Motorbike News – New Hayabusa, Updated Royal Enfield Himalayan, ZX6R Gone? KLX300 Reviews + More…

Today I have a fair bit of news from the motorcycle world worth mentioning, so let’s have a look.

First up, the new Suzuki Hayabusa has been teased by Suzuki. For those who don’t know, the Hayabusa (Japanese for Peregrine Falcon, the fastest animal on earth) is a cult, sports touring bike known for its big power and even bigger speeds. It was first released in 1999 and was officially the world’s fastest production motorcycle before the ‘gentleman’s agreement’ of 2000. Details on the new Hayabusa are scarce, but early rumours say it may now have a 1400cc engine and will be Euro 5 compliant. There have been some leaked photos, I don’t know how legit these are, but from them and what Suzuki has shown, they are going for evolution, not revolution. Suzuki is doing their official announcement on the 5^th of February, so stay tuned.

The Husqvarna 701 has been given a minor update. Both the Enduro and Supermoto versions have been made Euro 5 compliant and have received a new LCD dash with a gear indicator, RPM gauge and a new headlight. Husqvarna have upgraded the Motards front brake, it now has a Brembo Monoblock brake caliper and the Enduro’s ABS can now be fully disabled. They haven’t lost any power either; it still 74hp and 73.5nm of torque, that’s a ton of torque. Husqvarna stated all they had to do was change the exhaust to make it Euro 5 compliant. Maybe Kawasaki could learn to do the same for the new KLR650…

The new 2021 Royal Enfield Himalayan is going to get a built in navigation system. Royal Enfield first introduced their Tripper Navigation system at the end of 2020 on their Meteor 350. I have no idea if it’s good, but from what I’ve seen it looks simple and very easy to use. It is built into the dash of the bike and uses your phone in combination with Google. On the dash it displays simple directions along with some cool features. I think this will be perfectly suited to the adventure style Himalayan. Besides that there is talk of a taller wind shield, a reshaped fuel tank, an upswept style exhaust, a slimmer tail section, updated front and rear racks and six colours.

Customer Aprilia RS660’s have started to arrive in the US. Dealers started getting the first shipment towards the end of January and lucky owners have already got their dirty mitts on them. There is still no word on Australian and New Zealand pricing or when they’ll be available. The initial costing from Aprilia Australia was between $18500-19000 before on road costs which will make it more than $20000. To me that could be a tough sell, especially when bikes like the MT09-SP, Street Triple R and ZX6R can be had for much less.

Speaking of the ZX6, it along with several other Kawasaki models aren’t yet Euro 5 compliant. Now Kawasaki have stated they are working to bring key models back into production, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the ZX6 go the way of the Dodo. Fingers crossed it doesn’t, there aren’t many super sports left and it’d be sad to see it go.

The CF Moto Adventure 800 has been shown off. We only have one photo of it, but I have to say it looks pretty decent. No specs have been announced yet, but the Chinese bike uses the KTM 790 engine as a platform, so performance should be pretty similar. It’s looking pretty chunky and more road focused than the 790 R, but its early days and we’ll just have to wait and see what the specs are.

KTM are updating their RC390 and are also doing a RC200. And I have to say the spy shots looks pretty funky. The fairing has been redesigned and the front wind shield covers a large portion of the front fairing. There’s mostly speculation at the moment, but the bike looks to be heavily redesigned and has a TFT dash.

And in some different news, I know a ton of people are looking forward to the upcoming Kawasaki KLX300 release. I have been speaking with Kawasaki and the press bikes are set to arrive in April for review. Nothing is set in stone yet, you know Covid and still going strong here in the US, but my plan is to get down there and do a detailed review on one for you guys. I’ll keep everyone updated and put out an article when I do, then you can ask me questions on what you want to know about the bike.

Ok that’s all the news for now. Until next time people, keep it OnTheBackWheel.