Old news in the world of professional mountain bike racing, Honda announced that their superfantabulous team G-Cross would not continue for the 2008 season. Thanks Honda, its been a great 4 years, we appreciate the level of professionalism you brought BACK to the sport and hope that in your absence other teams will ante up and follow suit. Ok, I’m done wiping the tears away, now lets switch gears and take a look at the revolutionary bike Honda engineered to tackle the word cup circuit, dubbed the RN01. Eccentric design isn’t it? my first impressions of this bike led me to believe that the engineers from ginsu and huffy had got together. Further investigation revealed a gearbox transmission Honda developed specifically for the sport as well as the chasis designed around it. Look at the picture, see that huge boxy section where the crankarms are located, thats the gear box, essentially it acts as the entire drivetrain system found on a conventional geared bicycle. Whats so special you ask? plenty, but I’ll keep it simple, the first being the ability of the rider to change gears on the fly without ever having to turn over a pedal, this is huge considering in the sport the differences in time between 1st 2nd & 3rd are separated by milliseconds and two, the frame designs low center of gravity which promotes great cornering characteristics as well as high speed stability. For more info regarding this masterpiece, Yahoo! ‘RN01′. It’s a shame that these prototypes never made it to production.
