Saw the new Honda Rune yesterday, it was really nice.

Went to a "riders" show, motorcycles, ATV's, Rock-Crawlers, car audio and a few other booths. No Honda. I was surprised. My son-in-law had two booths. He told me that by the time Honda was invited or responded, don't know which, there was not enough room for Honda to put on a decent representation of Honda.

I mostly went with hopes to see the Rune. One was out front when we left and the owner was talking to some people having it customized. Looked pretty customized all ready.

Beautiful motorcycle.

Sorry to post a “non ATV” topic.

 

What is the "Rune"?

 

That is the limited production run street custom built by Honda this year.

We got one about 3 months ago. Finally sold this past Saturday for a whopping 24G out the door.

 

Its a "custom" bike Honda built. Only one for every dealer. They built it from a concept bike they used to haul around to bike shows. It always drew a crowd so Honda made some just to see if they could. Big loss of money on every bike. Design engineers actuall took the drivers seat over the mechanical engineers, a first for Honda.

See one at Hondas web site. honda.com Got to Motorcycles, cruiser, Valkyrie Rune.

The chrome wheel option is $2500. They say they go through like 10 wheels before one is good enough to pass inspection. Picky, picky, picky.

 

Oh, ok. I saw one of those at a Honda Dealer just north of here. I was looking at rincons. It was a slick bike, some kind of purple/burgandy color. Thats a lot of cash though.

 

My dealer, Galveston Honda, has two of the Runes. I checked them out and liked the color of the bike and everything from the seat backward. But, from the motor forward they are the most butt ugly bikes I've ever seen. The headlight is awfull ugly. Whoever designed it should be shot. The motor don't look half bad. But, it is so huge that it overwhelms the look of the bike. The first thing you see when you look at the bike is the motor. It is a freaking monster of a motor. The bike felt top heavy to me as well. They wouldn't let me test ride it and they told me to get off of it, the rude ba$tards. The bike as large as it is doesn't appear to me to be very practical as a daily driver. Folks who are going to be purchasing the Rune will more than likely be rich and have nothing else better to spend their money on. They'll be fair weather riders who will ride it to the bars of their choice to show it off and then they'll attempt to ride it home after drinking to many alcoholic beverages. If they make it home they'll put it their garage until the next weekend with good weather.

The bike does look like some engineer did spend a lot of time trying to design it though. Too bad they missed the mark and ended with such an atrocity.

 

Tell us what you really feel. Stop holding out on us......

I think it is a gorgeous bike, but you are probably right about the rich guy thing. Wish I had the money to throw at one.
JP

 

We've sold one, have one in the crate and one on the floor. They're not exactly flying out the door. The guy that bought it wouldn't let anybody ride it and plans on storing it (he thinks it'll be worth something). He has a hip problem and don't think he can ride it anyway. I hate to admit it, but I tend to agree with MartyLey, I can't get past the front end of the thing. It does have some nice pieces on it. I'm not looking forward to working on one at all.

 

lol dzzy.
I hear ya on that one.

The parts side of it isn't much better. For EVERY part that I order (if I ever have to) I have to send in the VIN number and Owner information to Honda before they will ship me anything. They are even going to take it a step further and call the customer to verify that the parts need ordering!!

From this, I gather that Honda doesn't want people even trying to duplicate the Rune's look.

I found all this out when a guy building a custom bike wanted me to order a fuel tank for a Rune. It was $1600.00 and the guy didn't care. When I processed the order, I got a fax about 2 hours later from Honda wanting all this information. Needless to say, the guy didn't get his fuel tank. I was unaware of this ordering procedure until that time.

Hope you have better luck on it spinning the wrenches

Patrick

 

Too weird Knowsalot. I knew Honda was a little paranoid but that's over the top. I've fixed plenty of crashed bikes on insurance claims and I'm not shocked at the price but the ordering procedure is downright military. Our parts manager has been with Honda 25 years and I can't wait to tell him about that one cause I bet he's never heard of such a thing.