Honda 599

Honda 599

New for 2006

Better the second time around?

PAUL DEAN

IT'S BAA-AACK! AUTUALLY, YOU PROBABLY WEREN'T AWARE that it left. In fact, if you're like most American riders, you may not even have known that the Honda 599 ever arrived here in the first place. But it did, quietly and without fanfare in 2004, then was dropped in '05 due to meager sales.

Why didn’t it sell? For one thing, there’s that “quietly and without fanfare” business. Honda did little to promote the 599, merely gluing it onto its lineup like an insignificant Post-It note. Plus, it was expensive, priced $600 to $800 more than its competition-Yamaha’s FZ6, Suzuki’s Katana 600 and Kawasaki’s ZZR600. That’s because the 599 is built in Italy, so the euro/dollar exchange rate kills any chance for it to be competitively priced in the States.

Despite that disadvantage, the 599 is back in American showrooms for another go, hopefully supported this time by better exposure and sporting a few mechanical updates.

The fork, for example, is now inverted instead of conventional, and a new instrument cluster combines an analog tach with LCD readouts for everything else-speed, odometer, dual tripmeters, fuel and even a clock that includes a countdown timer.

I spent a few hours riding a new 599 in and around the canyons near Malibu, California, during Honda’s press launch of the ’06 model, and I found it to be a bonafide hoot, especially in the tighter twisties. The carbureted inlineFour engine, a tuned-for-torque version of the late-Nineties’ CBR600F3 motor, is snappy and responsive, always eager to spin up to its 13,000-rpm redline. Power is a smidgen soft at lower revs, though not as much so as with the latest 600-class repli-racers, but it pulls hard in the midrange and comes on like gangbusters between 9000 and redline.

Combining zippy power with a light, agile steel chassis, an upright seating position and a fairly wide handlebar results in a bike that’s wonderfully flickable and squirts from comer to comer in a hurry. The new fork helps the 599 track more accurately through fast, bumpy comers while resisting bottoming on bigger thumps. The brakes are powerful and fadefree, and cornering clearance is sufficient for all but the looniest of street riders. The upright ergos and anatomically shaped seat promise not to abuse on long rides, even if the relatively high pegs crank the rider’s knees at a sharp angle.

Based on my short ride, the 599 seems to perform admirably in every respect-except price: At $7399, $200 more than in 2004, it remains considerably more expensive than its closest competition.

Until we compare all those aforementioned middleweights, we can’t say for sure how the 599 stacks up. But it’s important to note that the bike has an outstanding track record in Europe, where it has become the best-selling fullsize motorcycle on the Continent. If it’s that successful Over There, it deserves a better fate Over Here. □

JEFF ALLEN