# honda?!



## doesyourchainhanglow (Sep 27, 2010)

did anyone know that honda, in 2006, made a downhill bike. take a look


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## SHIVER ME TIMBERS (Jan 12, 2004)

they had a few other designs too and then just dissapeared


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## Moosey (May 18, 2010)

Yea, i think that Minaar used to ride for them didn't he?


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## mykel (Jul 31, 2006)

...seems to ring a bell...

michael


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## shiggy (Dec 19, 1998)

doesyourchainhanglow said:


> did anyone know that honda, in 2006, made a downhill bike. take a look


Yup. Ran a World Cup team for severest seasons. Never intended to sell bikes and when the program ended reportedly all the bikes were crushed.


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## doesyourchainhanglow (Sep 27, 2010)

ya thats what im hearing also


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## neverwalk (May 14, 2005)

Minaar, Lehikoinen, and Fairclough (later) all rode for that team.
Minaar won the World Cup Overall in '05 on the Honda,
The Team took the Overall Team title in '06 and '07, frequently putting two riders on the podium and top ten.
The whole thing was an "Engineering Exercise" for Honda, designing an internal gear box, using Showa forks, and generally spanking most other brands collective butts.
They never intended to mass produce or sell the bikes.
Once they got tired of it, they supposedly crushed all the bikes, except for one which lives in Minaar's shop in S.A. which supposedly has an empty gear box. One somehow showed up on ebay or someplace last year I think.
Pretty remarkable to see what the "moto" guys could do to gravity sports when they feel like it.


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## doesyourchainhanglow (Sep 27, 2010)

neverwalk said:


> Minaar, Lehikoinen, and Fairclough (later) all rode for that team.
> Minaar won the World Cup Overall in '05 on the Honda,
> The Team took the Overall Team title in '06 and '07, frequently putting two riders on the podium and top ten.
> The whole thing was an "Engineering Exercise" for Honda, designing an internal gear box, using Showa forks, and generally spanking most other brands collective butts.
> ...


ya hear is a vid of them


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## LonesomeCowboyBert (Apr 11, 2008)

doesyourchainhanglow said:


> did anyone know that honda, in 2006, made a downhill bike. take a look


No, of course not.........

...Its a good thing that we have you to point this stuff out


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## Calles (May 25, 2010)

LonesomeCowboyBert said:


> No, of course not.........
> 
> ...Its a good thing that we have you to point this stuff out


What a bummer... I was thinking I was going to get all the way to the bottom of this thread without someone posting an ******* comment. Lonesome proved me wrong. :madman:


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## Fix the Spade (Aug 4, 2008)

They rolled in, spent their way to the top, then started ignoring the experts they'd hired, stagnated, then when they couldn't win _everything_ they entered they buggered off, canned the team and crushed the bikes with seemingly no warning...
...Leaving the rest of the world scratching it's head wondering what they brought to mountain biking and what they got out of it, having never made nor sold production models.

Typical Honda behaviour really.

Less cynically, they did bring a level of professionalism to the sport that had slipped after Vouilloz retired. Their rolling up and winning first time seemed to make a lot of teams step back and look at the way they went about racing, especially in terms of bike design. Rumour has it a lot of the stuff they and Showa learned ended up in Honda Trials bikes, which would make sense, the RN-01 always did look a lot like a trials frame.


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## LonesomeCowboyBert (Apr 11, 2008)

Hehe, Fair comment ,Im of the opinion that a little sarcasm never harmed anyone and you must admit taken at face value its a bloody daft Question ( OK, it probably wasnt meant as question strictly speaking, but it was certainly written in the form of one)
I honestly dont get this modern trend of not having a poke at people when they say stupid stuff, its like the whole "no kid can be allowed to fail" thing. (even if they actually did just that)
people say/do stupid stuff all the time, I reserve my right to laugh when they do and respect your right to do the same


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## William42 (Oct 29, 2006)

I donno why everybody says they got crushed, honda didn't crush them, minnaar still has his, and you see them testing with various companies occasionally


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## Ozmanick (Oct 19, 2010)

Seen it about a year ago, apparently it was going to be sold to the public for a wait........66,000 GRAND!!!!!!!!! But for some reason they decided against it and yeah....


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## jcook1989 (Mar 16, 2008)

Ozmanick said:


> 66,000 GRAND!!!!!!!!


That's 66 million dollars.


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## Dynamatt (Oct 14, 2007)

There has been a bike or two spotted very recently. Vital covered it i'll see if i can find a link


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## Ozmanick (Oct 19, 2010)

hahahahhaha woops, i mean sixty six thousand dollars


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## Moosey (May 18, 2010)

*Kawasaki!!!!*

Hey, Bet ya'll didn't know this, but Kawasaki also has a killer line of bikes out now including this full suspension DH bike.









