S11E07: Best New Motorcycles of 2026: Our Picks

Hello, everybody, and welcome to high side, low side.

This is season 11 episode seven.

My name's Zach.

I'm joined as always by my buddy, Spurge.

On this episode, we're talking about the best of 2026

in so much as what we are most excited about.

We're looking back on 2025 a little bit as well.

Also, a delivery robot versus a motorcycle

on the streets of Los Angeles and a breakthrough

in noise canceling in helmets.

All that and more coming up.

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Now, on with the show.

["The High Side"]

Welcome, welcome, everybody, to High Side Low Side.

Of course, my co-host, as usual, Spurgeon Dunbar.

The High Side, as he's known, and...

Wait, I'm pretty sure you're the High Side.

I'm pretty sure you're the High Side at this point.

As far as this season goes, you're the High Side.

I'm here with my ankle propped up on a cat tree

in my home office.

So the blood does not pool in my foot.

I suppose you're right.

I am the High Side.

Welcome, everybody.

How are you?

You feeling okay, though?

You're doing okay?

Your ankle's on a cat toy?

I could complain, but you don't want to hear that, do you?

No.

I think the audience just wants to know

that you're feeling better, you're on the mend,

and you'll be riding a motorcycle soon.

I have just about, yeah, soon enough, I suppose.

I have just recently started putting weight on my foot

for the first time in two and a half months.

Very exciting.

But you lost a lot of weight during this whole process.

So it's probably a little bit less weight

than you normally would have, so it's nice.

Yeah, I lost weight initially because I had some GI problems

related to the trauma and the surgery and whatever,

and yeah, I did lose some weight.

I do think it's coming back, though.

I think it's coming back in the form of flab and not muscle,

so I'm gonna have some work to do

once I can actually participate

in cardiovascular activities.

But that is a different podcast for 2026.

We are here to talk about the motorcycles

and stories thus far for the 2026 motorcycling season

that we are most excited about,

but first, as usual, Spurge,

we're gonna go off topic a little bit here.

We have a sort of, yeah, MIDA hole

that we had a lot of fun with in pre-pro.

We're hoping you guys like it too.

So when we're talking about MIDA hole,

typically it's like, what stupid thing has one of us done

or what did we see motorcycles doing wrong on the internet?

Right, or some person, what has some person done

that makes them an A-hole?

But I mean, everybody's talking about AI, right?

So we found a video of a robot.

You can't spell A-hole without AI.

We found a video of a robot.

This is a delivery robot

in what I'm presuming is probably Los Angeles.

I think so, yeah.

And it is motoring itself down the sidewalk

and it looks like a Harley-Davidson sports droner

parked their motorcycle in the middle

of a pedestrian sidewalk.

Or at least maybe not in the very middle,

but on the sidewalk in the way to some extent, yes.

And the little delivery robot just motors right on through

and pushes the motorcycle over.

We'll do our best to have the video up on screen

for those of you watching.

And the question that we have is, who is the A-hole?

Is it the motorcyclist that parked their bike

on the sidewalk or is it the delivery robot

that at any cost is gonna get that sushi order delivered?

I think, and I think I speak for both of us, Bridge,

when I say that normally if any thing,

whether it's a person, dog, robot, whatever,

that pushes over a motorcycle,

you'd be like, hey man, be cooler than that.

That's not something I approve of,

just tipping a motorcycle over.

But all the comments that we've seen on social media

and the comments on the Common Tread article

that was posted in relation to this video,

people seem to agree that the person who parked

the motorcycle is the A-hole.

And it's hard not to be on the robot's side.

It's got a box full of groceries,

it's trundling down the sidewalk,

it's going to someone's house to bring them

an Instacart order or whatever it is.

And it's something's in its way.

And to be fair to the robot, it's not malicious, right?

It doesn't have feelings like that.

It just is going along and it bumps into the bike

and it hooks the handlebar on the top of its box

and it lifts the handlebar up and tips the bike

over to the right side away from the kickstand.

And then what I think is kind of cute and funny

is that the robot backs up for a second.

Like it's like, oh, whoops, oh, my bad.

And then it just keeps on going

because it does not have a moral compass.

But it's a pretty interesting interaction

between a being that has navigation tools

but no feelings are good or evil.

And it just did something

that we would normally associate with being bad.

But then all of a sudden, everyone's siding with the thing

being like, you go robot, you fight the good fight.

Well, so it's interesting.

Some of the comments that we saw,

so there's an article over on Common Tread.

If you want to weigh in in the comments,

I guess by the time you listen to this episode,

it won't be in real time,

but you can always jump back in

and Lance will be there monitoring the comments

as he always does.

But some of the people are talking about the fact

that like what if this was old lady in a wheelchair

or an old man with a walker, a stroller with a baby.

And they were talking about trying to get down the sidewalk

and get around the motorcycle.

So the comment was like, hey, man,

like the person that parked the motorcycle

in the middle of the sidewalk,

you're inhibiting people that need to use a sidewalk

and might have a, oh.

That's harder than I'm doing that.

I can't, here's another way to frame it, Spurge.

And just to kind of put a button on this particular part

of the conversation before we move on to other things.

Do you, can you imagine a scenario in which it was okay

to park the motorcycle on the sidewalk?

What would the scenario be that you'd be like, oh,

all right, they had to park the motorcycle on the sidewalk

because-

I gotta take it in LA once for parking.

There was like a slight hill in the road

and like my bike wasn't parked with the correct wheel angle

going up the hill and I got a ticket for that.

So like the fact that this person

hasn't had their bike, you know, impounded

for parking on the sidewalk.

I don't know, I don't think there's an excuse for it.

I guess, but my question, and maybe there is someone out there

that's more familiar with these delivery robots.

We don't have them in, you know, rural Pennsylvania.

But like what if, like the point that someone here

was making was, you know, what if there was a woman

in a wheelchair or a baby in a stroller

trying to get around the motorcycle?

But my question for the robot is like,

does the robot have the sophistication

where if there is someone coming down the sidewalk

in a wheelchair, can the robot know to stop

and get around pedestrians and such?

My question is sort of the inverse of that.

What if it was a baby in a stroller on the sidewalk

that the robot was trying to get around?

Yeah, that's what I'm asking, I guess.

Oh, okay.

I thought you were saying,

what if it was a stroller trying to get past the motorcycle?

No, that's what people are asking.

I'm saying, what happens if it's like, does the robot know?

And then the robot tips over a stroller with a baby in it

and all of a sudden you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa,

take it easy, Coco, you can't do that.

Yeah, I know.

So I read an article in New York Times recently

about a cat in San Francisco that was run over

by a Waymo, the driverless taxis.

I don't know why you're laughing, it's not funny.

No, I'm not laughing.

That's my sympathetic, I'm mourning.

Yeah, so, and the situation was the cat,

the Waymo was parked and the cat went under the car

as, you know, it like tucked itself under in the curb,

you know, on the street side of the curb,

underneath the car as cats do,

and then someone got in the car and the people saw it

and they were like, oh no, the cat's under the car,

we got to like stop the way,

but like how do you stop our driverless taxi?

And my suggestion was just stand in front of it

because it's not going to run a person over,

but the people were either like not convinced

that that would work or too scared or whatever,

either way, totally fair.

And the car pulled away and ran over the cat.

And you're like, well, how the heck, you know,

should the Waymo know that the cat was there

or should, or do, or some people have rightly pointed out

that human drivers run over animals all the time.

So like robot driver does it sometime,

like how do you stop, does it have to be perfect

in order to be technology that we embrace

or I don't know, it's a big moral quandary.

I was laughing realistically because the Waymo thing

that I've seen in the news recently,

there was like an active like police situation happening.

And I don't know if it was like an active police shooter

situation, but there was definitely like an active police,

you know, zone going on the street.

And the Waymo just like drove right through

and dropped the pedestrian off in the middle

of like this like police like standoff.

And like the police were trying to stop it and flip out.

And it was just like the Waymo just did its thing

and it drove around and it dropped the person off.

So there's definitely some, some, you know, technology kinks

in the armor as far as some of this automated stuff goes.

But yes, I guess final point here when we're going to move on,

Zach, in your opinion, who is the a-hole in the situation?

Is it the sports to owner parking on the sidewalk?

Or is it the lovable little delivery robot

trying to drop off its payload?

Much as I would like to defend the motorcyclist

until I hear otherwise, until I hear a defensible position

of why the motorcyclist had to park on the sidewalk like that.

I say the Harley owner in this case, the motorcycle owner is

the a-hole and the robot was just trying to do its job.

That's my stance. How about you?

I think this robot looks too much like Wally

to not side with the robot. He's adorable.

And he actually has, he has like Ducati eyes, right?

Like if you're looking at the eyes,

yeah, like the Desert X size, right?

Like it looks around headlights.

That's how you find your way into Spurgeon's Good Grace's

AI robots is you just look like a cool motorcycle

and then he'll be like, there you go.

You're like an adventure bike and we're going to do this.

Let's see how he goes through the mud puddles

of the next block that he has to get around.

Anyway, 2026 motorcycle Spurgeon.

We are going to talk about an air cooled Harley

at some point in this discussion, buckle up everybody.

But first we're going to start with sport bikes

and sport touring bikes.

And we're going to talk about some of the machines

that we're excited about for 2026.

The thing I want to ask you, Spurge,

before I have one more caveat for the audience,

but before we do that, didn't you and Lance do an AICMA?

What's new at AICMA like just a couple months ago?

What are people going to learn in this episode?

They didn't learn in that one.

So why am I doing this when you and Lance already did it?

Lance and I had strict rules.

We talked about this.

You clearly didn't listen to the episodes

we recorded in your absence, which is fine.

You were busy with your injuries.

But we were very specific in the AICMA episode.

We were only going to talk about things that were announced

at AICMA.

And this is more of a look back at the bikes

that we really liked at 2025.

And this is also looking forward to bikes

that we are excited to be getting in 2026,

regardless of when they were announced.

So for example, we will probably talk about something like a KLE 500 today

that is not a bike that we talked about in the AICMA episode

because it was not released.

Because it was not AICMA.

Release AICMA.

Copy, copy.

Glad you clarified for everybody.

One other thing I would like to say before we jump

into the conversation that I promise we will start

is that this is a list of 2026 new stories

and motorcycles that we are excited about.

It is not meant to be a comprehensive list

of every single motorcycle that is new or updated in 2026.

If you feel like we missed something and you're like,

how could you not be excited about the X, Y, Z 3000?

Please send us an email to

highsideloafs.com and point out our transgression.

But no in the meantime.

Leave a comment on Spotify.

Let us know.

Maybe we just missed something.

The other thing as it relates to that is there is news breaking.

Even as we're recording it this week,

we know that Harley-Davidson has an announcement coming out tomorrow.

We know that Triumph has I think three new motorcycles

that they're announcing in the coming three weeks.

So like just keep in mind that at the time of recording,

we are doing the best with the information we have right now.

We're just doing our best people.

Okay.

Seriously this time.

Sport touring category.

One of my favorite motorcycles of 2025 full stop

that I was the most excited about was the Triumph Tiger 800 Sport.

I think this bike looks cool.

I think this bike has performance that is going to be much livelier

and sportier than what we've seen from maybe the older Trident engine.

This reminds me a lot of something that's a cross between the Sprint ST 1050,

the Tiger 1050.

So as we're thinking about this category in 2025,

that was a bike that was probably my favorite motorcycle that I saw come out last year.

What does that mean for the future?

What does it mean for the future?

Like what are we seeing?

So like that's one of the things that I was most excited about for 2026 or 2025.

Like as we're looking at this category for 2026,

like I see you're trying to team me up here to say,

well then, Spurgeon, you must be very excited.

If you were excited about the Tiger Sport 800,

you must be excited about the Suzuki SV7 GX,

which is an SV 650 powered upright thing, blah, blah, blah.

Is that what you wanted me to say?

That's what I wanted you to say.

Okay.

I'm glad to have you back.

You can read my body like Braille.

I will say that I was also excited about the Tiger Sport 800 last year.

I rode it on Daily Rider.

I was ultimately a little underwhelmed by it,

not because it didn't deliver what it's supposed to deliver,

but because my expectations were so high,

just like so, you know, you got, you got triumph in that category.

I feel like with street triple, which we'll talk about later.

And I don't know that that's sort of, you know, 675 to 900 triple.

I feel like a lot of those bikes are just so, so good.

And when I saw that bike on paper, I thought, wow, it's going to be great.

And I suppose you could say the same about the Suzuki SV7 GX,

which is essentially an SV 650 that has been given this Tiger Sport 800 treatment

with a more upright riding position, handlebar that's a little taller,

slightly more comfortable, probably some more luggage options,

and a larger windscreen.

And I think, you know, it's important, like one of my favorite words

that you like to use to describe, you know,

the more aggressive side of the motorcycles that we talk about is vicious, right?

And I think for myself, like when I'm looking at a sport touring motorcycle,

I don't want something that's vicious.

I want something that's a little bit more rounded off at the edges.

Okay.

Yeah.

Comfortable, but also like, you know, I don't need it to have 180 horsepower,

you know, to have a good time on it.

Yada, yada, yada.

So I think for me, like I am, and Lance and I did briefly talk about the SV7 GX.

Oh, for crying out.

Are we treading stuff already?

No, no, no.

We're not because we have a unique take, but I am,

I do think that as this category plays out, it is going to be interesting

2026 and beyond to see the constant evolution of the sport touring category.

And are we going to get a little bit of a swing back into, you know,

some models taking a bit more of a sport touring angle versus I would say in the

past, you know, seven to eight years, you know, we've seen sport touring bikes

be a little bit more, you know, adventure touring, right?

And that's, that's probably a segue to one of the bikes that we are planning on

seeing in 2026 as a 2026 2027 model is KTM is coming out with a Super Adventure

1390 S Evo, as well as an update to the the R, which will probably be in the

next category adventure.

