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2017 Honda CRF450R

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2017 Honda CRF450 Supermoto, for France Only

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America might have invented supermoto racing, but the sport’s largest support base easily comes now from that other side of the Atlantic – more specifically, from France.

So, it shouldn’t surprise us to learn that Honda’s French importer Superboost makes a special supermoto version of the Honda CRF450 for the French market.

For the 2017 model year, the Honda CRF450 Supermoto follows that changes made to Big Red’s 450cc dirt bike, which notably includes the return of fork springs (goodbye air forks), an electric starter, and down-draft fuel injection.

Basically a kit that is added at the importer level, the 2017 Honda CRF450 Supermoto lineup has three models, building off the CRF450R (€11,299), CRF450RX (€10,999), and CRF450X dirt bike (€10,999), with each getting their own taste of the supermoto treatment.

For American readers, don’t expect to see these supermoto models at your local dealership, as this is strictly a project undertaken by the Frenchies.

Though, it would be nice to see American Honda supporting the local supermoto scene, and offering some sort of motard kit for its venerable CRF450. The Swedes and the Austrians shouldn’t have all the fun.

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2017 Honda CRF450R Caught in the Wild

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A reader asked me recently what I knew about the upcoming 2017 Honda CRF450R dirt bike, and admittedly I had to say “not much” – it’s called Asphalt & Rubber after all.

For the past year though, even my radar has picked up sighting of Akira Narita (one of the greatest Japanese MX racers of all time) showing up to events in Japan with a race bike that looked pretty advanced from what was currently on dealership floors.

This is nothing new in the world of Honda though, with next year’s models often ending up at events on the other side of the Pacific…usually in Narita-san’s very capable hands.

But today, we can answer more accurately what Big Red is up to with the 2017 Honda CRF450R, as the folks at VitalMX caught the new motocrosser spinning laps at an MX track in Southern California (read their expert breakdown of the new bike, here).

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