Total Motorcycle Community Forums

viewtopic.php?f=32&t=17862

A quick short scroll on your mouse and you will see Doc's Valkyrie.

I'll say cool. It's too damn big to be awesome in my books but I can see it working for some. And yes, that is a nice blue. But does it come in red?

Playing devil's advocate here, but you have to pity the poor cruiser designer. Out of all the motorcycle categories, it can be argued that cruisers have the strictest "rules" about what and what isn't acceptable/appropriate/beautiful.

That said, I can't say I like this bike either. You have to give it to Honda for trying something different, and this is a much braver and distinct effort than the original Valkyrie. But I wish they tried putting this sublime engine in an open-class standard, or maybe even a sport tourer.

I'm a fan of the Honda, my Shadow has been everything I have needed it to be, performance, reliability, price tag and looks. At least once a week, my wonderful husband JackoftheGreen or one of our friends that ride tell me their dream bike and ask me if I have found mine yet. Each time I repeat myself and say, 'Nope, I just want my bike with a bigger engine, but I don't want it enough to spare the expense.' A good look at this bike, while it's not my dream bike, could be a fitting answer. Although I've been a motorcycle rider for more than half of my lifetime, I am new to the street bike scene. As a new generation street rider, I'm also a fan of the new generation look. Malcolm Smith is my hero, but I don't want to purchase a retro looking bike that makes me sing 'On Any Sunday' every time I climb into the saddle. This bike has everything I need, while the pillion doesn't look very comfortable for an adult, my passengers consist of one of our 3 children, all under the age of 12, it would certainly accommodate their tiny tushes. I can load this bike up with camping gear and follow 'Jack' to our weekend warrior adventure, I can bring my lunchbag and current projects to work everyday without compromising the look of the bike, like I would on a say a Ninja or a Victory 8-Ball, and I can just hop on and go canyon carving for an afternoon ride and it will do it all and put a smile on my face. Awesome...

AAAARRRRGGGHHHH now I got an earworm Thanks that Any Sunday tune will be stuck there all night

That was fun to watch.

After a week of thinking about the new Valkyrie, I give it a: Uncool.

I thought about this when I was at a Honda motorcycle dealership 2 days ago looking at their 2014 Gold Wing and 2014 F6B. While I really understand the Wing, the F6B idea was always kinda fuzzy to me, now the new Valkyrie is even more fuzzier. Honda's calling the new Valk a "hot rod", but other than the SIZE of the engine, there isn't much hot rod about it, maybe even Honda is confused.

What I came up with to turn the new Valkyrie (for me at least) from an Uncool to an Awesome was it needed that "old Valk" design idea, big engine, horsepower, less plastic and more "naked", so I thought what Honda really needs to do is put the VFR1200 V4 engine in there, get rid of the massive radiators the Gold Wing engine needs, dump the Gold Wing plastic and adopt a frame that wasn't meant to be hidden.

I guess in the end it would be more a Honda Saber V65 or Honda Magna, but to me, that's kinda where the Valk's idea came from.

Now back to the new Valk as I don't think Honda will change it next year...

When I first saw it I thought of a "bathtub" as it's so low and incredibly wide that, to me, it looks like I'm riding in a bathtub, I really don't like the vast expanse of plastic nor how the "shoulders" of the bike are so high (thanks so the rads). I DO VERY MUCH LIKE the idea of stripping down a Gold Wing to make it a "naked bike" by chucking hundreds of pounds of extra weight but sadly, all that was chucked was a 150lbs off a 904lb+ bike. Making this naked a 754lb motorcycle! I'm sure it could have been a 630lb bike with a V4 in it. BTW, the V4 Magna weighed in at 504lbs.

Back to the Valk's Good points... The price is actually pretty fair and I think the designers really did a great job with what they had to work with. I actually reminds me a lot of the Suzuki B-King more than the Gold Wing. Thus I won't give it a fail and I'm happy to see Honda keep trying new ideas each year, that it self awesome even if we all can't agree what is a good idea (CB1100) or a bad idea (CTX1300).

So, it's just uncool for me, which is like a "meh" but hey, there isn't a "meh" option so...

Oh, I just want to add, I like what Jack said:

JackoftheGreen wrote:Maybe it's because I come from a younger generation, but not having a sense of nostalgia for the Valkyrie nameplate means I can appreciate this bike for what it IS rather than what it's CALLED.

Mike

2014 Honda Valkyrie GL1800CA ABS - Coolness Factor = 56.5%
Featured: February 14th, 2014 - February 21st, 2014
Most popular vote category: Awesome


Motorcycle Cool Wall discussion: viewtopic.php?f=61&t=48843
Total Motorcycle model page: http://www.totalmotorcycle.com/motorcyc ... CA-ABS.htm

Your Coolness Factor of the 2014 Honda Valkyrie GL1800CA ABS is:

Awesome (3 points) 33% [ 12 ]
Cool (2 points) 19% [ 7 ]
Uncool (1 point) 31% [ 11 ]
Fail (0 point) 17% [ 6 ]

Total votes : 36

= a Coolwall Factor of 56.5%

NOTES: Very mixed results for the new Valkyrie from Honda with riders all over the map liking or disliking it. One thing is for sure, it isn't the old Valkyrie just like the Honda Sabre isn't the old Sabre. Should Honda have called it something different? Should they have went a different direction for a new Valk? One thing I personally can say is that I'm excited Honda is not afraid to bring out new bikes each year and that in my books is pretty darn awesome.


Next 2014 TMW Cool Wall bike is now up for voting on, have fun!!

Really wanted to like this bike ......very excited to hear it coming . Honda had some super cool muscle bike show bike concept that would have been AWESOME ......but no. We got this.

Really disappointed......bummer

And to think, they could have made this:
http://www.google.ca/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=& ... 5877825499