But, you know, so if the Tiger wasn't, you know, vicious enough for Zach

Courts, breaker of ankles, you know, maybe the KTM Super Adventure 1390 will

have enough juice under the hood to get your motor running.

Yes.

It's been a while since I rode a KTM Super Adventure 1290.

I don't think I've ever even ridden a 1390, but I do think that that engine is

terrific on the Mount Rushmore of engines, as we talked about on a previous

podcast.

And I suspect that this new based on what KTM told me at the launch of the 990

RCR that I attended last year, which has this huge, I forget how it's like an

eight inch touchscreen display, which feels a little out of almost out of

place on a on a 15,000 to $14,000 sport bike.

But I think it's going to be maybe not a revelation, but like a pretty big value

ad for a luxury adventure touring, splash sport touring bike like the 1390

Super Adventure S.

And I bet it's going to be pretty flipping good.

It should.

I think that bike already had an option for adaptive cruise control and radar

control breaking stuff like that.

And so, yeah, I feel like this is one of those bikes that is not going to be for

everybody, not going to be for everyone's wallet.

It's not going to be for everyone's type of riding, but it's one of those bikes

that it's hard not to be excited about as a motorcyclist.

I think because it is an example of when a brand kind of pulls out all the stops

and tries to create this like, you know, super luxury, super capable,

super comfortable, super fast performance oriented motorcycle, which is, I don't

know, that's kind of how you, that's how progress happens, right?

It's when brands try to make the best possible thing they can and not like

build it to a price point or whatever.

So, yeah, I'll be excited to try it even when I can.

Do you have anything?

So, right out of the gate, and I know we hit the ground running here, we focused

a little bit more on the sport slash sport touring side of the segment.

You know, anything that has you excited, you know, from a track perspective,

from a pure sport bike perspective, anything that's coming down the pike that

you are excited about.

I think we'd be remiss if we did not mention updates to the Triumph Street

Triple RS and Moto 2X, which are, that's becoming sort of more of a premium

offering in Triumph's lineup, which we're going to talk about more later

in the standard category.

I know you have some stuff to say about that, Spurgio.

The thing that I, we have on the list here, KTM's 990 RCR, which is a bike

that we've talked about quite a bit already since that's the bike that I

crashed to hurt myself here, and hopefully you have watched my track

review of that bike from last year and maybe even read the article that I

wrote.

That bike to me was one of my most exciting bikes or one of my favorite bikes

of 2025, in part because I think it represents an interesting category of

bikes, which is this sort of like new breed of sport bike that is a street

engine and sometimes even a street chassis base, but then built out to look

like a sport bike and feel more like a sport bike.

So on our list for 2025 in this episode, we talked about Ducati's new

Panigale V2, which uses a smaller engine, less horsepower, less weight.

And then the Yamaha YZF R9, which takes the M209 engine and puts it in a sport

bike, you know, a fully fared, you know, sport bike.

And then the 990 RCR is the same kind of thing.

It's a big parallel twin, almost 1,000 cc's.

It's a street based engine, but they built around it a sport chassis and then

they put a fairing on it and winglets and premium componentry for breaking

and suspension and stuff like that.

And I think it's a fun, I think it's a really interesting and cool category

of motorcycles that those three, those are sort of like the upper echelon of

that midsize premium street based sport bike market that I think are all

pretty cool bikes in their own right.

And I think arguably the KTM is the best one of all of them.

Do you think that that's maybe, you know, I know that we're talking a little bit

about specific bikes at the moment, but like, what about a trend for this category?

Like, do you think that what we're going to see here is more of a trend into

some of these, I'm almost remiss to call them middle weights, right?

Because, you know, a 990 is essentially a leader bike, you know, just with

two cylinders and not four.

So like, that's not a new wheel.

Make the rules like the like premium bikes are now 1100 cc v4s.

And so if you have a 1000 cc twin, it's midsize.

Like, I know, I know that feels big.

I know if you're, if you're, if you're a crusty old veteran of motorcycles,

you're like, well, I remember when a 916 Ducati was the fastest sucker on the block.

Sure.

I remember that too.

But that's not the word we live in anymore.

So to your point, so my question is, do you think that this middle weight category,

as it gets more sophisticated in this technology, as it gets more capable

in its ability, you know, do you see more riders gravitating towards this category?

Or do you think you're still going to see that top of the line evolution of v4s

and inline fours and mega horsepower, you know, sport bikes?

I think there's always going to be a market for the, for the cream of the crop.

You know, first of all is racing homologation.

As long as, as long as the big brands are going racing on a domestic and world championship level,

they're going to, they're going to make and market the big super bikes,

big 1000 cc and 1100 cc super bikes.

But I think more and more people are going to realize that what's happening with this market,

I think is interesting because I had a line in my article about KTM, the KTM 990 RCR,

which I'm probably not going to remember word for word off the top of my head.

But basically I said something like their manufacturers are starting to build motorcycles

that look like what people want and act like what they need.

You know what I mean? Like they're not, people have historically.

I like that. I like that line a lot.

Like GSXR 600 or GSXR 750s or, you know, Yamaha R6s of CBR 600s or even like 1000 cc sport bikes.

And they're uncomfortable and they don't make, they don't make a lot of horsepower

until you get them up to 8,000, 10,000 RPM.

They're just like, they're not very, they're not good street bikes because they weren't made to be street bikes.

They're made to be homologated.

But that doesn't change the fact that people are like, well, I want the sickest bike.

So I'm going to get that one because it's sick.

And they buy it and they think that they have a great bike,

but they don't really for what they're doing if they're riding around town or whatever.

And so this new category of bikes that takes the sort of practical usability

and still plenty of excitement of a street engine like an MT-09 or a 990 Duke or a,

you know, a V-Twin, a Ducati V-Twin mid-sized Ducati V-Twin, great engines.

And they're building them more and more for like, for torque and they're building them for Euro emissions and so on and so forth.

But they're still powerful, fun engines and they're packaging them up in this thing that like looks sexy and cool.

So that people are like, oh, cool.

I can get that bike because it looks sexy and cool.

And what they actually end up getting is a pretty reasonable street bike or a more reasonable street bike.

Then historically over the past 10, 20 years, sport bikes have been, which I think is great.

And one more thing, I'll add Spurge since I'm not out of breath yet.

It's such a broad category, right?

Like it goes all the way down to, I mean, you could argue,

it goes all the way down to 300, 400 CC class and a Ninja 500.

And then you can go to a Yamaha R7 or a Suzuki GSX8R.

And there's a wide spectrum of bikes that are small to medium to almost big and have increasing levels of premium components

and offer some amount of practicality and usability day to day.

It's like daily rider.

I'm getting all excited because I'm a daily rider guy.

I think even as we were trying to figure out categories for this, right?

Like we were like, Oh, is that a standard bike or is it a sport bike?

There's so many, there's so many fine lines with the way some of this is, is categorized at this point in time.

Does it have a handlebar?

Is that a standard?

Is that a sport bike?

But like some of these naked sport bikes are sport bikes.

And some of what you're seeing is the sport bikes now are getting those, those naked sport bike engines.

But in something like, you know, you're mentioning the KTM, you know, 990.

And it's like, it looks like a, like a purebred, you know, sport bike, but it's got a parallel twin engine in it.

You know?

Yeah.

And I think that's the point that you're making.

Yeah.

And I mean, like, you know, it really did this with RS660, you know, RS660 is like a, looks like an aggressive sport bike.

And it is an aggressive sport bike.

You can take it to the racetrack and you can bail around it.

Like it's, it'll do sport bike stuff, but it's not punishingly uncomfortable.

Yeah.

And, you know, it has a lot of technology and electronic rider aides and stuff like that.

And, and yet it has a balance of, of capability.

And now the, in 25 and 26, we really saw, well, I won't say it's that the evolution is over, but we saw what I think is kind of a cap on the, the premium side of it in the Panigale V2 and the YZFR9 and the 990 RCR.

And I guess I kind of hope other brands will join them in doing that because I think that's like, I think the 100 to 120 horsepower with nice brakes and nice suspension and, and good features is just a, for, for 13, 15, 16,000 bucks is just a really nice package.

And I think, I hope that, that, that place becomes really competitive because I think it's brilliant.

So speaking of the sport category and this middleweight segment, as you're mentioning becoming very competitive, you know, one of the things that I did with the research was to look and see like, okay, do we have any announcements or any inklings of, you know, big leader, you know, big power top of the line sport bikes from manufacturers.

And it seems like there were a lot of updates, like the Panigale V4 got updates in 2025, the S1000RR got updates in 2025, RSV4 from Aprilia, like, and I think the Yamaha came out with the big winglets on the R1 now and the Kawasaki ZX10 got some like, like refreshed bodywork and some updates and stuff like that.

Yep. But from my research, a lot of this was, you know, 2025. And so it seemed like, you know, for the, for the big displacement bikes, I have yet to see anything outside of, there was a prototype from CFMoto that Lance and I briefly touched on in the IkeMap, or in the IkeMap episode, where they're prototyping a potential big V4.

And, you know, they're going after, you know, that class. But outside of that, is there anything that I'm not thinking of? Or are we still just kind of like, maybe we saw all the big updates in 2025 and 26 is just going to be kind of.

Yeah, maybe. I mean, I think CFMoto is something to call out, even though that's like.

It's a prototype.

Yeah. And also the Norton, isn't there, there's a new Norton Manx.

Prototype 2, I believe.

Yeah, I think all the only ones that run in pre-production, as far as I'm aware, as of the recording this podcast. But I know Airy went to Amexpo and saw him in the flesh. I think he said they're pretty, they're pretty cool looking in the flesh and it's like an interesting premium offering or theoretical.

Could be.

Could be, yeah.

I would just say too, for those of you not, let's back up for a second. The Norton piece, if you're, if you were following along, Norton has been trying to be revamped.

Norton was a traditional British brand in the 70s. They went out of business and much like what happened with Triumph is there's been individual people that have been trying to take that name and that brand and revamp it.

It's struggled.

There was bankruptcy issues.

There was a whole slew of things.

Some embezzlement, I think.

Yeah.

Unfortunately not.

But it's owned by an Indian firm now.

TVS, I believe.

Yes.

And that's where they're trying to create some stability.

They are trying to actually relaunch this brand and they're trying to do it a little bit more repulably than the last few years have shown us.

Which is encouraging because we saw Triumph, it was done with Triumph years and years ago.

I'll argue Triumph is the most successful revamp that we have seen.

Or Polaris buying Indian.

They don't own them anymore.

So again, that's another wait for later in the episode.

Okay.

But my point is that is something that, you know, I feel like the Indian resurrection in 2012, 8, 10, I don't remember what it was, was tasteful.

And I think that a lot of Indians are pretty cool and so on and so forth.

Anyway, we'll talk about that later.

One last thing I'll say on the sport category, Spurge.

I'm curious to see what happens with this category because it's been a long time in my opinion since there's been a real kind of like thunderbolt in the industry.

And perhaps a big CF moto made in China will be that perhaps a new Norton made in India will do that.

And maybe that's the world we live in now.

But, you know, I remember when the R1 was completely redone in 2015 and it was just like, holy cow, it's so much different.

And it's so much better.

And it's still a thousand CZ in line four.

It's like, that hasn't changed.

But holy moly, it's whole.

And like, you know, Ducati going from 1299, Panagali twin to the Panagali V4 in 2018, I think, like just like really kind of seismic.

I'm like, holy cow, they're doing something totally new.

It's been a while since that's happened in the.

What do you think?

And again, I want to, I'm going to shift gears here in a second.

But like so many of the changes that we're seeing right now at this, the top of the board are really incremental changes.

They're electronics.

Yeah.

So like, I'm trying to think of like what that could be.

Like maybe it's the turbocharged V3 from Honda and they build a sport bike around it and it's like revolutionary.

Like, I think it has to be something like that.

Yeah.

I mean, I think this is a category where racing feeds a lot of the lifeblood of the category.

But you see it even the MotoGP level, right?

And we're going to have conversations on this, you know, in the future, but like MotoGP is changing their rules in 2027.

And they're going to be bringing displacement down, you know?

And I think that's, I think that is what ultimately might stir the pot here is, is some rule changes in World's Road Bike or MotoGP.

MotoGP rule changes that are going to take, take effect then.

I don't know exactly what that would do.

But I feel like it's possible that it might affect what everyone accepts as being a quote unquote full-size super bike.

And who knows, maybe, you know, the, the, the sanctioning body from OGP and World's Road Bike are either the same or related.

And maybe there's a, maybe there's a shift that takes place there eventually.

I don't know.

I think it's going to need to be something as long as there's a, there are, there's British Superbike and there's Australian Superbike and there's Moto America and World's

Superbike that are all using, they were all racing Honda CBR 1000s and Kawasaki ZX10s and Ducati Panigale V4s and, and so on and so forth.

I, I don't see how, I don't see how they'll stop selling those bikes.

And I don't know what the big, the big next step is unless some company does a V5 or something, you know, just decides to completely change their.

I guess that was my point with the V3 of the Honda.

Like, like somebody would have to like be groundbreaking and like, hey, check out what we're doing here.

It's just weird and different.

So, you know, Ducati came out with a V4 MotoGP bike in 2000, whatever.

And then it took them 15 years or something like that to come out with a V4 street bike.

Yamaha's transitioning from an inline four MotoGP bike to a V4 MotoGP bike.

Maybe that turns into the, maybe the R1 is a V4 in a few years.

Maybe that's the next big splash that's made.

I mean, you, you, you made the point about, you know, KTM with their 990RCR, maybe KTM releases a V4, you know, sport bike, which was campaigning in MotoGP, you know.

Yeah, yeah, that could be.