OH YEA! :thumbsup:

I bet they're gunne be contenders for the podium during WC

Heres a full line of their bikes

http://www.sportsauthority.com/fami...Brand&f=Brand/90324/&fbc=1&fbn=Brand|Kawasaki


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## Ozmanick (Oct 19, 2010)

oh yeah. i could shred on that thing. Is it me or does it look like it's got front discs and cantilever brake????


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## Ozmanick (Oct 19, 2010)

Double post :nono:


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## doesyourchainhanglow (Sep 27, 2010)

Calles said:


> What a bummer... I was thinking I was going to get all the way to the bottom of this thread without someone posting an ******* comment. Lonesome proved me wrong. :madman:


effin plus 1


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## doesyourchainhanglow (Sep 27, 2010)

Moosey said:


> Hey, Bet ya'll didn't know this, but Kawasaki also has a killer line of bikes out now including this full suspension DH bike.
> 
> View attachment 576907
> 
> ...


hahaha whats with the disc front rim and pad back rim?:nono: :skep: :eekster:


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## liqwid (Jan 2, 2007)

doesyourchainhanglow said:


> hahaha whats with the disc front rim and pad back rim?:nono: :skep: :eekster:


for trials, duh


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## b-kul (Sep 20, 2009)

doesyourchainhanglow said:


> hahaha whats with the disc front rim and pad back rim?:nono: :skep: :eekster:


thats how the pros run it. if you stopped focusing on past honda bikes and started paying attention to current wc races you would know.


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## Monkey #3 (Oct 25, 2010)

Here's one of them...










And some specs:

The Honda RN-01 G-Cross is a mountain bike produced by Honda specifically for downhill racing events. Honda is not a manufacturer of bicycles and this bike is not commercially available to the general public. It was introduced in the 2004 racing season by the Team G Cross Honda who competed in the NORBA and Mountain Bike World Cup points series races.
What sets it apart from most other bicycles is the fact that it was developed specifically for race use by the Honda team using many purpose made components not commercially available. It is also different in that it uses an internal gearbox instead of external (dérailleur) gearing system, which although not unique to this bicycle, is quite rare. The gearbox on the RN-01 is specific because it is not a classic gearbox like the Rohloff Speedhub for instance. Inside the gearbox there is a classic derailleur, a cassette and a chainring. The freewheel is not placed on the rear wheel but in the bottom bracket so the chain is constantly moving when the back wheel is spinning. This allows the rider to shift gears without pedalling.
Honda was protective of the internal gearbox technology, often requiring mechanics to remove the gearbox from the bicycle after use.
Honda chose South African rider Greg Minnaar to début this bike in 2004 as the then reigning World Downhill Champion.
The Honda G-Cross Team has now ceased to exist and the project has come to an end - the bikes are never going to be available to the general public.

Overall Length (mm) 1,835
Overall width (mm) 695
Overall height (mm) 1,068
Wheelbase (mm) 1,155
Road Clearance (mm) 296
Weight (kg) Under 18
Frame Type Single-tube
Tire size (inch) Front 26
Rear 26
Suspension Front Telescopic
Rear Mono-sus


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## Techfreak (Feb 17, 2005)

Ozmanick said:


> Seen it about a year ago, apparently it was going to be sold to the public for a wait........66,000 GRAND!!!!!!!!! But for some reason they decided against it and yeah....


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## toowacky (May 24, 2005)

Don't forget the spotting of a Tomac bike and an RN-01 under a Honda tent at Keystone this summer, followed by a reported October trip to Japan by Tomac


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## doesyourchainhanglow (Sep 27, 2010)

okay something definitely up with tomac/honda if they were seen twice with each other.


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## Fix the Spade (Aug 4, 2008)

William42 said:


> I donno why everybody says they got crushed, honda didn't crush them, minnaar still has his, and you see them testing with various companies occasionally


Honda racing division crushes every prototype they make, from bikes to Formula 1 engines once it's finished with they destroy it to prevent them getting sold on to rivals. They stated the bikes would likely be crushed in the G-Cross team's closing press release.

Usually a few survive though, one will be in the Honda museum, at least one will have been kept for future testing and to farm out to other companies for (supervised) testing (for a price), Minnar has a gutted one as noted previously. Plus two got stolen minus the gear boxes, so they're still floating about somewhere.


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## jcook1989 (Mar 16, 2008)

Gearbox cracked open.


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## adamantane (Jan 27, 2005)

neat, you can almost figure out how the device works from that video...what program can i use to make photographs of individual frames of a movie


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## his dudeness (May 9, 2007)

Ahhhh the good old days of dh.


