Valheru Rides!

I think a lot of folk think I dislike the Honda H’ness (a.k.a CB or GB350) but frankly absolutely nothing could be further from the truth at all. Since it’s unveiling in September 2020 I have many times on social media listed it as one of the motorcycles I would most like to see in the UK. We had to wait 5 years for it, but it finally touched down this year and to be honest despite my initial excitement, I’m feeling pretty luke warm. Not for the bike itself, but for Honda yet again treating Europe with the usual contemptuous shrug and giving us a practically half arsed offering.

Not only do we get a horrifically limited selection of colours between black, grey and wait for it….a shade of blue which also looks grey. We’ve not even been treated to the full range of the H’ness, with no RS or any of the slightly copycat Classic Signals style twin seat variants.

While it might scream of a higher level of homework copying than Temu, adjusting my ‘Laybands’ so they don’t fall off and hit my ‘Wolex’ watch here, Honda also positioned the price higher than a lot of the Royal Enfield with less features! Great news for us as it means RE will probably keep the price static to avoid folk being tempted, and for those of us who fancy a second J platform (because why not?) it’s a chicken dinner.

The biggest shame though, was Honda not giving Europeans the option to purchase the accessory packs that have been seen so ubiquitously in India and Japan.

The 4 main varieties might not offer anything totally game changing in themselves, but we all know owners of bikes in that segment love to customise anyway, and with the versatile platform that is the H’ness, just why not eh?

Also can we just look at that gorgeous blue colour scheme with the cafe racer pack again…..

Even if that isn’t your preferred style of bike, you can’t help but gaze at that longingly. I’d have one!!!!!!

So no, I don’t have any form of dislike for the H’ness, I just have a certain level of disappointment in Honda for the way it has yet again neglected the market.

But what’s your take?