I mean, that would be, that would be cool.

I wouldn't, I, I, yeah, that'd be cool.

All right, Sparge, how have you lasted this long without you transitioning to.

I just, I just gave myself a transition.

You did.

Speaking of KTM.

Nice.

One of the, one of the biggest changes that we saw in 2025 was that Bajaj Auto now holds a 74.9% controlling stake in KTM's parent company, Perrier Mobility AG.

So it was, it was a rough year for KTM.

There was bankruptcy.

There was ownership change.

And this has had a lot of people talking about the future of KTM.

But that's, but that's not what you're mad about, Sparge.

Tell everybody what you're mad about.

I'm mad about the fact that Zach got to, you know, get himself flung across a racetrack on a 990RCR.

And I haven't yet been able to find myself, you know, crashing down Rocky Mountain Road on a 990 Adventure R.

So I am, I am pontificating that with all of the transitions around the 990RCR, we know that Ari Henning is going to ride a 990 Duke R.

I want to, I want a 990 Adventure R.

I want to see what kind of changes that can come up with.

Like they're overdue.

Can give us a, give us a fresh update for that bike.

I haven't heard anything about it.

I don't know if you have.

You work hard and you deserve it.

Gosh darn it.

I mean, I'm probably not going to go buy one.

But, but I would like, I would like to see what they could do to change that category.

I think, you know, let me, let me play devil's advocate here.

You want a 990 Adventure R.

What do you want different?

For you have, you have a 890, you're at your 890 Adventure R rally.

Is it not, is the engine not big enough?

Is that your problem?

Not of horsepower?

You know, I, I know you're joking and being sarcastic.

I think it's, I think it's plenty of powerful.

I mean, I backed down from the 1090 to the, to the 890 because I wanted something that

was a little bit more of that off-road friendly mix.

Because you're not a man that needs to compensate.

So what do you need a 990 for?

I, I, are you just assumed that they're going to make it lighter and better and, and your

mind is a little bit sharper with that.

I couldn't come back fast enough.

Um, no, I think, I think what I would like to see with the 990 is, is exactly that.

Could they make it lighter?

Could they make it sharper?

Could they do something?

But also there are times where I miss a bit of the, the, the feel of the 1090 engine compared

to the 890.

Now I know that this is not going to happen.

I am saying this with a hundred percent certainty.

We're not going to see it, but I would love to see them come back with a mid-size V twin.

And I know that we're, it's, it's not going to happen in the parallel twin is their platform,

but I would love to see a reintroduction of like a small displacement 990 V twin engine

into this category.

I think that would be really cool.

That being said, my hope for the 990 adventure R is, um, you know, can they shave some weight

off of it?

Can they do a style update that might be a little bit more intriguing?

You know, can you bring it forward a little bit?

Okay.

Um, because when they introduced, I mean the 890 had had a light style update, but it looked

relatively, um, similar to the previous version.

So what are we going to see?

That's, that's for the designers to tell me what I want.

I mean, it's, I, it's not for me to tell them what I want.

They need to sell me on, you know, Spurgeon, you need to get rid of that 890 in your garage

and get a 990.

Well, I mean, look, on the one hand, you, um, still have the.

Cutting edge KTM mid-size adventure bike.

I do.

Sort of.

But, uh, so you say, as soon as the 990 adventure R comes out, then all of a sudden old spurge

goes riding the old thing and not the new thing.

I don't care about that.

I'm already riding the old thing technically.

And I think, you know, the bigger, the bigger question here is that, and I'm sure a lot

of KTM owners, you know, feel this way.

It's like, you know, with, with what KTM has gotten, you know, they've, they've gotten

some, some non love, if you will, in the press about everything that's been going on over

the past year, like what does that really do for, you know, KTM motorcycles moving forward?

Can they move past this?

Can they, you know, right?

Some of the wrongs, whether they're realistic wrongs or they're just wrongs that, you know,

maybe be perceived by the public.

So that's, that's a question I have.

But, um, one of the bikes that I want to talk about, you know, we saw, we saw BMW revamp

their top of the line GS, right?

I don't need to talk about KTMs to a guy that loves BMWs.

You want to talk about BMWs.

So let's transition into, you know, the R1300 GSA was revamped and, and introduced in 2025

with, you know, you get an automatic version of it.

Um, some, some top of the line bells and whistles, you're looking at a $30,000 plus motorcycle

if you really outfit it the way you want to.

But then we saw a prototype in 2025 of an update for the F450 GS.

And everybody's excited.

It looks kind of cool.

Like the 310 is long in the tooth.

It's dumpy.

Let's get this new F450 GS out there.

It's dumpy.

Um, that's fair.

But what did we see at EICMA this year, but a prototype of the BMW F450 GS?

So like, true enough, are we going to see this bike actually released?

Will BMW actually give any love to the smaller end of their displacement adventure line?

I like to think so.

And um, you know me, I'm not, I'm not like a, I'm not a huge lover of the parallel twin

like the F series BMWs in general.

The 310 was a single.

Yeah.

I meant, I mean the mid-sized ones.

Okay.

I mean the F850 and F900.

Um, and I'm really not a fan of the G310 GS.

I mean, it beats walking, but I just have never liked that bike, especially compared to the

stuff in the category with it.

You know, like for years now, you've been able to get a Kawasaki versus X300.

We'll talk more about that in a minute, which I just thought was a better bike.

And, um, and, uh, I don't know, I just thought there were better options.

Um, and then now I mean, God, there's all kinds of stuff that I would recommend instead

of that bike.

So it's, it's long overdue in my opinion for, for BMW to have this F450.

Um, or you know, have a, have a, a parallel twin in the category with the CF Moto Ibex

450 and the KTM 390 Adventure R and blah, blah, blah.

And for this, and for the same question that we talked about in the sport category, the

small displacement category in adventure bikes is really the hot topic right now.

Yeah.

Yeah, it is.

It's, um, for sure, which is awesome because a lot of those bikes are really cool.

Um, and Royal Enfield, you know, Himalayan 450, I guess, I'm not going to try and list

them all.

But the point is, um, co-450, you have the KTM revamped their line.

We just said, we just said, we're not going to try anymore.

You said that.

I didn't agree with that.

So, um, I'm nervous for BMW is what I was going to say here.

I, I think that much as I have, I've talked to a little bit of trash and thrown a little

bit of shade at a BMW F 900 GS is in the past.

Um, but they're awfully good.

I feel objectively, like if you want to do, if you want to have an adventure bike, if

you want to go out and crash through stuff, I think it's quite a good bike.

Um, and you know, BMW's boxer line of GS, this is obviously,

the most iconic and, and, and are really important in the history of, of motorcycling

or history of adventure motorcycling.

Um, and whether you think the R 1300, R 1250 GS is a great bike or you think it's ugly

or whatever, I don't really care.

The point is it's important and they are fantastically capable motorcycles and they

sell a crap ton of them because they're really good bikes.

These are big shoes to fill even though that 450 GS is small and, uh, a new, you know,

a cut from whole cloth entrance into this category, I just feel like it's got to be

really, really, really good in order based on the AI photos of it racing through an

abandoned amusement park.

Um, you know, how could it not be?

Yeah.

I mean, and that is something that like, I don't know, it doesn't actually matter.

Right.

That it doesn't have anything to do with the capability of the bike that they AI those

photos, but it doesn't add this like weird tickle in the back of your brain where you're

like, what are you not telling us about what it can do and can't do?

I don't think they have one that's a working production model yet.

Yeah, sure they do.

I mean, I have a prototype, oh, not a production, but they have a truly prototype.

I guess, I guess I do have some, I have feelings about AI and like, I'm not against AI, but

I do think that in a case of like, you're showing what the bike can do using AI generated

photos of a bike jumping, that doesn't actually show me what the bike can do.

So like, I have some issues there.

I would say that like, I'm excited to see what BMW can do.

I think that this small displacement category is being more important than ever before

because there is a lot of competition here.

One of the competitors that we saw announced in or teased rather in 2025 that we are getting

production models of shortly is the Kawasaki KLE 500.

Yes.

We have been talking on this podcast for years about like, Kawasaki needs to to update the

Versys 300X.

Right.

Versys X300 needs to have the 400 cc engine and then they came out of the 500, we're like,

why doesn't it have the 500?

So we're getting it and it's going to be the KLE 500.

It looks awesome.

This is a bike that I'm excited about.

I am excited because the parallel twin from Kawi, the smaller 500, is just such a cool

engine.

It works in so many different applications.

And I think from an adventure bike standpoint, you get something that's a little bit smaller

than like your big behemoth full size adventure bike, but it's going to be in my mind and

maybe I'm going to be proven completely wrong at the press launch for this.

But like, you know, a competent adventure bike from Kawasaki versus something like a

KLR 650.

Yes, maybe.

You don't think so?

You don't think this is going to be the thing about this KLE 500 is that and we might be

shooting ourselves in the foot a little bit because think by the time this podcast goes

live, the press launch may have happened and you already can read.

I think Aries scheduled to go on that first ride, right?

So you could go to comment, read Aries first ride or maybe even see a little video that

he does more to come on that later.

But speculating in the time of information is, is dangerous.

But right now we don't know what it's like to ride.

And and I just when I'm looking at the specs here, Spurge, let me throw some stuff at you

here, throw it on the internet have chewed this chewed this over a lot already.

So I'm not saying anything new, but for example, KLE 500 ground clearance, 7.3 inches.

That's not a lot, 7.3 inches.

Kawasaki versus X 300 ground clearance, 7.1 inches, two tenths of an inch more ground

clearance, less than a quarter of an inch more ground clearance.

Seat height on the KLE 500, 34.3 inches versus X 300, 32.1 inches.

So you're getting a seat height that's two and a half inches, almost two and a half

inches higher, and you're getting a quarter inch more ground clearance.

Something's not stirring the Kool-Aid, right?

What what like why?

I don't know that to me.

And what honestly, when I look at a picture of the KLE 500, I would say just before you

talk about the picture, you know, when they're measuring ground clearance, they're also

not measuring ground clearance with a rider sitting on a compressed suspension.

Not usually.

You're a rider.

Right.

So like when we're talking about the average adventure bike, you know, and you're

talking about like 11, 10, 11 inches of ground clearance.

That's like, you know, that's not bad, you know, until you put a rider on it and then

you start, you know, scraping some rocks and that's why skid plates are on adventure

bikes. But when you're talking about seven inches of ground clearance with a rider on

top, you know, it's yeah.

Yeah.

And what I was going to say is when I look at a picture of this bike, just a profile

picture, if you go to the, to the spec page on Kawasaki's website, I feel like I can

see, I can see a, a pocket of empty space above the engine and below the frame.

It's, it's like a, to use it to you.

I feel like, I feel like a crotchety old, like, I don't know, crusty old man looking

at a kid sagging his pants being like, pull up your pants.

You're not doing it right.

I like, I feel like I can see where the engine could just be mounted higher.

I don't know.

Maybe I'm sure if I talked to a Kawasaki engineer, they would explain to me why I'm

wrong. I just like, I can't get over the fact that I, when I look at it, I'm like,

why is the engine mounted down there?

And the fact that the distance between the top of the seat and the bottom of the

engine is clearly just a lot bigger, even though the engine is not a lot bigger.

I think what I would say, I just don't know what to say about that.

I just, it just seems like there's some misses right out of the gate before

we even sit on the thing.

I, I am cautiously optimistic about this bike.

I'm going to, I'm going to, you know, continue to fight Zach's pessimism here in

the fact that like, I think it's going to be a great engine.

I think it's going to be, you know, I think it's going to be a great engine.

We know it's a good engine.

We know it's a great engine.

I think it's going to be a fun package, especially for riders looking to, you

know, get into an entry level, you know, adventure bike, or as we saw really what

was popular about the Versys X was that there were, you know, riders that were

aging out of wanting to, you know, push a GS 1250 down a trail, right?

And so we're out of their garage.

Yeah.

And they wanted something a little bit smaller.

And I think this, I think from a styling exercise, this is a, it's definitely

something bold that, you know, doesn't really fit in anything else in Kawasaki's

lineup, thought that they didn't take styling cues, maybe from some of their

existing adventure bikes that are out there on the market already.

But like it adds something a little bit different to Cowey's lineup.

And I think it just, it's going to help with, you know, that small adventure

segment, bringing new riders into the sport in general, whether that's, you

know, transitioning riders over new adventure riding, or just attracting,

you know, new, new folks into the sport that wants something affordable.

Yeah.

No, I mean, I want to be excited about it.

I just like, it's just let yourself, let yourself be excited.

Fuel capacity on the KLE 500, 4.2 gallons.

Fuel capacity on the Versys X 300, Spurge?

I don't know.

4.5 gallons.

What are we doing, Kawasaki?

Like Zack's not happy about this.

I would imagine that with 4.2 gallons of fuel, you're going to average

45 miles a gallon.

You're getting, you're going to be close to a 200 mile range on the tank.

Is your shirt turning green?

I'm just like, do you work for Kawasaki PR now?

I can't even tell.

I don't get so, I'm not that, I don't give a s*** about fuel mileage.

Everybody gets so upset.

Like, I know you.

You don't care about fuel range?

Not, not if not on this, not on this particular bike, it's going to get a,

it's going to get over 150 miles to a tank.

Like you're going to want to pull over at some point and get some extra gas.

Oh, so you're saying that the seat's uncomfortable.

Okay.

Well, great.

So that's the prediction right out of the gate that Spurge is saying.

It was the article that you wrote about where, oh, I was the, it was,

I think it was the gold wing where you were upset because you were passing

people and then you had to pull over and get gas every 180 miles or something

like that.

Yeah.

Was it a gold wing review?

Yeah, it was a gold wing.

I couldn't even, I was pulling over 190 miles.

