How to out cruise a Harley Davidson with style, with speed and with comfort.

I’ve just seen what may possibly be the most individual, and maybe a little scary, motorcycle ever built. And it’s a Honda! The Valkyrie Rune looks like something that leapt out of the pages of a 1980′s sci-fi comic. Or a Sylvester Stallone film based on it. Wide tyres, wide tank, wide bars, wide everything! It’s a beast which begs you to break the law. So it can judge you.

This bike doesn’t try and steal your admiration. It forces you to pay attention. The chrome leaps off almost 50% of the surface of the machine and most of that is engine! Even Harley’s don’t have this much chrome. Nor do they have so much elegance either.

It’s not just a big bike though, it’s a heavy bike. It weighs in at about 350kg but the engineers at Honda have done an excellent job of keeping all the really heavy parts down low in the frame which makes her feel balanced and poised when you ride her. She could so easily have been heavy and sluggish but she’s certainly not.

The engine is smooth as ice cream after being whisked. And there’s just so much torque it’s ridiculous. Leaning into a bend and squeezing the throttle pushes you back into the comfortable seat and drives you out to the straight with punch. It can keep you entertained for hours and without the aches and pains you might expect from a long road ride.

The only down-side to this incredible machine is the availability. Honda doesn’t make them any more and never officially imported them to Europe either. The only ones that made it to our shores were personal imports. So on the odd occasion one pops up on Ebay for sale or Bike Trader but that’s about it. The only other way of sourcing one would involve a rather costly and lengthy expedition to the USA. Good excuse for a long holiday though I guess.

However, a bit like waiting for ‘Nessie’ on the shores of Loch Ness they do from time to time show their faces and at the time of writing there’s one up for sale in the Midlands based showroom of Fasttrack Motorcycles. She’s patiently sitting in the window waiting to be bought. Or maybe she’s waiting for her next victim.

Seeing a one in the flesh, or chrome, was what prompted me to write this piece in fact. It’s not often that a bike stops me in my tracks these days and when they do I can almost guarantee they are hand-crafted custom builds. But the Valkyrie Rune is like nothing else on earth. What an aptly named machine. After all Valkyrie’s fly don’t they? And so does Joe Dredd’s Lawbringer in 2000AD.

So if you have a spare 13k and fancy something a *lot* different, or just fancy going and seeing one of these rare beasts somewhere other than in a photo, take a trip to Leicester and visit Fasttrack Motorcycles. But be reasonably quick as I don’t expect her to be there for long. Believe me though, if you do make the trip you will not be disappointed.