Wed, 21 Jul 1999 19:40:29 +0200 - Message No. 6060
From: "Marco Kost"

Subject: Rallye Twins and other information


Gīday folks,

Michi Selg wrote:

> They definetly have a different Motor, you could order a Rally-Twin
> directly from Honda with a 850cc Motor and about 80-90 HP. :-) (Should
> cost around 15.000,-- EUR)

Sorry, but you are wrong. Honda never sold an engine-tuned rallye 
twin. There were only few NXRīs - factory bikes. Now these wonderful 
bikes can be seen in Hondaīs Factory Museum in Japan. 

But they once sold a Paris-Dakar edition of the RD03, 50 bikes to be 
exact. They were for rallye purpose and distributed by Honda France.

One or two years later, Honda decided to go another way and gave 12 
RD04 to the European distributors.

All these Twins had only slight modifications concerning fuel 
capacity and suspension. Tuning was not allowed for the Marathon 
category.

Anyway, Eddy Hau, the German participant couldīve won the Marathon 
class in 1992 (or ī91? I do not remember). but he was "downgraded" to 
superproduction category cause they removed one of the front brake 
discs for better behaviour offroad. 

And now for something completely different:

In Tourenfahrer 8/99 there is a comparison test between Varadero and 
Africa Twin. Well, if the editors wouldīve asked us, they couldīve 
saved a lot of work - the result of the test: The Twin is the better 
bike!

Also, in this issue there are some accessories tested from African 
Queens and SW Motech. I will add this to the Accessories pages but I 
can take some weeks, cause I have a LOT of work these days.

At:

 www.desertstorm.isthier.de

some pics about the Offroad-Varadero which looks like a Twin can be 
found. Unfortunately only in German.

At: 

stud-www.uni-marburg.de/*Nau/motech.htm

are some nice pics from an aluminium rear tank for Twins, made by SW 
Motech.

Thatīs all for now, 

Marco

-----------------------------------------------------------
Marco Kost

private:

email: makost@nw80.cip.fak14.uni-muenchen.de
Homepage: http://www.atic.org/~marco

ATiC:

email: marco@atic.org
http://www.atic.org/accessory/
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