Like, come on, man, if you're going to give me all that comfort.

How are we to update this bike for years to give us the bigger engine?

They finally did it.

Neither one of us has ridden it.

I am choosing to stay optimistic that this will still be a fun little entry

level into the adventure segment for Kawasaki.

What I will say, perhaps to wrap up the ADV category, what I will say in,

with regard to the KLE 500 and the BMW F450 GS is that all of the bikes in this

category, in my opinion, have pretty serious flaws.

And that'll happen in a, in a, in a, in a small, I don't want to say budget,

but cost conscious, small displacement, perhaps entry level category of

motorcycling.

You'll have, you'll have some misses and, and that's, and that's okay.

So, you know, the, the KTM 390 Adventure R has some problems.

The CF Moto Ibex 450 has some problems.

The, the Royal Enfield Himalayan 450 has some problems.

And so the, the KLE 500 is going to have some problems.

And the BMW F450 GS is going to have some problems.

I just think that when you've waited this long to get into the category,

I just feel like the standard is different, you know, like you, you, you can't,

you don't get to come out with a bike in 2026 to enter the, the 400 to 500 CC

Adventure category.

And I think some of the mistakes that could be made will be inexcusable,

as far as I'm concerned.

Whereas if you came out with one six years ago, it'd be like, cool, you know,

you, you put, putting a foot forward at least, you know?

I think it's, I, I think, you know, I, I understand with what you're saying.

I think this bike has been a very long time coming, but you're also, excuse me,

you're looking at a bike that's, you know, for the base model, 6,600 bucks in the US,

7,500 bucks, if you get it with all the, the bells and whistles, which include

aluminum backed hand guards and skid plates and other things like that.

I think that for the price, it's going to intrigue a lot of riders.

I think the styling is, I think a lot of people buy a bike on styling,

especially if you're just starting off or you're in that entry level category.

I, I think there's a lot of potential here and it remains to be honest with you.

I'm staying, I'm staying bullish on this, this KLE and Zach is, is going to, you know,

take a, a bare stance.

I've been listening to a lot of financial podcasts lately.

So we're going to use this as a transition.

You know, we're talking about the entry level categories.

Um, I think that's a perfect, uh, segue into do you think we are going to see a $6,000 Harley

Davidson in 2026?

That is what has been promised to us as we talk about the cruiser segment.

Do we think we are going to see a $6,000 Harley?

I think we just might, but before we talk about that, Spurjo, let's take a quick break

to get a word in from our sponsor, Motul.

If you listen to high side, low side during season four, you'll remember that I've earned

a bit of a reputation, a reputation for having a dirty motorcycle.

When I dropped off my KTM for service, I had to endure the taunting jabs from Hank,

the service manager, telling me that I didn't deserve nice things.

Well, not anymore.

It's a new year and I've acquired a new motorcycle, a nice motorcycle,

and I'm determined to prove Hank wrong.

That being said, I still hate cleaning my bike.

Luckily, Motul has made it easier than ever to keep a motorcycle looking spotless and clean.

They're shining ghost sprays for folks like you and me, hard riding individuals that prefer

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there's no better way to shut them up than to prove them wrong.

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along with their full line of motorcycle care products available at Revistilla.com.

All right, we are back.

Zach, the question remains, will we see a $6,000 Harley Davidson in the year 2026?

So many questions around this, right?

We're speculating based on some stuff we saw online that,

or I don't know, a lot of people have been speculating that Harley will just bring back

an air-cooled version of something, some heritage model, an 83 or 1200 cc air-cooled

model that's the Sportster, basically the old air-cooled Sportster.

If you spend enough time online, there's a lot of conspiracy theories out around like,

they're going to bring back the 883.

But I rent patents for this factory in China where they submitted permits for

smelting the kind of metal that Harley used to use in the spark plugs that,

calm down.

So do you think that, I guess that's almost a separate question.

I think that there is a possibility they could potentially bring back the 883,

at least for the American market.

Part of the reason they got away was that it wasn't meeting Euro standards,

they couldn't sell it in Europe anymore.

But do we think that the $6,000 Harley that's been teased by the CEO

and the motor company in general, do we think this is going to be that,

or do we think that this is going to actually be something that new?

And should we be excited about it?

Well, it's a little hard to be excited about a $6,000 bike from Harley-Davidson

based on what we've seen in this category in the past.

Like, I remember when the street 500 and street 750 came out and, and I mean,

we're not good.

Yeah.

Did you ride one?

Yes, I did.

Yeah.

Really, really surprisingly bad build quality, surprisingly bad ride quality,

surprisingly bad components.

Brakes, like danger.

Amazingly bad.

So, and that's too bad because, you know, like we, it's easy to throw shade at Harley,

it's easy to pick on the 800 pound gorilla in the, in the, in the world of motorcycling.

But I'm not at my core a Harley hater.

And frankly, I hate to see, I wasn't a fan of that bike because it was bad.

And I was also not a fan of the decision.

Like, did, did leadership at Harley-Davidson ride that bike and think, yep, nice.

This is the one.

We're going to take it to dealerships and it's going to bring people into the fold of Harley-Davidson.

Exactly, like, come on.

And so I think the reason that we're all angling for the, the, an air cooled sports

or resurrection is that that's what people secretly want.

Right.

It's, it feels like something's missing from Harley's lineup.

I don't even think it's a secret.

I think, I think it's very, I think that's what people want.

It's full, full stop.

That's fair.

Yeah.

You know.

Well, and the other thing that's, that's hanging in the, in the air that people have pointed

out rightly, I think is the, the X, what's it called X 440 or something like that?

The little parallel twin that they're you, it's, it's a Chinese made.

Yeah, foreign market, Harley-Davidson.

I think there's actually, Spurge, correct me if I'm wrong.

I believe there is a, a first ride review of this bike because our man, Dustin Wheeland,

was in Japan and got his hands on one of these bikes.

And I also think this is the bike that you can find in America.

They use it at the Harley learned to ride fleets, but you can't actually buy it in America.

Does that sound like I'm making that up?

I thought, I think they brought him into America for just teaching people how to ride

at their, their ride courses.

So I got the name wrong of the one that Dustin wrote anyway.

He wrote a 24, 2024 Harley-Davidson X 350.

The Chinese made Harley, he wrote it in Japan.

And interesting, interesting take on, and history on the bike.

And he talks about how it's related, built in either adjacent or identical factory as the

Benelli 350 or whatever.

The point is, it's possible.

I think that we have to all admit that it's possible that that's the bike,

that Harley would bring some version of that Asian made, you know, parallel twin.

I think it's a parallel twin, right?

To the United States market.

I just hope they don't do that.

I hope Harley-Davidson doesn't do that because I don't think it's going to work.

I think the same thing is going to happen that the Harley base is going to reject it.

And anyone who wants a bike like that is going to be like,

I would just buy a Kawasaki eliminator because, because I don't, yeah, because I'm not going to,

no one that likes Harleys is going to like this Harley.

And if I want that type of bike, then I'll just buy a bike that's made by a different company

that does the same thing.

And, and there won't be any Harley tax associated with the price tag.

So I just think, I just think that would really handcuff Harley.

And I think that, I think that an air cooled resurrection, as I said,

is something that like would actually get people fired up.

I don't know, to some extent.

So if you're thinking to yourself, hey, you two knuckleheads,

you're not paying attention to the news, Harley actually announced a bunch of new models.

At the time of recording this, Harley-Davidson has an announcement coming out later this week

with some announcements for their 2026 range.

It seems like from what we can gather, that's going to be some changes to the touring line.

So like the street glide is going to become the street glide limited.

The road glides become the road glide limited with some changes there.

They're going to update the trikes and some CVO models.

You know, the biggest thing we saw Harley do in 2025, this is a look back on 2025.

Harley did release a very out of the ordinary motorcycle for them.

They released a King of the Bagger's replica, which I believe Ari rode for us.

He did.

It was limited to-

There's a video on YouTube with a little walk around and there's a great first

ride article on Comchat.

Yeah. So that was the CVO road glide RR.

They only made 131 bikes.

They were priced at $110,000 and it was something out of the ordinary for Harley.

My only critique was if you've ever sat on a King of the Bagger's bike, it's big.

It's tall.

I like that.

I think they were afraid to do that with their actual one that they're selling so that

it has the low seat height on it.

It's still kind of mid controls, not rear controls.

But the point is, they took a stab at doing something out of the ordinary and different.

And I think for 2025, that was kind of cool to see.

But so far, outside of this veiled comment around, we're going to see a $6,000 motorcycle.

We really are left kind of scratching our heads as to what it is going to be.

And if it's not going to be the 883 or the 1200 sports engine platform, basically,

are they thinking secretly about bringing that back?

Or some of the rumors floating around the internet?

True.

Do we think we're going to see that return?

I think initially this comment was Yaw Kanzaitz who said that, wasn't it?

In other words, the old CEO at this point.

Not Artie.

The one that said, what's that?

Not Artie.

I believe we published this story initially about how the CEO said today that

in 2026, he was able to buy Harley-Davidson with an MSRP under $6,000.

And that was, we published that in July.

And that was the previous CEO at this point.

So maybe that's not something that the new CEO subscribes to, right?

Well, that's a good segue in the fact that, so one of the main changes that we saw in 2025

for Harley-Davidson was a changing of the guard, right?

So Yaw Kanzaitz decided to leave.

He has succeeded by Artie Starrs.

Artie Starrs is coming from a previous role at Topgolf.

He was the CEO over at Topgolf.

Before that, I believe it was Pizza Hut.

And there was a lot of speculation around whether he'd be able to step up

and into an enthusiast-led business like Harley-Davidson.

And it'll be interesting to see what happens in 2026 for him.

India.

Oh, go ahead.

I just want to say one more thing about the air-cooled Harley thing,

the potential sports or air-cooled resurrection, blah, blah, blah.

This is why I think Harley should do it.

Do it like Costco does with pizza and hot dogs.

Just lose money on that to get people in the door.

That's what I think.

That's what I hope Harley does, not because I'm a financial idiot, which I am,

but I think that that's the kind of attitude that Harley needs to have at this point.

Give away a sports star for $6,000, even if it costs you $6,500 to make them.

If you get someone on a sports star for $6,000, I think it's much more likely

that they'll come back and buy a bigger Harley.

I guess that's where I think Harley is right now,

with dealers closing and market share shrinking and interest waning from where I'm sitting,

they need something aggressive and interesting.

Like I said, something to get people fired up.

That's something that would inspire people in my opinion.

I think you have more leeway than you're giving credit for.

I think if you brought back the 883 under $10,000, and it was an American-made

air-cooled, real Harley Davidson, I think you'd have with a room over the $6,000 market.

I think if you could get it in at like $89.99, you know?

Maybe, yeah.

Well, I mean, we're basing this on the $6,000 price tag that the CEO said,

so that's the only reason I bring that up.

The current sports star, they do have one that's under $10,000 now, right?

Isn't it $9,999?

Was it the night store maybe?

But it was the new engine.

It wasn't the old engine.

It's the liquid-cooled thingamajig.

It's not.

But maybe to your point, if they've already got the tooling and everything else for the

83, maybe there is a way that they could do it as a loss leader.

Bring it back for $6,000.

Who knows?

Anyway, you were talking about Indian.

I was about to segue.

I had a perfect segue lined up, and that's okay.

I think it's a good interruption.

Harley Davidson had a CEO change in 2025.

Indian motorcycles had an ownership change.

So Zach asked a question earlier about when did Polaris take over controlling

stake in Indian motorcycles?

Polaris acquired the Indian brand 2011.

And from 2011 until 2025, they did more for Indian, it could be argued, than any other

ownership group of Indian since it was owned originally by when Indian was founded.

So Indian's been passed around a lot over the last 125 years.

2026, if my math is correct, is the 125th anniversary of the Indian brand being created.

But now Polaris is no longer going to be the ownership.

Indian is going to be set afloat on its own.

There are some investment groups that are coming in and taking control of this outside of Polaris.

And I think the real question for 2026, outside of like,

yeah, we saw the FTR grow away in 2025, and there's a new potential 125th anniversary chief coming.

The real question is for 2026, what's going to happen with Indian?

I would say is probably my open-ended question.

Is this transition going to work or is this new ownership structure going to falter?

Yeah, I don't have an answer to that.

I guess I would challenge you, Spurge.

I'll answer your question with another question.

Where does Indian go?

Indian has the basics.

They got affordable-ish, entry-level-ish cruisers.

Not like 400cc entry-level, but they have low-seat height, maybe sub-$10,000 bikes, right?

For the other chiefs.

Yeah, what is it called?

Scout, thank you.

You're right, the scout, I think there's a scout,

60 or whatever, that's the five-speed with the smaller engine and blah, blah.

And then they have all the way up to full dresser, roadmaster.

I think the roadmaster is still for sale, as far as I understand it.

And everything in between in the stand-in-toe-toe with Harley,

in the heritage touring cruiser game.

But what's next?

What do you do?

Do you try to...

I guess I'm going to answer your question with a question.

Is what you're asking me, does Indian maintain its position as Harley-Davidson's opposition?

Or does Indian try to go after a broader motorcycle market?

I know that they try to dabble with that with the FTR, and obviously the FTR went away,

but do you try to expand your line outside of just American heritage cruisers, if you are Indian?

I hope so, is my answer.

I hope that there's some sort of free thinking that happens.

I struggle with this a little bit, because I don't really like the...

I remember when Porsche first came out with its SUV, first came out with the Cayenne,

I think it was, and I don't remember what year that was.

But I remember my dad being really offended by that, and being like,

like a Porsche SUV, what are we doing here?

And I think there are some plenty of purists who felt that way,

like Porsche is a sports car company, and it should stay in its lane.

But of course, all the SUVs that's, or SUV-ish vehicles that Porsche has,

they've been quite successful with the company, and they've branched out into

four-door models and electric and whatever.

