11/19/23
Honda was onto something with the first Transalp, just not too many people knew that in 1989. The XL600V had almost 8 inches of suspension travel, a 583cc V-twin, a 33.1-inch seat height, and weighed 441 pounds ready to ride. Sounds like a pretty sweet setup in our modern heyday of middleweight adventure bikes, doesn’t it? Perhaps it was just ahead of its time, maybe the styling was too funky, or perhaps it was because it wasn’t a 750cc sportbike so the American market overlooked it and it was cut from Honda’s lineup after just two years.
Over the past decade however, the XL600V Transalp achieved a nearly cult-bike status. Park one at an adventure rally and watch the crowd form. The name suddenly held weight—provenance, if you will—in the ADV world that it never saw on the showroom floor. It’s The Big Lebowski or Fight Club of motorcycles, a flop on delivery and a classic decades later that everyone claims they loved from the get-go.
Now the Transalp name is back for 2024 and is ready to capitalize on the now iconic name. Honda’s new midsize parallel-twin Transalp was announced with fanfare, and we’ve been clamoring (as have ADV buyers) to get a ride on one. Cycle World’s Associate Editor Evan Allen got the golden ticket to try out the new 755cc machine on portions of the Pennsylvania Backcountry Discovery Route to see if the Transalp is a competitor in one of the most hotly contested spaces in motorcycling. The time sure is right, but is the Transalp? Read his first ride review here to find out.
As always, there’s more than we can fit into this email. Check out cycleworld.com for additional tests, reviews, and news.
Ride on,
Justin Dawes
Executive Editor
