Right now in the fashion capitol of the world, Milan Italy, the largest motorcycle show is celebrating it’s 100th anniversary. Known as EICMA, the scope of this show cannot be imagined by any one who has never been there. The show itself it over a half-mile long. If you remember the heyday of the Dealer News Indianapolis Show people would chime, “You can’t see it all in one day!” The truth is, unless you stopped at every booth and talked to the rep for 5 minutes or you had an insatiable love for Chinese knock off motorcycles, you could see the show in a day. This show, there’s no way. If you are speed walking (which all Italians do, including the models in 8″ heels) it takes 20 minutes to walk from one end of the show to the other. It’s THAT massive.

With all of that being said, it’s easy to get lost in all of the hype of the show itself. There are so many bikes, so many brands and so much techno music pumping through the halls all day long that it’s hard to single in on just one thing. A few weeks ago in Germany at the Intermot show Kawasaki stole the lime light with it’s new H2, the Supercharge behemoth that dealers are taking deposits on right now. The first of it’s kind, and revolutionary for Kawasaki. Trellis frame, supercharged power plant, futuristic styling…it had sport bike fanatics salivating. Yamaha drew a little blood earlier in the week with it’s new R1-M, the track only version of its significantly updated R1 for 2015. However, in Italy, one brand caught everyone off guard and completely stole everyone’s collective thunder. Honda.

There’s no secret that Honda has the dominant platform in MotoGP. Sure, they have Marquez at the helm, but their RC213V is the cream of the crop. The Yamaha M1 is an incredibly close 2nd, but the truth is, those racers all want to be on Hondas. Several years ago Ducati was on a winning streak and sold a production version of it’s MotoGP bike, the Desmosedici, but you have to expect that from Ducati. They are a motorcycle only brand. They were built on racing. Italians are passionate, the Japanese are conservative. All 1500 Ducati’s were scooped up in short order even with their $72,000 price tag. Honda was built on the Z50, the “You meet the nicest people on a Honda” campaign, the Honda Civic. Seeing them come out swinging with a production, street legal repli-racer based on their RC213V is stunning. We are sitting in the new golden age.

The RC213V-S promises to be the highest priced motorcycle that has ever been offered by the marquee that gave you wings long before the Austrian beverage company thought about it. From the looks of things, it’s worth it. Sure, the paint scheme that they showed off was a little bland, but this is something you can (likely) order from your dealer and shred your local highways on while telling the cute girl at the coffee shop that your name is Marc and you are here on vacation from Spain. This bike has it all, from the Brembo mono-bloc brake system to the incredible looking (and certainly cool sounding) dual exit exhaust. It will feature Honda’s dual clutch transmission technology and could possibly be delivered with all carbon fiber body work. The V-4 engine; that alone should be getting you excited! This is the real deal from a manufacturer that has put a stamp on the industry by being cautious and conservative in their approach to two wheels.

Many Specifications on the bike were kept secret as it is believed that they are waiting to do a full unveiling of the bike at their “local” Tokyo Motor Show where we will probably learn the displacement of the motor. I would venture a guess at 998cc, but that’s merely a guess. We may possibly learn a price and certainly how many will be produced. Sport bike fans unite, and like the band Imagine Dragons sing, “Welcome to the new age.”