It's hard to blame the company for doing that, for branching out and doing...

Reaching for other bits of the market.

I don't think...

You get Harley-Davidson and Harley-Davidson Trita with the Pan America,

and I think Lance and I went into some detail here on a number standpoint,

but the Pan America hasn't been an amazing success for Harley-Davidson.

I think it makes up less than 3% of all the bikes that they sell.

And this is the problem for Harley-Davidson, because historically,

Harley-Davidson has sold so many cruiser and especially touring models,

street glides and road glides.

They've sold so many of those bikes that if a new model is not doing really well,

then it doesn't pencil.

It's hard for it to make sense for Harley to do it,

but smaller companies can have more success with that.

And Indian is a smaller company than Harley-Davidson.

So does Indian have some ground to stand on?

The problem is that they're so propped up by tradition and heritage,

that I don't know how you...

Harley-Davidson can at least argue that they've kept up with the times,

or they've moved forward with technological advances and that kind of thing,

but it's hard to look at an Indian model and be like,

wow, that was really forward thinking aside from the FTR.

And I'm not sure where they go.

Like, do they go to the adventure category?

Do they try to do another sport naked thing?

I'm trying to think of what category they can rage into.

I liked the FTR engine.

The chassis that it was in just didn't know what it wanted to be when it grew up.

I rode that bike when it was first launched.

It had fueling issues that I don't think were ever resolved.

The foot pegs weren't fun to stand up on, but it was kind of an off-road bike.

It was a horrible bike to actually ride off-road.

It wasn't really an off-road bike.

It was positioning itself as a flat track, or nobody actually really...

Flat track is not...

And then eventually it went from a 19-inch front wheel to a 17,

because now it's sort of a Ducati monster kind of thing.

But that was also muddy because you're like,

is it a flat tracker, or is it a Ducati monster?

What is it?

You didn't know what it wanted to be when it grew up.

But I think the issue that I think India is probably going to struggle with

is Indian, presumably, and I don't know the exact numbers,

but you would assume that with Polaris, there were deeper pockets to play with

trying some of this stuff out.

If Indian is now owned by some private equity money,

how much are they willing to lose on the gamble?

And are you just going to continue with the tooling that already exists

and making some existing models and try to maintain profitability?

Or are you going to take some risks and go after some expanding segments?

And we've talked about this before in the podcast.

You wrote an article about it.

The sport bike segment is growing, surprisingly, right?

Like the sport bike segment has seen growth in a way that when you actually

look at the numbers, I didn't expect to see it.

And so like, do you go after?

Do you bring back the FTR, but you make it a little bit more like a true naked sport bike?

Do you change some things around?

Do you throw a half faring on it?

Like, I don't know.

Maybe there's something to be said there.

Maybe there's not.

I don't know.

But that's what I would love to see.

Yeah.

I think the risk ability will be lower, like you said,

because the financial arm of the company will be not as strong.

But I think the risk willingness might be higher.

And I don't know.

I'm totally speculating.

But that's what we do here, speculations, fun.

Can we transition into what is arguably the most lovable,

stunning and impactful cruiser update for 2026, Spurgeon.

I don't even have to say the name of the bike.

Nope.

You know what I'm talking about.

Everybody knows what you're talking about.

Everybody knows what it is.

As we are recording this,

Ari Henning is actually riding this bike.

I believe are pretty close to it.

The Honda Rebel 300 is getting an E-Clutch.

Yes.

And I think this speaks to E-Clutch and automatic expansion

within Honda's line in general.

But they're starting with a small displacement,

entry level cruiser.

What do you mean starting with?

As far as the expansion goes, it's now trickling down into.

Oh, trickling down.

Sorry.

I meant for 2026, we're seeing it start here

and it's going to be expanded in other bikes in their line.

So if you've ridden a Honda Rebel 300 and you were just like,

I couldn't even focus because it's just like so fast

and there's so much going on,

well, don't worry.

Now you don't have to shift.

You can just ride the bike and focus on the vicious nature of the,

okay, I'm going to drop the sarcasm thing.

This is a new piece of technology that Honda is applying to.

It's smallest motorcycle yet.

We have ridden E-Clutch models of Honda CBR 650 and CB 650R.

And it is really interesting cool technology whereby basically

through a system of sensors and servos and electric motors and sensors,

you can get on the motorcycle,

whichever motorcycle has the E-Clutch,

whether it's a new Rebel 300 or a previous model.

You can get on the bike, start the bike in neutral,

and you can pull in the clutch lever and push down on the shifter

and engage first gear if you want to,

or you can just push down on the shift lever without pulling the clutch in.

And when you push down on the shift lever,

the bike will pull in the clutch lever before the bike stalls

and you'll be in first gear with the clutch in,

even if you have not touched the left handlebar whatsoever.

Do you follow?

It's crazy.

And then when you add revs,

it will engage the clutch for you and move forward automatically.

So it'll be sort of a twist and go thing.

You don't need to do that.

And then as you roll down the road,

you shift with your foot as normal,

whether via quick shifter or with by pulling the clutch in and shifting.

But the point is you can learn clutch engagement

without having to know how to do it.

It's really fascinating technology in so much as it's the only,

in my, as far as I know, Spurge,

it is the only piece of,

let's say broadly, automatic transmission technology

in the motorcycle realm that maintains a clutch lever and a foot shifter

and allows you to do it if you want to,

but does not demand that you do it to make the motorcycle go.

So I think it's a very clear distinction

that this is not the same as Honda's DCT transmission.

So with the DCT transmission,

you do have a full automatic mode

where you can just put the bike into automatic mode and it goes.

There's not a clutch.

You still have to shift this bike, right?

You don't have to necessarily use the clutch,

but you still have to use your left foot to shift it through.

I think this is really cool.

We had an episode, I don't know, two seasons ago,

where I don't even think it was a focus in the episode.

It might have been like one topic.

And we were talking about automatic transmissions, DCTs,

clutchless, E-clutch, et cetera, et cetera.

And there was another outlet out there

that pulled a clip of Zach and Ari and I talking

and basically took our words out of context

and said that we were shitting all over people

that wanted automatic transmissions.

That's not what we were doing.

And I will say that we'd never really even bothered to defend ourselves

because we just didn't care enough to go after these comments.

But I think anything that we can do

to make motorcycling more accessible is a good thing.

I personally liked learning how to use a clutch

as part of my journey in becoming a motorcyclist.

I liked the challenge of it.

I liked learning it.

It was something that was very rewarding for me.

I can understand and empathize that there's people out there

that might want to ride a motorcycle,

but don't have that same instinct of wanting to learn the clutch side of things.

Or they just want the consequences to be less when they mess it up.

Exactly.

And I think this is a beautiful middle ground

of you can learn to ride a motorcycle,

still get the feeling of shifting through the gears

without having to have the pressure of like,

I got to pull the throttle back while I'm letting the clutch out,

while I'm moving this lever with my foot and like,

it can be overwhelming.

It can be intimidating.

Sure.

And so for me, the fact that Honda is bringing this technology

down to an entry level bike is something that's pretty cool.

It is cool.

I hope that it helps people feel confident

and motivated to get into motorcycling.

It's a very Honda move to apply this type of technology

to such a beloved model as the Rebel 300,

which is so approachable and affordable and Honda's blessing it with this technology

that really thus far has only been on, I won't say expensive bikes,

but like, you know, mid-level to top tier models,

which I think is pretty cool.

Another bike that's getting this technology in 2026

is a bike that we saw released in 2025,

and that is the Honda Hornet.

The Honda Hornet was a favorite bike,

not just for one Lance Oliver,

but also Zach, you were pretty fond of it

for the daily rider programming slate.

Top of the leaderboard in 2025, baby.

There you go.

No.

So I think this completes our transition to talking about standard bikes.

Now we can move into talking about standard motorcycles.

The cruiser segment, and we are now talking about standard motorcycles

with that amazing Hornet transition.

Yeah, and I think it stands to reason

that the CV750 Hornet would have any clutch option.

I think that that bike is, you know,

Lance Oliver is really interested in that bike.

I like, he keeps, has he bought one yet?

No, he keeps talking about it, right?

We're agreed, he keeps talking about buying one.

He does.

And I think that that bike is most,

is going to garner the most interest from people like Lance,

who are seasoned veterans of motorcycling,

who have owned multiple bikes before,

and they think they, you know, they want either

they're downsizing from a larger, more intimidating bike,

or they just sort of like, they want the new Suzuki SV 650

of motorcycling, this new kind of like,

you know, third bowl of porridge of naked bike,

just like really, really perfect in a lot of ways.

And I don't think it's going to be as much for people who are like,

never ridden a motorcycle before.

Maybe I'll get one of those Honda Hornet thingies.

And so I don't think the E-Clutch is necessarily going to appeal

to as many buyers as it might for a Rebel 300.

But that's the thing about this E-Clutch technology is that

I don't know the, I don't know the inner workings of it intimately,

but I, I feel confident in saying that it is

significantly less expensive for Honda to apply to a model

and significantly less complicated.

And so then like DCT or something like that?

Then DCT, excuse me, yes, then DCT.

DCT involves a whole, literally a whole transmission

with two clutches inside and they engage in different,

like it's massively complex technology, especially in the,

I mean, it exists in the car world as well,

but especially in the motorcycling world,

that's unique to Honda and in production bikes anyway,

and is very advanced and also expensive.

And Honda has spent a lot of money building it,

but the C-Clutch thing is less so and offers a lot of the same benefits,

which is pretty cool.

Well, I think it's important to note,

and then we'll transition a little bit deeper into the 2026 category here,

but with, with Honda bringing that to the 26 Hornet, presumably,

you know, one of the, one of the things that the Hornet shares

with the, the Transalp is the engine, the engine is awesome.

It really is a smoke in engine and it'll be interesting to see.

I think the application there probably has,

probably makes more sense in the, in the Transalp version of that bike.

Actually, that's a good point because it's sort of like a recluse clutch

like situation where you can like,

you're going to stall less when you're going down a trail.

You're trying to learn how to ride off road.

Yeah, totally, totally.

You don't want to stall the bike.

I, I, well, that was one of the big things was I really was upset

that we didn't see a DCT offering for that.

I understand the complexity they're trying to keep costs down,

but if they can do a, an E-Clutch version,

I think that's going to make a lot more sense.

E-Clutch is a no brainer there for sure.

Yeah.

So, all right.

That being said, Zach, the standard category,

um, you know, let's, let's, uh, you know,

kind of carry through small displacement here, right?

We've been talking a lot about small displacement bikes.

We just talked about the Honda Rebel.

In the standard category,

we are seeing Triumph expand their 400 line.

You and I rode Triumph 400s to the top of the world.

And I remember somebody asked, you know,

can you, can you actually tour on this bike?

Is it, is it capable?

And I was like, I don't know.

I mean, I did like 12 days straight on this motorcycle.

You can definitely do it.

Um, but I think it's cool.

I'm so tired of that question.

Can, can you tour on that bike?

Can, can you go, can you go long distances?

Yeah.

The answer is always yes.

Always yes.

It's just what your tolerance is.

Yeah.

That's all it is.

And I, and like, you can tour on anything.

If you're trying to do that, like when we did that 25 hour day,

like we, we were actually stopped in traffic so much

that that's probably a bad example.

But if like you're trying to do like an iron butt ride on a,

on a 400 cc motorcycle,

probably going to be miserable.

Right.

But if you're just doing like 250 day,

250, 300 mile days, um, on a Triumph 400, like it was,

it was a reasonable little bike to put around,

to put around Indian.

Um, but I think with, for new for 2026, uh, we are seeing the

tracker, we are seeing the Thruxton.

So some style upgrades, um,

And different seating position, right?

The Thruxton is going to be a lot more kind of like sporty

and kind of aggressive and the trackers.

And they look cool.

That's why they look cool.

Yeah.

I think it makes sense to sort of, um, uh, garnish or sort of

like sprinkle some different styling around this 400 cc

platform.

Cause it's been, um, I don't know.

I'm not sure what the sales figures are on those bikes.

Um, exactly.

But it seems like it's been a boon for Triumph to have those

available for both the global market and for, um, the US.

So I hope that it's, I hope that it's more fuel to that fire

because I think they're, they're, they're far from my favorite

Triumphs, but, but they're, they're, they're cool enough.

And they're, they're, uh, uh, I'm looking for the right word.

Predictable application of Triumphs sort of, um, you know,

styling cues and that kind of thing, but also, uh, pretty

well curated, I think, you know, they, they look the part.

And speaking of looking the part, uh, Triumph is updating a

lot of bikes in their lineup this year.

But as long as we're talking about the standards, um, at the

time of this recording, uh, Dustin Whelan just released a

first ride review of a new T 100, uh, T 120 and scrambler 900.

I think, you know, well, you say new, well, how are they new

again? I don't remember.

Uh, surely you read Dustin's article spreading.

It's, it's light styling upgrades.

Um, and you know, a few different pieces of technology,

but again, I think what's really the name of the game here in

this particular category, uh, is that, um, they haven't

changed so much that you're not going to recognize them and

then you're not going to like them.

So it's, it's a little bit, I don't want to say rinse, wash,

repeat, but they've got a formula that's really working

right now.

Yeah.

Um, this neo retro kind of a thing.

And I think these bikes are ones that we've really liked in

the past.

I'm personally a fan, um, and you're just seeing some, some

styling cues, um, updated for, uh, for the new year.

Arguably the bigger move we mentioned triumphs, uh, street

triple updates, uh, a little bit earlier.

Um, but the, in the standard category from Triumph is that

Trident 800, which will, as far as I understand it, use the

same engine as the, um, Tiger sport 800, um, and the sort of

aesthetic and the sort of stripped down neoclassic look as

the Trident 660.

