HONDA is expected to be relaunching one of its legendary nameplates back into the market this year, as the new Honda XL750 Transalp looks set for an EICMA reveal in November.
While Honda is remaining understandably tight-lipped about the specifics and look of the bike, that hasn’t stopped the team at Young Machine from penning their own hyper-realistic rendering of how the bike could shape up.
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What do we know about the new Honda Transalp?
Well, not a lot. We can tell you it is going to be a lighter, smaller and easier to manage machine when compared to the Africa Twin, but not as soft and friendly as the NC750X that is already in the firm’s range. To not step on the toes of its smaller and bigger siblings, the new Transalp is thought to be coming in between 750 and 850cc, using a new version of the NC’s parallel-twin. The unit is primed for a proper adventure bike, thanks to its low-slung architecture, gutsy low-end performance, and, importantly for Honda, it can be paired to the DCT system the Japanese giant is so proud of.
Sitting more to the adventure side of the spectrum than the urban adventure habitat the NC inhabits, the Transalp is expected to stick to its roots, with a rugged exterior that clothes an adventure-ready chassis. That means the conventional telescopic forks will likely be ditched in favour of racier better-performing items, while spoked wheels and big disc brakes are also likely to be mandatory.
Honda may also take a route that BMW and Triumph have done (with the F750/F850 & Tiger 850/900) and release two flavours of Transalp; one that focuses on the ease of use and accessibility, and one for the sheer off-road helluvit!
With all this in mind, we think the team at Young Machine have done a pretty stellar job with this rendering. It’s more NC750 than anything else, but the underpinnings of the Africa Twin just bulk it all out a bit and make it a much more realistic proposition.