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## Archi-Magus (Feb 22, 2010)

neverwalk said:


> Minaar, Lehikoinen, and Fairclough (later) all rode for that team.
> Minaar won the World Cup Overall in '05 on the Honda,
> The Team took the Overall Team title in '06 and '07, frequently putting two riders on the podium and top ten.
> The whole thing was an "Engineering Exercise" for Honda, designing an internal gear box, using Showa forks, and generally spanking most other brands collective butts.
> ...


WTF man? So apparently it was an amazing machine and they just stopped? That's ********!


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## Archi-Magus (Feb 22, 2010)

It really pisses me off that they seen so much success yet refused to take the project any further. I would love to ride one.


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## kubo (Sep 20, 2009)

Looks like a pretty simple design.... Makes you wonder why not more companys utilize a centrally located deraileur/ gear box combo like that one or like the discontinued Lahar.

Seems like that would solve a lot of issues with the bikes today.


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## Skidhucker (Aug 26, 2010)

kubo said:


> Looks like a pretty simple design.... Makes you wonder why not more companys utilize a centrally located deraileur/ gear box combo like that one or like the discontinued Lahar.
> 
> Seems like that would solve a lot of issues with the bikes today.


McGruber to the rescue!!! Dude, make us one!


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## k1creeker (Jul 30, 2005)

LonesomeCowboyBert said:


> Hehe, Fair comment ,Im of the opinion that a little sarcasm never harmed anyone and you must admit taken at face value its a bloody daft Question ( OK, it probably wasnt meant as question strictly speaking, but it was certainly written in the form of one)
> I honestly dont get this modern trend of not having a poke at people when they say stupid stuff, its like the whole "no kid can be allowed to fail" thing. (even if they actually did just that)
> people say/do stupid stuff all the time, I reserve my right to laugh when they do and respect your right to do the same


Just what we need, another Gonzostrike...


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## adamantane (Jan 27, 2005)

oh guys, here's the patent on this device..."Transmission apparatus for bicycle"
US Pat. 7294076 Matsumoto et al.

http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=O7iRAAAAEBAJ&dq=takeshi+yoshiaki+honda


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## Archi-Magus (Feb 22, 2010)

kubo said:


> Looks like a pretty simple design.... Makes you wonder why not more companys utilize a centrally located deraileur/ gear box combo like that one or like the discontinued Lahar.
> 
> Seems like that would solve a lot of issues with the bikes today.


Agreed. Would be awesome to shift without pedaling. Also centralizes your weight more effectively.

Also interesting how they stuck with more of a moto - esque linkage and swingarm, which is "bad" for mtb's according to most, yet they did amazing. Has anyone ever heard Minaar or Fariclough talk about the thing?


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## kubo (Sep 20, 2009)

Skidhucker said:


> McGruber to the rescue!!! Dude, make us one!


Cess is that you?
DUDE!...
I made a homemade light with some cheap **** like 6 months ago... I get it, apparently I didnt make your cool list. Nobody really cares


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## ccspecialized (Dec 30, 2008)

Archi-Magus said:


> Agreed. Would be awesome to shift without pedaling. Also centralizes your weight more effectively.
> 
> Also interesting how they stuck with more of a moto - esque linkage and swingarm, which is "bad" for mtb's according to most, yet they did amazing.


That is the downfall of a gearbox from the linkage point of view. It requires you to use a suspension system that has very little chain growth, thus limiting your suspension design options.


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## Skidhucker (Aug 26, 2010)

kubo said:


> Cess is that you?
> DUDE!...
> I made a homemade light with some cheap **** like 6 months ago... I get it, apparently I didnt make your cool list. Nobody really cares


I didn't say nothin about your light... I just want an internally geared bike


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## kubo (Sep 20, 2009)

Skidhucker said:


> I just want an internally geared bike


Get a job and buy one.


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## Skidhucker (Aug 26, 2010)

kubo said:


> Get a job and buy one.


I've got a job, why do you think I'm on MTBR so much!? I'd just much rather have something custom built for myself but I guess you're not up to it...


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## Fix the Spade (Aug 4, 2008)

ccspecialized said:


> That is the downfall of a gearbox from the linkage point of view. It requires you to use a suspension system that has very little chain growth, thus limiting your suspension design options.


The downfall is more to do with marketing and industry momentum than anything else.

Shimano and SRAM aren't going to get behind a gearbox because we already buy plenty of derailleurs. Plus they would both want all companies to adopt their own 'standard' of gearbox, which naturally would be different and not compatible with the opposition.

From the frame manufacturers view point it would mean abandoning many years of marketing rhetoric and R&D costs. Most mtb linkages have their design dating back from the mid-late nineties when rear shocks were not very good at best. You aren't going to see Specialized or Santa Cruz announce that the last ten years of FSR/VPP was all marketing and that the future is a high single pivot on a gearbox.


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