Um, so it'll be the bigger, bigger engine and, um, slightly

upgraded, um, features, uh, um, yeah, features and electronics

and componentry, um, with the bigger engine, which I think

will probably be pretty cool though.

Spurge, you have a bone to pick with Triumph over this

because it's going to replace the street triple R.

Um, well, and I don't know if Triumph would say it's

replacing it, but like practically it is replacing

it because they removed that bike from the lineup.

20, 20, 25 is the last year you can get a strip triple R

at this point.

And that's been such a beloved motorcycle.

And yes, they're keeping the RS.

Um, and you know, I think that's kind of what they're

angling for is there's probably a lot of people that

walk into showrooms and, you know, for the price difference

they're like, Oh, I'll just buy the RS.

But arguably, you know, I think the R was probably a better

bike.

For most people just riding around a naked sport bike on

the street, if you weren't planning on going and doing

track days or anything like that.

Um, but the different engine tune on those bikes is

like varied over the years.

And, and ultimately I think, I don't know, Triumph,

Triumph sort of wrote the destiny for that bike, I

think, because like at one point the R like didn't

have the big fancy color screen, but if you got the

RS, then you got the big fancy color screen.

Well, you hang on because there was a street triple S,

a street triple R, and a street triple RS.

And they, and they got rid of the S, which I agree was

kind of like, why not just bump to the R?

But the R had, you know, it still had a really good

suspension, it just didn't have like the race tune

suspension.

I just think it's that it's one of those things that

like, if you're riding one, you're not going to wish

you were on the other, but people like you said, I

think people were in showrooms and they were just

like, I'm just going to like splurge and get the

slightly, because this one has more power, even

though they'd like the street tune was probably

better for what they were doing, like you said, but

I, like I said, I think Triumph kind of, I don't

know, put that riding on the wall and then read it.

And I agree, but I think that the main thing that

I liked about that bike was, you know, it was

roughly, let's say $3,000 less than the RS.

And so for a little over $10,000, you could go

buy a pretty wicked, awesome naked sport bike.

And I don't, I'm not, I've, I've not ridden the

Trident 800, but it doesn't strike me as

necessarily going to have the same edge of the

Street Triple R. That's all I'll say.

Yep. Yeah, fair enough.

Yeah. I mean, I, I hear what you're saying, but I

also, you know, if people want edge, they're

going to splurge on the RS. And if they don't

want edge, then maybe there's a $3,000 difference

in price there. You're paying, you're paying an

extra, you know, roughly 35% of the bikes MSRP

to jump up and not everybody needs the more

aggressive suspension or the, you know, the

extra four or five horsepower stuff.

Yeah. Like we were talking about with sport

bikes earlier, it's not what people need.

It's about what they, what they want, they want.

Yeah, what they perceive they need. Yeah.

Do people want a retro version of Suzuki's

parallel twin line? GSE.

They want a GSX8 TT, do you think?

Hard to say.

That kind of, that model is sliced so thin

because there's the GSX8S and then there's the

GSX8T and then there's the GSX8TT.

Which are all naked versions of that bike.

And the T and the TT have a round headlight and

sort of retro thing.

Isn't the GSX8R part of it? Like, isn't there?

Yeah, I hadn't even gotten there yet.

The GSX8R has the fully fared one that has,

looks like a sport bike, but they're like,

it's a lot of bikes built off the same thing.

And it's a good engine and it's a good chassis.

And a few seasons ago we said, you know,

Suzuki, you're not doing anything and now all

of them are just like spraying models at us.

And we're like, whoa, hey.

And I think this is the same engine that's in

their Vistrum, right? Yep.

Yeah. Vistrum 800D is the same engine.

And yeah, I mean, it's a good engine.

My point in bringing this up, and Zach and I kind

of went back and forth in pre-production and

we're like, are we actually excited about this?

Here's my point, is that I think a lot of people

buy motorcycles based on style.

I think we forget that sometimes

in our role or just in general, like there's a lot

of people out there like, nah, just like the way this looks.

And this is very similar to me in my mind as to,

you know, what Yamaha did a few years ago

when they introduced the XSR.

You could buy an XSR 900 or you could buy an MT-09.

And people were like, the MT-09 looks like a robot.

Oh, the XSR. Yeah.

That looks nice. I like that.

Exactly. It's just, it's that bike that I like,

except it looks different better than the one.

So for me, if somebody's looking at a GSX-8R

and they're like, I don't want that. I don't want a sport bike.

But then they look this and they're like, oh,

this is kind of like a, you know, 80s naked bike.

That's kind of cool. Yeah, I agree.

That's kind of what I like about this.

I am curious, you know, when, you know,

when Yamaha did the XSR 700 and the 900,

that was like, I don't know, eight or nine years ago already.

A long time ago, yeah.

Other brands have tried some of this,

like Neo, Cafe, Racer type aesthetic.

And they haven't been super successful with it,

you know, probably not as successful as Yamaha was.

So like, do you think it's a little bit late in the game

for this style?

Or do you think Suzuki's taken enough of a turn

that maybe this is, you know, plucking at the hard strings of

a newer, younger audience?

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think that, yeah,

I think this is really late for Suzuki.

I think it was late to come out with a parallel twin

versus to just sort of like update this whole lineup of bikes.

And they finally did it.

And they're like, they're a pretty good job of it.

But like, you're like, where were you for all those years?

And it's the same thing with Kawasaki giving us

a small adventure bike.

You're like, you guys been asleep or what?

And so, you know, I'm sure that engineers and R&D folks

that these companies would say like,

well, it takes a long time to develop all this stuff.

Sure, yeah. And there's some allegation.

And there's all this, there's a lot of stuff you got to do.

I get it.

I remember the, I remember the first line

of your Yamaha Tenere 700 first ride.

Do you remember the very first, the lead,

the very first line of your article?

Do you remember what you said?

Mine?

Yeah, your article of the Super Tenere,

sorry, not Super Tenere, Tenere 700,

when it first came out.

It's about time?

About damn time.

That's what you said.

And that's how we feel sometimes, right?

As the public were like, you've been talking about this

for years. How many of me haven't done it?

So people forget about that.

We had, I mean, the Tenere 700 was a bike

that they had in Europe for years.

Were they like, did they like race it

in some Rally Raid events in Australia,

like two years before we got it?

Don't even get started on Yamaha,

not bringing bikes to America.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, on the other side of the coin, perhaps,

I'm not sure if that's the right analogy.

I wanted to call out Ducati Monster Plus,

which has been updated for 2026.

I read an article written by Mr. Dustin Whelan.

And I started reading this article,

and I'm kind of like, the take I had was like,

where are we going, Ducati?

Where's the monster going anymore?

It's just had this incredible journey

of starting as a 900, and then there was a 750,

and then there was a 620, and then there was a 1,000,

and then there was an 1100, and then

they had a liquid-cooled engine,

and then there was another 1100,

and then had more liquid-cooled engines.

And it's just like the engine sizes.

Even the audience had an idea of what the plus is for this bike.

The new Monster Plus?

Yeah.

Basically, it's a facelift redesign,

and it now uses the same 890cc engine

that's in the Street Fighter V2 and Panigale.

V2 and Multistrada V2, I believe.

Is that right, Spurge?

That's what I'm saying, yes.

Okay.

So roughly 110 horsepower motorcycle.

Yeah, you know, like Dustin goes into some detail

about like how it technically is, what do you say?

It's like technically lost a little bit of horsepower,

or yeah, like lost two horsepower,

like a little bit of horsepower,

or something like that compared to the old engine.

But this, Ducati's had this weird crossroads

where it's created, it spent a lot of time

and money clearly on this new V2 engine,

and now it's being applied to every bike

that it had in the lineup,

and it sort of reminds me of what I just said

about slicing models, Suzuki slicing those models

real thin with the GSX8.

Now you've got a Street Fighter V2

and a Monster Plus with the same engine.

And are the chassis different?

Yeah, is the riding position different?

Probably a little bit.

Is, do they look different?

Yeah, they look different.

But it's slicing it pretty thin, isn't it?

Am I taking crazy pills?

Here's my take one.

You're doing research, I can tell.

No, I'm using the slider on Dustin's article

to see the outgoing one versus new.

We can actually put it up on the screen for people.

I love that feature.

Our juxtapose slider.

Two thoughts.

One, I like the look of what they're of.

They're kind of going a little bit more traditional.

You don't have the slanted exhaust pipe.

It looks a little less angular.

It looks a little bit more kind of, I don't know.

I don't want to say retro because that's not the right word,

but it looks like it's going maybe a little bit more

towards what people think of with a Monster.

You can arguably see a little bit more of the engine.

Yes, yes.

And so one of the questions that I had for Zach

as we were going into this is that like,

is this a standard bike or is this a sport bike?

When I think of a Monster,

I think that this is a naked sport bike, right?

And I think that I can understand that,

argue that this is like a, it's a standard motorcycle.

You hop on, you ride it around.

But that I think is where Ducati lost a little bit

of its way along the years with the Monster.

They made it really sporty.

They had pictures of your doing track launches

on a Ducati Monster and all this other stuff.

And like to me, part of the appeal of the original Monster

was it was just a really great sporty motorcycle

to ride around on the street.

Yes, there was the S4R and all that jazz

from an iteration standpoint,

but like to your point about it losing its way,

like what does this want to be when it grows up, you know?

Yeah, that's what I struggled with a little bit.

Like it always, it always had, or not always,

most often in history, it has had some differentiation

between the street fighter line.

You know, like the street fighter,

there was street fighter 848 and there was a...

And it predated the street fighter line.

You know, I think that's enough for people

that might not be old enough like we are, but yeah.

Yeah, I mean, the Monster came out in 1993, 1994 or something like that.

And yeah, I mean street fighters didn't happen,

Ducati street fighters,

it didn't happen until 2010s or something, I think.

Anyway, the point is there seems to,

from a manufacturing standpoint,

I get you can see where Ducati's coming from.

They're like, we're going to spend a bunch of R&D money on this engine.

We're going to apply it to a bunch of different models

because it's going to be an engine that we're proud of.

And I've ridden the V2 engine and I think it's a good engine.

And I'm like, I'm on board with it being used.

But when you have more categories of motorcycle using the engine

than you have engines,

you're going to end up with some overlap in capability, you know?

And I guess my counterpoint to you thinking that the Monster is a sport bike

is like the fact that they have a street fighter V2.

Like clearly the street fighter V2 is the naked sport bike.

And the Monster is supposed to be the more street oriented version.

But I don't know, I'd be super curious to ride them back to back

and be like, I'm sure they feel different.

But I can't help but remember a time when it was like,

you could get a street fighter 848, you'd get a Monster 1200.

Like they were just completely different.

They were completely different models and different outlooks.

I think that's an important delineation for people that,

if you're looking at Ducati's catalog, it can be overwhelming.

Especially if you're trying to look at it from a historical standpoint

because like there's been a lot of ducks and turns and curves and

I didn't even mean to use ducks as like a play on words there.

But I think the street fighter when it was introduced was supposed to be

a bit more, it's supposed to have a bit more teeth to it, right?

It was supposed to bite you a little bit harder than what the Monster was.

I can't steal your word because that's what I wanted to say.

I wanted to say vicious, but that's really your thing and I like it.

I like it a lot.

The street fighter was supposed to be the more aggressive version of a naked sport bike.

But I mean, I don't know, man, think about when the Monster was introduced.

And maybe this is my biggest problem between the Monster and the Street Fighter.

The Monster was supposed to be a naked sport bike.

It was like playing off of that trend of people crashing sport bikes

and stitching them back together without putting the fairings on and all that other stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But I mean, that's, I mean, that's that's so long ago now, right?

I mean, that's.

But that's where the whole thing came out of 35 years ago.

I know. I just don't think we can apply that.

Yeah, I know. I just don't think we can apply the 90s lens to the 2025 market

and be like, well, you lost your way.

I just think that it's, I'm curious where Ducati goes from here.

Yeah.

Do they bring back the small displacement engine and make,

I mean, that was one of the more popular monsters of all time was the,

was it the 696?

The 626, 696, there have been so many, so many numbers.

Well, I don't know.

We'll have to wait until 2027 to find out, perhaps, Spurge.

We do have one last topic here, which is electric slash alternative.

One last category of motorcycles, I should say.

And we are, we're, this conversation has been quite meandering along already,

so we can't spend too much time on it.

But there are a couple of things we wanted to point out that are new.

And I guess I'll let you decide where to start, Spurge.

I think we will quickly say Livewire is hanging on.

For those of you that are familiar, Livewire was spun off as its own brand.

Originally, it was Harley Davidson.

Livewire was an electric motorcycle and now Livewire is its own brand.

They have introduced a honcho as something we can expect,

which is a small little electric mini bike.

So that's something that we might see or we're being told that we're going to see.

Are you excited about a honcho, Zach?

If you could think one thing about a honcho that you're excited about,

what is different and unique about a honcho that could be cool?

And I feel like I'm supposed to know the answer to this question, but I don't.

Swappable batteries.

Oh, swappable batteries.

You know, the swappable battery thing to me is not that exciting in the, in the honcho.

And if you guys don't know what a, what a honcho is, it's basically like,

it's a Honda Grom-esque thing.

It's a small, it's a mini bike, right?

Can we call it a mini bike?

It's a mini bike that is electric.

Um, and I guess the, the, the, the swappable battery thing doesn't really light my fire in the,

in this category of bike, like in a mini bike, I just think people are going to use it as a

little bop about and I don't think they, they care to swap batteries.

Maybe that'll be the thing that does it, but I don't think that the, the, the glimmer of hope

that I have is that it will entice people who are into electric mini stuff or electric bicycles

into actually buying an electric motorcycle from a motorcycle company.

