Well talked to my buddy at honda and the big rumor he has heard is they are comming out with a TRX650EX as well as the liquid cooled bikes.. The dealers meeting is being held Sept 11th here in Vegas but there was nothing about a supercross track but you never know..

 

With the prices of Sport/High Performance quads getting in the $7000-$8000 dollar range. It makes a guy think of what other options he has.

Laeger/Roll/LoneStar frame - $2000-2500
2-stroke engine(mods?) - $1500-3000
Suspension - $1500-2500
A-arms/swing-arm/axle - $1200-2200
----------
$6200-10200

Most of the other parts can be salvaged off of your current ride. Makes a guy think of what he can have/do with that kind of money.....

Maybe I'm just dreaming......

 

Good point Chris.

 

I JUST PICKED UP MY 2001 400EX ABOUT 1 MONTH AGO AND WHEN I WENT DOWN TO GET I WAS THINKING IN A FEW MONTHS OR SO THEY WILL MAKE A 650... WELL I GUESS WE WILL JUST HAVE TO WAIT AND SEE.

 

Honda is NOT going to be coming out wioth any high performance bikes anyt time soon. Why would they? The 400Ex is one of the best on the market, most would say because it is lacking power when going up against the compettion, but they didnt throw a Cr500 motor into a quad when suzuki came out with the Quadzilla. Honda is based on handeling and not power. For now atleast. I think they are more woried about there 4X4's.

 

chris:

I totally agree...

besides... it only takes 1 person to start a rumor....

 

Bombadier came out with a 650, but the last MX that I went to, two Bombadiers showed and both got beat real bad by the 400Ex's in the 4 stroke class. If it would have just been one bike, I would have said it was the rider, but both got blown away real bad! CC's aren't everything & Honda has a knack for striking a good balance between power, weight & handling. I wouldn't be selling my 400EX yet (if I had one) - it might still be king of the 4 strokes for a long time to come.

 

I think Yamaha may have it the nail on the head with the Raptor though, in a recent issue of Inside Motorcycle (Canadian magazine) they did a short test of a raptor at a mx course and it did very well, they had a 250R there that was first in points for the Canadian nationals and the Raptor held it's own with the 250R. The rider of the 250R said he could take the Raptor and be competitive, that's not too bad. I'm not going to but one but I hope a lot of people do so we can see more high performance models for other manufactures such as Suzuki and Polaris (manual shift/clutch I hope).

 

It could be true, but probably not. yamaha had a top selling quad on the market and they still came out with a better one

 

I guess we'll see in due time. The next year looks very interesting. Honda is very good at keeping things under wraps - for instance, everyone in the dirtbike world knows that they are hard at work on a high performance 400-500cc thumper to compete with the YZF, that will probably be announced on the 11th, but there are no details anywhere of this bike (only some very cheezy photos of a "possible" prototype in a European magazine)....

Keep in mind also that when the DS650 came out the mags were testing it against hopped up 400EXs, 250Rs, and custom bikes at a track, they were saying that it would hold it's own. We all know the real truth now after numerous people have seen them show up at the track, they're a straight line desert racer that's comparable to a slightly modded Banshee, not an MX or CC machine....