It pulls hard and has decent
top end, which gets it to the
ground well and drives the Honda
forward with real enthusiasm
for effortless tight single track work. It does not
have a launch control button and to be honest
without doing hundreds of accurately timed starts,
with and without one to compare, I’m hard pressed
to say whether this is and failing or not. But make
no mistake, this is a fast and rideable engine and
certainly at or near the top of the class for 2018 MX.
Handling on 2018 Honda is excellent. It has the
best turn-in feel in the business – it’s sharp, accurate
and inspires confidence. Once in the turn, it is solid
and planted, but perhaps not as manoeuvrable as
44KIWI RIDER
the chassis of the 2016 CRF. Overall though, it’s an
outstanding handler with great chassis balance and
is genuinely tricky to fault. A better man to ask is ex-
World MX2 Champion Ben ‘BT’ Townley. So we did.
Check the boxout for his thoughts on the new bike.
I was very happy with the suspension action. You
may think the spring specs indicate a rock hard
beast that will beat you to death, but I found the
opposite was true with the bike giving a very
compliant ride, which absorbs bumps extremely
well with little harsh feedback and great