Because I think that by and large electric motorcycles that are produced by motorcycle

companies are probably going to be better than electric motorcycles or electric transport that

are produced by some company you've never heard of.

Flash in the pan companies.

But I don't, I, I, I think that life where it's got a real hill to climb.

I think the motorcycle industry in general, um, for EV, you know, we're seeing, we're

seeing the, the drawback, um, of promises made even in the automotive side of, you know,

oh, we're going to be fully electric by 2030.

And, you know, there's a lot of write-offs happening right now, um, in the automotive side.

Ford, Ford F-150 lightning being like, oh, just kidding, just kidding.

Yeah. Yeah.

But you did, you know, one of the things that we've talked a lot about in the podcast is,

you know, we'll, we'll believe more in, you know, some of these EV flash in the pans when

we see established brands doing it.

And what we did see announced this year was Honda, for the European market so far only,

we're not necessarily going to see this in the US in 2026, has announced a WN7

electric motorcycle. And Honda is arguably, you know, an established brand kind of playing

at that. Did you just say that Honda is arguably an established brand?

Yes.

Okay. Well, we can argue about that another time.

You don't think they're established?

I do. Exactly.

I think you don't need to say it's arguable.

Yes. And I have been, I have been a drill trumpeter of this whole thing of saying like,

I don't care about your, you know, whatever brand name you come up with, um, that,

it's the new blah. And we came out with an electric motorcycle and aren't you excited?

Well, no, I'm not because you're not Kawasaki or Honda or BMW or, or whatever, any number of other

brands that, um, what's the one that we rode for the CTXP episode where we did the beginner

bike shoot out on doors, the sawn doors. Is that still around Zach?

No, no.

So, um, yeah, I think, uh, yeah, I think that, um, yeah, I think that the, that it's exciting.

It's, it's, it can be a little, we're a little jaded at this point with electric motorcycles.

It can be a little hard to get truly excited, but it is cool that Honda is sort of like,

we have a full size electric motorcycle. It's, it's sort of like a zero or something like that.

And, uh, I forget, I think it's 11 kilowatt battery, maybe, um, so smaller than the big

offerings from zero, but more of like a, you know, city transport, um, type bike.

I think they're, they're claiming less than a hundred miles of range, but, um, about for

80 miles of range, something like that. Anyway, the point is, um, it's, uh,

someone had to do it, um, and, and Honda's the right company to do it. Uh, and, and, um,

I guess I hope we get it in the States. Um, and I don't know what else I have to say about it.

The, um, the final little, uh, uh, electric call out here, um, and then we can do a fun

alternative and then, you know, move on to, um, the, uh, the interesting guessing game.

But, uh, Stark Varg, uh, is releasing a Supermodo street legal version. Um, so this is a company

that originally was making off-road only electric dirt bikes. Um, and now they're slowly expanding

their line into street legal electric vehicles. I'd like to clarify some nomenclature. I believe

the company is Stark and the Varg is the model, which was the motocross bike. Yep. Um, and they're

branching out with a couple of different SM models. Right. So now there's a Varg SM,

which is Supermodo, right. Supermodo, um, 17 inch wheels, street tires, a headlight tail light,

blah, blah, blah, legal for to ride on the street. Pretty cool.

And I, I don't have much to say about this other than like, it's now a street legal

variant. There's been a lot of friends that I've had that have used the off-road variant

and absolutely rave about it. Right. And so I, what I'll say about this is that, um,

what was the, what was the name of that? What was that company that went out of business?

There was a Silicon Valley, um, motorcycle company that Harley like bought and then

shuttered. It was like red, red, red line, red star, red, no, no, what was it? Um,

Spurge is going to Google it and I'm going to tell you what I think.

Go, you, you tell us anything. Yeah. Yeah. See if you can find the name of that bike.

Um, I'm embarrassed. I can't remember. Um,

God, what was that called? Anyway, um, that company had a,

Alta, Alta, thank you. And wasn't it was, it was, it was the Alta,

what was the model name? Alta Redshift. Redshift. That's where I got read. Okay.

The, there was an Alta Redshift off-road bike and then there was an Enduro at some point

and then there was an SM and the Alta Redshift SM was an absolute riot. It was a,

an awesome, awesome street bike. I remember thinking, um,

I lived in San Francisco for a few years earlier, uh, late in my twenties.

And I remember thinking if I had a zillion dollars and I lived in San Francisco,

I would buy an Alta Redshift SM to ride around San Francisco. It's a small city.

You're not going to travel a lot of miles. Um, it was absolutely wicked. It was silent.

It was fast, wicked wheelies, wicked brakes, light. It was,

it was just a terrific, terrific bike. And I have not written a Stark Varg SM, but

I like to think that some of that essence was captured and, um, and, uh, if so, it's probably

dynamite. So if you had to picture a motorcycle that was a complete opposite of a Stark Varg SM,

something that wasn't going to be light, wasn't going to be nimble, wasn't going to wheelie,

right? Wasn't going to be, I mean, it could be fun to ride, um, because you can, you know,

take the whole family. Uh, what, uh, what final wacky pick do we think that we're going to maybe

be excited to see our ride in 2026?

Well, Barry in the lead here, everybody. The most exciting news of 2026, obviously,

is the Ural Neo. Uh, if you're not familiar with Ural, uh, Ural is a, uh,

essentially a Russian company that, um, started making World War II knockoff sidecars a long time

ago and has since moved to Kazakhstan and continues to build Russian knockoff sidecars. Um, and, uh,

you're probably familiar with, um, with a Ural Gear up or one of those, um, uh,

sort of wacky World War II looking Indiana Jones style sidecars. In 2026, Ural is coming out with

a new looking model, a new motorcycle. It's a new engine, new platform, uh, same sidecar. I mean,

yeah, literally the same sidecar, but it has a sidecar on it. Um, and, uh, it's kind of interesting.

Like it's a, it's a, it's not a retro looking bike. It's a, it's a liquid cooled parallel twin

made in China, I think, right? Yeah. I think that's where a lot of the, a lot of the commentary has

been around like, oh, it's Chinese now. And I think Zach and I were talking about this. And I

think Zach, you made the point of like, wait a second, like it wasn't like these things were a

pillar of reliability and, you know, uh, you know, engineering to begin with. Like, are we really

going to knock it for being produced in China versus, you know, Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan, like

the, the Kazakhstan motorcycle, that was the one that you were like, yeah, hey, you don't mess with

my Kazakh built motorcycles. I don't, I just, I don't know if anyone, yeah. Anyway, we'll see how

it goes. I'm excited. Spencer Robert just bought a, uh, an older hero and he was talking about the,

the problem with like parts availability and everything on issue right now.

Well, you know, but may perhaps be made in China will make parts availability less of an issue.

Spencer is initially the one that brought up this whole point of like,

are you really going to get a dignity about your Kazakhstan motorcycle when it comes to,

you know, reliability and, um, I don't know, sort of like, uh, noteworthy brand recognition. I

don't know. I just, I guess you could, one thing you can say about the Kazakh built

yearl is that while not Russia, it is close to Russia and, and like it still maintains the spirit

of Russia in some ways. Um, and, uh, you know, straight up building a liquid cooled parallel

twin in China is a little bit less charming, you might say, but I'll still be excited to ride it.

I'm, you know, me, spur Joe, I'm a sidecar guy. I'll be, I'll be interested to try it and, um,

report back when I do. Well, I think we have talked about everything that we could possibly

be excited about so far in 2026. Until we get all your emails. Um, but I think it is time that, uh,

we fire up the engines on the old engine sound guessing game. Do you have any objections of me

firing up the engines, Zachary? Fire it up, buddy. Wait, wait, wait. Who fire up that sponsor? Yeah,

exactly. Yes. Uh, Krapavich is, uh, the sponsor of the engine sound guessing game and Krapavich

makes premium exhausts for your premium motorcycle, whether it was built in 2025, 2026 or some other

model year, chances are Krapavich has an exhaust to make your motorcycle sound better. Um, and we

would just want to take a second and say thank you for, uh, for sponsoring the engine sound guessing

game. You can play along at home. Zach and I, uh, are going to crank up the engine sound. We have

not heard it either he or I, um, and we are going to be competing against each other,

but we're also competing against you. So if you think you know the engine sound,

shout it out. All right, everybody, without further ado, let's have a listen.

Ah, no, no shutoff noise. I don't know why, but I kind of like a shutoff noise. This one we had

to fade out. I'm making excuses already. Do you like it? Uh, would you say that the engine sounds

vicious? Hmm. Well, here's the question, Spurge, because you and I had an argument about

what's a sport bike and what's a standard bike. Would you say this is a sport bike or a standard

bike? I would say it was a sport bike. Oh, okay. All right. Um, yeah, it sounds a little bit

vicious. It's quick to rev. Um, as usual, we will go with number of cylinders first. How many

cylinders are you hearing? I don't want to answer that question. Uh, okay. Do you like me to answer

it? I think it's four, but it could also be two. And that's where I'm, I'll give you a hint. I think

it's neither two nor four. You think it's a triple? I do. Really? Yes. That was the one I was

going to say. I'm almost positive. It's not a triple. It's so funny. Yeah. Remember last, uh,

or, uh, yeah, I don't remember. I, I, I could, I could count on, I would need many hands to

count the mistakes I've made in the understanding guessing game. Anyway, um, I think it's a triple

and I think it's a mid-sized triple somewhere between 660 and 800. Do you think it's a triumph

triple? I do. Really? I didn't get that at all. But it could be in, like, I think it's, I think,

I think, I think, I think, I think, I think it's triumph or Yamaha. And this is the thing. Well,

that's, you're kind of, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. It's hard to tell the category

on who makes triple. Who else makes a triple though? MV Augusta? Right. So what do you just

name it? I don't think it's one of any of the triples that are on the market right now is what

you're saying or a Laverda. We've played that game before. We did. Um, okay. So, um, uh,

you know, now that you mentioned it, it could be an MV Augusta. Let's get a hint, shall we?

I think it has three cylinders. Let's get a hit and listen again, because I didn't,

I was going to say I do not think it's three cylinders, but I am as always wrong. Uh, first

hint is that it is a triple. So I, I did not hear that at all. So if anybody outside, uh,

this studio is playing the game at home and you feel a little bit let down too, um, you're not

alone. I, I would have never guess triple on that one. Okay. Um, well, I'm, I guess I don't really

know what I'm listening for, but let's take one more listen to it and see if we can glean anything

from, uh, the sound to try to determine who makes this bike.

Yeah.

You know, I hear it now. I know I'm like, now I'm just like, now it's all you can hear.

It sounds to me, it sounds to me like, and I'm, I'm going to, again, I'm just going to

make bold claims at this point because I was pretty sure it was in trouble. I would say it's

probably like the six, the seven 65, like it sounds more like the new one than like the old

six, seven, five. If you think it sounds more like the old six, 75, I don't know. I think it's a Yamaha.

You think it's a Yamaha? We've, we've gotten screwed by this in the past. We have, and I don't

know what to say, except that I'm not very good at this. And I, but I, I, the starter motor,

I think I'm here in Yamaha and I, I usually, I feel like the triumphs often have this sort

of water pump whistle. Um, at least that's what a triumph engineer told me it was one time. They

had this sort of like, um, RPM related kind of like, yeah, a little whistle, like, uh, that, that

the engine kind of has a high pitched wine, a wine or a whistle that, and I'm not really hearing

that here. And I feel like starter motor sounds like Yamaha to me. I don't think it sounds like a

Yamaha. All right. Well, I agree with that. Maybe, and again, I don't want to go back and

listen again, but I, I don't remember hearing the, the starter motor whistle, but like,

I don't know, doesn't sound like a Yamaha. Okay. All right. Uh, final hint, uh, well, I'm wrong

again. Um, but on a positive note, I think you are too. The final hint is 798 ccs. That's not a

triumph. And it's not a Yamaha. The Yamaha is not a 798 cc triple. The, the 800, the new 800 cc

triumph is a 798, I think. I think like the, the Tiger Sport 800. Really? I think it might be a 798.

Yeah, but they don't have, but how is producer Chase going to have an audio clip of that unless

he got like that bike's not, I guess that bike's on the street. Tiger Sport 800. Yeah, I wrote that

last year. Um, so it could be that. It could be an MV Augusta. Is it an MV Augusta? I don't know.

Can we, can we check the facts on? No, don't look anything up. That's the whole, you can't,

I don't do research in mid-scrabble game. I'm sorry. Okay. Um, if we're both wrong, we're both

wrong. Um, I, I thought it was a Yamaha and I'm wrong because the Yamaha was, uh, the MTO 9 was

an 847 and is now an 890 and the triumph street triple 765 is of course a 765. Is this, I think

765. It used to be the 675 or 675. The Tridents are 660s or 800s, which leaves the 800, the 800

triple. So let's move on to the end. Do you have a final, do you want to make a stand? Do you want

to take a final guess? Tiger's 4800 or it's an MV Augusta. I don't know. I don't know. I guess I'm,

I guess I'm way off. I thought it was Yamaha. I'm, I couldn't be further from the, from the truth.

The answer is a 2018 MV Augusta Brutale RR. So want to give a shout out to Frank. Frank, thank you

for sending us a sound clip of your stock, uh, 2018 MV Augusta Brutale RR. Uh, he warmed up.

You win. You win and a Krapovich pipe. Just kidding. You don't, you just win a t-shirt.

He, uh, he let us know that he warmed up the engine so that he'd be able to hit the rev limiter

for us. Okay. That's good. Well, I appreciate that, Frank.

Zach would have appreciated it more if you would have gotten an audio clip of the engine turning

off. Sounds like. Well, um, burned yet again by my own genius idea of trying to guess engine sounds.

