Hey everyone -

I had a couple pics I wanted to share with you all today. Quad Magazine contributor Lance Schwartz drove from his house in central PA roughly the four hours to my house in South Jersey for a shoot with our Honda 700XX.

We’re going to do a follow-up test on the 700XX in an upcoming issue. To give you a little back story… When we went out to the Honda intro for the 700XX, it was held at Dumont dunes. The assembled media got to ride it in the nearby rocky desert as well as the dunes. If you didn’t read our review on the machine, in a nutshell, I wasn’t a huge fan of the machine. I felt it had a few issues and quirks—all of which were magnified in the soft sand in the dunes.

Honda was obviously bummed about our review (and pretty much all the other mags seemed to pan it as well - some more brutally than others).

Anyway, after I got back I told Honda that I really wanted to test the machine back east where I thought it might do a little better. I thought it would be better suited out here. I even wrote that at the end of my review…I would reserve total judgment until we got a test unit back here.

Right now Lance is going to put in a few weeks aboard the machine. I don’t want him to write one word until he has spent a ton of seat time aboard the machine in a number of different riding environments. I have to admit that I was surprised to actually give a Honda product a negative review - I think that for the most part their machines are stellar. I’m just not a big 700XX fan I guess. But - that’s why Lance is spending more time on it (as well as a few of our other testers so we can get a fair breakdown from multiple people).

We’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, enjoy the pics! And drop me a line if you’re a 700XX owner - I’d love to hear your stories as well.

Doogie