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I am just going to front-load this opinion: motorcycle press photos need more wiener dogs in them. It just works, and when they are paired with a pint-sized motorcycle like the Honda Dax…well, it just makes obvious sense.

An early 2023 model, the Honda ST125 Dax is a continuation of Big Red’s miniMoto lineup, using the same 9hp, 124cc, SOHC, two-valve engine found on the Honda Super Cub 125, complete with an auto-clutch handling shifting for the four-speed gearbox.

The European Union is pushing hard to become the first continent that is carbon-neutral, with a self-imposed deadline of achieving that goal by 2050.

To help reach that end, the European Commission (the EU’s executive branch) has aimed for a 55% reduction in CO2 by 2030, and that cars and vans have a 100% CO2 reduction by 2035.

With initiatives in place to bolster electric charging points throughout the European Union, our friends across the pond are poised to make some drastic shifts in their transportation sectors.

Our friends across the pond got a surprise today, as the Honda CRF300L Rally broke cover for the European market.

Rumors of the bike coming for the 2021 model year have been pretty rife the past few months, so perhaps “surprise” is the wrong word to use here, and of course the Euro5 regulations have pushed for a number of “new” bikes to debut in Europe.

Still, the bump from the 250cc machine to the 2021 Honda CRF300L Rally is a welcomed sight for this small-displacement machine.

The Yamaha Ténéré 700 just debuted for the US market a matter of weeks ago, and already the Tuning Fork brand has a new edition of this middleweight ADV bike for our consumption.

The new model is called the Yamaha Ténéré 700 Rally Edition, and as the name implies, it is a more off-road ready variant of the Ténéré 700 motorcycle.

Before you get too bent out of shape about having to wait even longer for another Ténéré 700 model, the Rally Edition is mostly a parts bin bike, with Yamaha kitting a number of its aftermarket parts to the machine, along with a killer blue and yellow “speedblock” paint job.

If you are a European reader, expecting the soon arrival of your brand new Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade, you might have to wait a little longer, as certain markets in the EU will be issuing a recall on the new superbike.

The recall comes from concerns from the Honda factory over the connecting rods found in the CBR1000RR-R’s four-cylinder engine, which may have a metallurgical defect and fail during use.

Honda tells us that in total about 300 units are affected by the pending recall, which is roughly a tenth of the total bikes expected to ship to European countries.

For our friends across the pond, this year and next were to be critical years for the motorcycle industry, as the first stage of the Euro 5 homologation requirements was to come online – first in 2020 for brand new motorcycle models, and then in 2021 for existing motorcycle models.

This first stage of the Euro 5 requirement for motorcycles affects primarily the noise emissions from the vehicle, and it will be several years before motorcycles sold in Europe will have to adhere to the full Euro 5 package, which is quite stringent.

The delay on the full Euro 5 implementation comes over concerns about the costs and R&D associated with meeting emission targets, but even this first stage is proving to be difficult for OEMs to implement, and the reason for that is because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Pierer Mobility is once again spilling the beans on its holdings, releasing the 2019 sales results from the KTM and Husqvarna motorcycle brands.

To that end, the combined effort sees another sales record for the group, with 280,099 motorcycles sold last year. This marks a 7% gain over 2018.

This makes 2019 the ninth year in a row that the KTM Group of motorcycle brands has seen positive sales growth, which is not a claim that too many brands can lay their hands on.

We continue to wait to see what pricing will be on the 2021 Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP (whew! say that three times fast!), when it comes to the USA later this summer. 

Our Bothan spy tipsters have pointed to the new Fireblade as being a pricey superbike (we have been expecting a roughly $25,000 price tag), and American Honda’s decision to import only the up-spec SP model adds further fuel to the fire that some price-point trickery is afoot.

With pricing already shown for the UK market, and seemingly confirming out suspicion, now we have another data point, as pricing on mainland Europe is finally out, and it seems to confirm the trend.

Debuting just before this year’s EICMA show in Milan, we see one of the Tuning Fork brand’s few exciting bikes for next year.

What will surely continue to be a European model only, the Yamaha Tracer 700 gets refreshed for the 2020 model year.

Based off the Yamaha MT-07 platform, this parallel-twin sports tourer boasts a new full-fairing design that is strangely eye-catching.

Beneath that fairing though is where the real changes reside, as the big highlight feature for 2020 is that the 689cc engine gets tweaked for Euro5 emission homologation.

While motorcycles sales in the United States continue to slip, sales in Europe continue to grow. I use that line almost every time I write about this subject – largely because it’s the truth.

The fact is that there is a fundamental difference about what is going on in the European markets versus what is going on here in the United States, and it shows in the sale data.

Reporting on the first half of the year so far, the European Association of Motorcycle Manufacturers (ACEM) says that the European motorcycle market is up 9.1%, compared to the first-half of 2018.