I thought I was onto something and, um, bad news, Frank, your MV Augusta sounds like Yamaha when

it starts up. Well, it doesn't look like Yamaha or feel like Yamaha. The Brutale RR has the, uh,

the crazy spoke wheels on it. He actually sent a picture into maybe we'll throw it up on the screen.

Frank, uh, thank you for playing. Remember, you too can play the engine sound guessing game.

If you want to send us an audio clip of your engine sound, we need a sound, we need a clip of the

bike starting up, let it idle for a little bit, give it a couple of really good revs, let it idle

for a little bit, turn it off. Zach wants to hear the bike shutting down as well, starting up.

Frank, we will send you a t-shirt. You need to send us an email with your preferred shirt size,

high side, low side, shirt design, and the address where you would like us to send your shirt to.

Thanks again, Frank, for making me look dumb. Um, all right, Spurgeo, I mean,

you got it was a triple right away. So like, I'm going to give you some credit there. Like, I,

I did not hear. Okay. Um, that's enough engine sound guessing. Spurgeo, let's move on to the

high side, low side comment. The high side, low side comment this time comes in from Austin

via email. If your name is Austin, I hope you're getting excited. As a reminder, you can, um,

win a t-shirt just like Austin just did by sending us an email or leaving us a review.

More on that later. Austin's comment via email goes like this, Spurgeo. I wanted to bring to

your attention something announced at Eichma this year that wasn't mentioned in the podcast.

It looks like Cardo and possibly another company, if I remember correctly, have come out with some

noise canceling helmets. This is a big deal. It could in theory mean the end of needing to wear

earplugs and or earbuds while riding. I work at one of the companies that designs and manufacturers

active noise canceling or ANC systems for automotive manufacturers. This system uses small

microphones in the vehicle cabin that pick up unwanted outside sounds and then generates

an opposite sound wave through the speaker system of the vehicle to cancel out road and

engine noise. It is used in many newer vehicles. Similar technology is used in noise canceling

headphones as well. I'm excited to see this technology come to the motorcycling world

because I hate wearing earplugs when I ride and I often will not use them for a short ride.

Here's hoping that this technology becomes more common in motorcycle helmets signed Austin.

Well, Austin, you are correct. The other helmet manufacturer you could be thinking of was Cina,

but Cardo is launching a noise canceling motorcycle helmet. They announced it at Eichma.

It was recently shown at AIM and we are joined by our product expert, Pat McHugh, who was at

Eichma, who was at AIM and who has seen this helmet in person. Pat, welcome to the podcast

and we're looking forward to getting a little bit of a download from you

for Austin as to what you think and what you can tell us about this new Cardo helmet.

Yeah, it's been super cool and I love seeing when customers are actively reaching out asking

about gear because I am also a gear geek. It's cool to hear something not about bikes from you

guys and more about something in the advancements that we're seeing. But yeah, Cardo's new helmet,

there's going to be two of them, a GTS and I believe just a GT, like a top model and a lower

model, but they are introducing ANC or active noise cancellation. So it should be a pretty

revolutionary thing for us riders moving forward. As they indicated, not really something that is

new to the industry. Sen has kind of had something out there, more so in the communication side of

it. So it'll actually mute a lot of the noise in the background when it comes to the communication

from rider to rider, but still super cool to see them moving forward and Cardo now introducing

something for active noise and road noise cancellation to be more specific. And in addition

to that specific feature, what were some of the other technologies that we're seeing from Cardo

that's going to set this helmet apart from what we've seen from competitors out there?

Yeah, they're actually going to be using the, as you said, got to check it out and actually

wear it at AIM this past week. So they will introduce 53 millimeter speakers inside the

helmet, which is really going to play towards the active noise cancellation. So 53 millimeter

speakers are the biggest we've seen thus far inside of a helmet, updateable hardware built

into it. So you can actually swap out hardware if they come up with new technology, introduce

them in there. There's going to be a taillight built into it that works on accelerometers

we've seen from other companies like break free and a full carbon fiber lid. So it's

really cool how advanced they're going, not just introducing like a four or $500 helmet that

kind of does it. They're throwing everything they have from a technology side of it at this new

GTS coming out. What is the price point? Do we know? In the US, it's probably looking at about

1200 for their first attempt for their top of the line, the GTS. And I think the step down

would be about 1000. And that was really to bring the price down, but it's going to lose a couple

of features. I think the battery is about half as big as the bigger one as well as a few other

features will be pulled back, including the shell won't be carbon fiber or probably be fiberglass.

And for the premium one, you were mentioning this in pre-production when we were talking about it.

Some of the things that I thought were interesting, you mentioned the brake light

being built into it, but also like life of the helmet or crash detection technology where if

you drop your helmet, it can tell you, hey, your helmet is no longer safe to wear. What are they

working on with some of that stuff? Yeah, so we saw them introduce that with the Pactalk Pro

crash detection, which was a big thing about a year ago. A lot of brands were introducing it,

especially on the dirt side of it, trying to introduce that technology in there. It's definitely

clever. It really tells you if there's enough G forces that the helmet might be compromised,

it'll send you a notification like you should probably get the helmet checked out just to make

sure. But it's crash detection, so it likely can. We'll see what the technology actually rolls out

with. It'll likely notify someone that you put in your emergency contact list that the crash has

been detected. You might want to reach out to this person just to make sure that they're okay. So

a lot of features going into it. A lot of things that we're seeing Cardo really toss into this

helmet for the price point, which makes sense. You want all the premium features, but also

just creature comforts for riders. Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting. What I'll say,

to kind of play devil's advocate here, and maybe you can correct some of these

conceptions that I have or illustrate why my conceptions are misconceptions.

Historically, when a company that doesn't make helmets comes out with a helmet,

it's not very good. There have been lots of attempts at smart helmets, at heads up display

technology, at integrated speakers. When you put the helmets on, you're just like,

this isn't good. It doesn't feel like an ride. It doesn't feel like a showy. It doesn't feel like

an HJC. It doesn't feel like a helmet from a brand that makes helmets. And so as a motorcyclist,

I'm suspicious of it because I think years ago, it didn't send it come out with a helmet.

And to be fair, this was a price point helmet. It was like it was priced much more aggressively

than this, but it felt like it. And it didn't feel good. I didn't put it on and think, nice,

I'm going to wear this. I thought, no, I'm not interested in this. So why is this different?

Or why is it different? Wait, wait, wait, Pat, before you answer,

can you, is there a helmet, is there a manufacturer in recent years that has never manufactured a

helmet before and then came out with a helmet that you, Pat McHugh, loved and became one of

our favorite helmets of the year? Yeah. I mean, Alpine Stars is the best example of what you

can do from someone who doesn't design helmets to a company that is now leading every single

category in the helmets that they produce in there. So I thought you were going to say Liat

because Liat is not historically a helmet maker. And that's like a pretty good helmet.

You guys like that too. But yeah, Alpine Stars is the most recent one that is branched into

the helmets. And they've really just done an amazing job with it. Yeah, which I loved for a

few years there at Eichma, every brand that didn't make helmets was like, we can make helmets now.

And they would just go to a third party, give them an idea. And we jokingly refer to it as

a la carte. Oh, you have this VCH shield. Oh, you have this vent. And can I piece it together and

make this helmet? Alpine Stars did it right. Liat did it right with their ADV lines. They

redesigned everything in-house. They might have used external like manufacturing, but it was all

their proprietary information. Cardo's doing the same thing. Everything about this helmet is theirs.

That they've taken to it. Whereas we've seen it from like Santa has tons of helmets out there

and including the one I mentioned before, which uses AI NR, which is an AI system for noise

reduction. So not quite ANC, but getting closer and maybe a firmware update away from doing

something like that using the microphone to listen for road noise and then canceling it out.

But what Cardo's doing is really just throwing everything they have technology wise at it. So

I'm the same way as you. It was cool in person. I didn't get to ride with it out on the road.

They had a boombox playing road noise and they turned it on, turned it off to show you the

difference to the original commenter's kind of point of view. I'd still probably wear ear plugs

on it just because when your ears start to go, it's not like a steady gradual. You're starting

to lose your hearing. It's usually a cliff and it falls off. So I'm trying to avoid wherever that

cliff is in the future as much as I can. It also doesn't heal as something that I believe I learned

about hearing damages that doesn't get better. So that's my way of looking at it. I'd probably

still wear them as a safety point of view, but I don't have problems with it. I will say having

tried on that helmet at the shows, you can definitely feel how close they had to put the

speakers to your head. So it is a narrow fit from what we've seen right out of the gate,

whether they change that before they launch. And I think they're launching mid this year in the U.S.

Whether they change that, that remains to be seen. But that's part of the technology is

you want whatever is stopping the noise to be as close to your ears as possible to help

reduce it just with a physical design more so than the technology. So we'll see. Only time will tell.

Yeah. I think with that, Austin, hopefully it gives you your answer. I know that there are some

rumors that I heard that Cena's going to be making some updates as well. So who knows what 2026 has

in store for this particular technology. But one thing is certain is that it's definitely

moving pretty fast. And Pat, just want to take a second and say thank you for joining us to keep

us up to date on some of the newest changes that you're seeing out there at these shows.

Yeah. Happy to join, fellas. Later, Pat. See you soon.

Well, I didn't realize we're going to talk about hearing loss because

Zach and I haven't had a chance to catch up off-screen lately, but I've been dealing with

a hearing issue in my left ear and I never knew that hearing just falls off a cliff. And

I woke up one day and had lost pretty much half of the hearing in my left ear

and have been going to all kinds of doctors to try and figure out what's going on. And

at one point, one of the doctors was like, well, this just might be permanent. And I'm like,

that's insane. Why? How? Why? And it's brutal. Yeah. And you're just like, no, this is just what it

is now. Well, crazy. I hope that answers your question, Austin. Obviously, Pat had a lot more

information than we did. It's glad we brought him on. He's a wealth of knowledge, as always.

And I guess I'm encouraged. I don't know. I'm still skeptical, but I guess cautiously excited

about the idea that a company that doesn't make helmets would break ground in the helmet game,

because sometimes that's what it takes. A lot of, especially in the motorcycling industry,

companies can get hung up on what they've always done and not branching out and

not rocking the boat and so on and so forth. And if a company can come up with a product that is

genuinely different and new and innovative and works and is good, then I guess I'm open to it.

I like noise cancelling technology in general. I think it's cool.

I think the helmet industry, especially, man, you look at 10 or 15 years ago and it was like,

arrive versus showy. And I mean, over the last five, six, seven years, you've had

Bell, you've had Liat, you've had Alpine Stars, you've had Scorpion. There's some really 6D.

You've had some really great helmet manufacturers come out of

non-traditional lanes. And I think it's really cool to see this particular segment continue to evolve.

But Austin, keep your eyes peeled. It sounds like 2026 is the year you're going to see some

new helmets come out that feature this audio cancelling, noise cancelling audio technology.

And as a reminder to all of you out there, you can send us an email to highsidelowsideatrevzilla.com

with a question or comment. You can submit a comment or leave a comment on YouTube or Spotify.

You can also leave a review on the Apple Podcast platform. And if your comment slash question

is selected, you win a t-shirt just like Austin just did. So Austin, please,

friendly reminder to send your preferred t-shirt design, size, and mailing address

to highsidelowsideatrevzilla.com. And we'll get you some swag.

Zach, out of all the things we've discussed today, what's the thing that you are most excited about

for 2026? A big takeaway for 2026. As far as I'm going to scroll up in the document,

just give me a second here. Well, it's not robots, that's for sure. That seems like

that went haywire right off the bat. I don't know, like, what am I most excited about?

It's hard. What about a robot motorcycle?

I don't know. I can't help but be excited about some of the stuff that would theoretically be

quite good for daily rider, you know, that Rebel 300e clutch, the Suzuki SV7 GX,

the bikes that are sort of practical. You know what my big takeaway here,

is that I was a real grump about that KLE 500. And I appreciate your optimism,

and I hope that I am proven wrong. I guess that's what I would say. What about you? What's your

big takeaway from the episode this time? My big takeaway is that for the end of 2025,

I made the Spencer Robert Family Holiday Christmas card list. And if Zach, I'm assuming

you've probably made this list in the past, we talked about alternative motorcycles at the

very end of this. We talked about a new looking Ural. But Spencer was on the podcast earlier

this year, and he was pontificating about a Ural versus a live wire and what did she get for his

wedding. And you know, Spencer doesn't listen to the podcast, so he's never going to know that I

did this. But I'm going to share just the Robert Family Holiday card this year featured.

What is it featuring, Zach? Well, it is featuring Spencer, his lovely wife,

his brother, sister-in-law, two nieces, mother, father, and of course, a Ural sidecar.

Look at that. A Ural sidecar. So not only did it make an appearance for the wedding,

but it also kept us happy in the holidays with a warm well wish. So I'm hoping that I make the

holiday card for 2026, despite the fact that I'm airing their holiday cards all over the internet.

Exactly. You might be off the list now. I wonder what motorcycle they'll feature next year.

Indeed. All right. Well, as usual, I'm sure we missed something. So if and when you make it to

the end of this diatribe of a podcast, if and when you are a horse from yelling at the sky about

how did we possibly miss the motorcycle that we missed, send us an email and remind us,

and we'll try to bring it up if it makes any sense. In the meantime, Spur Joe,

we got some fun podcast ideas coming up for the rest of the season. I'm looking forward to that.

But I suppose we should let the ladies and gentlemen go right now, huh?

Let them go, and we will see you next time on High Side Low Side.

S11E07: Best New Motorcycles of 2026: Our Picks

About this episode

Harley-Davidson Sportster

Suzuki SV650

Tiger Sport 800

KTM Super Adventure 1390 S Evo

KTM Super Adventure 1290

KTM 990 RCR

Ducati Panigale V2

Yamaha YZF R9

990 RCR

Ducati 916

Harley-Davidson 883

Honda That Honda

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