The Bore-net 1000

The Honda Hornet 1000 has finally landed! And if this were 2006, we would be absolutely blown away right now. But it isn’t, and we aren’t.

The Hornet 1000

The Hornet was announced just before, and displayed at, last year’s EICMA event. It only took the tiny, shed-based Japanese manufacturer about a year to finally bring the bike from show to the showrooms.

The not-really-news-anymore of the Hornet was received online by a pack of people chanting “bang-for-buck!” over and over again. Which is accurate enough, since you could own this entire 150hp, 1000cc naked bike for as little as €12.000 in the Netherlands, or £8.999 in the UK. The United States believe litres are unconstitutional and therefore will be excluded.

With the drop of this motorcycle, Honda engages the competition head on with a brand new, beautifully designed, powerful, affordable supernaked.

Then What On Earth Could Be The Problem?

Well, the problem would be that pretty much every word in the previous sentence deserves an asterisk. With that said, here we go.

Brand New*

The Hornet’s powerplant is described as the ‘2017 Fireblade engine’. Which is a really friendly way of saying the engine is the same as the 08 ‘Blade, and that is a really friendly way of saying it is 17 years old at this point. Take a minute to let that roll around your noggin. Roughly half the Red Bull Rookies Cup riders hadn’t been born when this engine was first available in showrooms. They’re out there right now, tearing up Grand Prix tracks. Honestly, it’s like Honda is out there peddling Motorola flip phones.

Powerful*

Yes, a hundred and fifty horsepower is bucketsfull of plenty on a nakedbike. It always has been and it always will be. So maybe the decision to not use the 214 horsepower ‘24 Fireblade engine makes sense. We just really cannot see how. Any other company just detunes the thing and calls it a day. Why would you not just use your current engine for your current motorcycle? Can it really be that much more economical to start rebuilding outdated engines rather than to use the one you have already been making for the past five years?

Then comes the kicker. Even this old Fireblade power plant has still been thoroughly detuned. In the mid two thousands this engine put out 175hp and 115Nm. All while bolted to a lighter chassis. The Hornet has to make due with 104Nm, which is only found higher up the rev range. Yeah, we don’t know why you would want that either.

Supernakeds* and the Competition*

Maybe Honda just strongly feels that 175hp is too much for a road legal naked bike. Could be. Annoyingly, nobody else seems to believe so.

All other supernakeds are simply on another level in terms of performance. The Speed Triple, the Tuono, the Streetfighter, the Superduke and the Brutale would all murder it on sight. Even the Suzuki GSX-S1000 could end up giving the Hornet a bloody nose. And we had to look up on Google if Suzuki was still building motorcycles…

To get around this issue, the company has simply stated that the Hornet is not a supernaked. It is just a lowly mid range naked bike. That statement pushes the bike into the arena with MT09s and Street Triples. Sorry not sorry, but that is some bullshit. Imagine Mike Tyson saying that he’s not a professional boxer anymore. He’s too old, you see. But boy, does he enjoy spending his days beating the ever-loving shit out of teenage amateurs at the local gym.

For a company with such a rich history in competition, they sure go through a lot of trouble trying to avoid any…

Beautifully designed*

It isn’t.

It looks as if someone asked AI to draw up the designs. Many have already cried out that the Hornet is a lacklustre mashup of an early Kawa z1000 and a Ducati Streetfighter. Only with the Streetfighter headlight now sporting a black plastic unicorn horn, because Honda decided to just plonk the dash right on top of it. Where else are you going to put it, right? We’re not even going to get into the teeny tiny screen with its three inch wide black edges.

The uninspired looks are not the biggest of its problems though. In all honesty, it does not even look half bad. Just utterly boring. No, the real problem is that Honda is on the whole, once again, phoning it in (on a Motorola flip phone, presumably).

Affordable*

It is that, and impressively so. At not even second-hand Tuono or Superduke money, we can’t see why that rational man or woman would not just get one. Really, not many other options come remotely close to the bang-for-buck that this bike delivers.

But is this really what you want from Honda? It is? For the world’s biggest motorcycle manufacturer to have to resort to the tactics of a Chinese startup to try to trick us into thinking their new bike is interesting?
“You won’t believe the price!”
Yeah, great. But how about you attempt to be class leading again for once? I bet you could still do it on a budget if you wanted to. You are Honda!

So, What’s Left To Like Then?

Getting back to our sentence at the start of this love letter, and leaving out all aforementioned untruths, what’s left is this; Honda has released an affordable bike.

And that, they really have. If you are in the market for a bike, this is certainly a bike. But ask yourself, would you get hyped if you found out Toyota had released a new Corolla? Because that is pretty much what this is.