exhibit a similar sort of vibration owing to the fact that the speed of the two pistons moving up - which may be either the two in the middle or the two at the ends - is generally not the same as the speed of the two cylinders moving down. The pair furthest from the crank move faster, whether moving up or down, and the direction of the motion of the aggregate piston moves changes direction twice as frequently as it does with an in-line twin. In-line 6-cylinder engines avoid this sort of vibration as well. A 4-cylinder engine would be perfectly balanced if arranged similar to an in-line 4 except with the two middle cylinders swung around 180 degrees opposite of the two outer cylinders. This is sort of what Honda has done here, except they have only swung the two middle cylinders 90 degrees relative to the outer pair. As such, it will not have the sort of inherent balance that an in-line 6-cylinder engine has, unless they have used a balancer. But I expect that they have used a balancer nestled into the vee, and that with the help of that balancer, this engine will be nearly as smooth as an in-line 6-cylinder engine. It could well turn out to be the smoothest engine ever put in a production motorcycle. So there is lots to anticipate here. You can't really tell from the photo, but the swingarm looks like it might be a trapezoidal swingarm similar to Paralever and Tetralever, except with the rear pivot of the upper arm contained within the hub housing and the main, lower arm, although if so, the upper arm has to exit from the main arm at the front in order to mount via a pivot at the main chassis. The photos suggest this, but of course you can't really tell from a photo. I'm anxious to learn if this is the case. All in all, considering all that is radical or potentially radical from what we can tell at this point, why would anyone pooh-pooh this bike? If all that is potentially radical proves to be real, this will prove to be one of the most radical new motorcycles that any manufacturer has ever introduced. - The Barbarian

Dr Bob - VFR 1200  June 30, 2009 04:35 PM
Pure stylistic "shite"

Mark T - VFR  June 30, 2009 11:21 AM
As an ex-Honda fanatic, I fear kvr929rr is right. I've owned several Hondas, including a 101k mile ST1100, but I haven't had one in nearly 5 years now (currently running an FJR and a Tuono). Sadly enough, I can't think of a single Honda I'd even halfway consider buying at this point. They lost their way years ago. All that said, if the new VFR's purchase and maintenance costs are competitive with an FJR, I might be interested. Maybe. Given the high costs of current VFR valve adjustments, I seriously doubt Honda will deliver. While I'm on my soap box, here's one last tip to all manufacturers of touring and sport touring bikes: Make sure your bikes will run safely on 87 octane gas. If that means dialing back a little horsepower, that's OK. Buying premium all the time gets expensive and old. And if you like to ride in very rural areas in the midwest, Great Plains or western states, it can be tough to find 90+ octane gas. You're lucky if you can find 89.

Bruce - VFR1200  June 30, 2009 07:37 AM
Good for Honda, I'm looking forward to seeing this bike, nothing but positive seeing Honda progress

Jeff Bailey - VFR 1200 Spy Shots  June 29, 2009 06:31 PM
Ok, figured out the path to the photos. Maybe it will grow on me? haha.