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Neo-Sports Cafe

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One of the surprise pleasures at last year’s EICMA show was Honda’s family of “Neo-Sports Café” street bikes, which brought a retro-modern look to Big Red’s approach road bikes.

While the new Honda CB1000R tickled our fancy the most, we were delighted to see that the theme extended all the way to the Japanese brand’s small-displacement platform, the Honda CB300R.

An attractive and affordable entry-level bike, the Honda CB300R looks like it was designed in Europe, rather than Nippon, which is probably why the 286cc commuter is doing so well in the European market.

Seeing that success, American Honda has confirmed the CB300R as an early 2019 model for the US market – available in July 2018.

If you think that the 2018 Honda CB1000R is a fetching motorcycle, then we’ve got some more good news for you, because Honda Motor Europe has debuted at EICMA two more bikes with its “Neo Sports Café” aesthetic: the Honda CB125R and the Honda CB300R.

As you can discern from the names, the Honda CB125R and Honda CB300R are street bikes that shares a lineage with the Honda CB1000R, albeit in 125cc and 300cc packages, respectively.

As such, the 2018 Honda CB125R is basically a redesigned CBR125R (a model not available in the US market), while the 2018 Honda CB300R is a repurposed to create the Honda CBR300R.

When we first saw Honda’s Neo Sports Café concept, it was a bittersweet moment. We loved the design. It was bold, but understated. It was a clean and modern take on a motorcycle that each year fades further and further from our attention.

The design was so good, we were sure that the Honda Neo Sports Café concept would never see the light of day, and surely not as the new Honda CB1000R.

It is good to be wrong sometimes, because say hello to the very attractive 2018 Honda CB1000R, which brings the Honda Neo Sports Café concept to life, with very few changes.

If it feels like Honda is zigging while others zag, then you would be correct. While the streetfighter segment continues to be filled with uber-aggressive performance machines, Honda is looking to  take a more sophisticated approach with the new Honda CBR1000R, which plays to the bike’s strengths.

If we had to guess at a unifying theme for this year’s new bike launches, it would have to be “what is old is new again” as several brands are working on modern-engineered retro-styled motorcycles for the Tokyo and Milan expos.

Big Red is throwing its hat into the ring for this game as well, teasing what it calls the “Neo-Sport Café” on its YouTube channel. The videos center around Honda’s design and engineering team working on a new motorcycle, which will debut next month at the EICMA show in Milan.

In the teaser videos, we see a retro-looking motorcycle, with modern flares, such as an LED headlight, single-sided swingarm, and bazooka shaped exhaust can.

And then of course, there is the name” Neo-Sport Café and Honda’s description that it is true to “the spirt of the café racer.