Lots of New Stuff
There’s a new 2021 Honda CRF450R off-road bike coming soon, and the design filings were recently spotted by Motorcycle.com. The publication noted that there are design filings in Laos, Japan, and New Zealand right now (the Japanese ones haven’t been made public yet). Motorcycle.com says these are for the production model and not the factory racer.
The reason for this is that the exhaust pipe has a stock muffler instead of the Yoshimura that would be fitted to the factory racing machine. The new design filing showcases new bodywork, a single exhaust, a reworked engine, new frame that’s thinner and should be lighter, a thinner seat, and a sharper and trimmed down tail section of the motorcycle.
Overall, the bike looks fantastic and should be a killer addition to the Honda lineup. Honda hasn’t included this in its 2021 off-road lineup, and the company hasn’t made any comments officially about this bike that I can find. However, Honda is already racing the bike in the MXGP or was until the Coronavirus put an end to the MXGP Championship series. It will be interesting to see when Honda releases all of the data on this bike, including the price tag.