I finally understand!

[McCarthy]

Lol. So the snow is finally melting up here in the the great white north, so we got to go for the first ride of the year yesterday which was nice. Suspension was harsh as always, however I finally understand what the engineers were thinking. (It's also improved some since I had the blown shock replaced)

We took a ~3 mile section of fairly rough, very bumpy, windy trail and spent the afternoon doing timed laps of it. There was my Talon, my buddies Turbo RZR, an X3 XRS, and a XP 1000 RZR.

The Talon, driven at 10/10 on said trail, was phenomenal. Suspension worked perfectly, the DCT was amazing, it just worked so well. Riding the same trail at 1/3 the speed after our fun, the suspension sucked again. I finally found where and how the engineers tested the suspension. Lol. Fun day.

Best time:
Talon 3:24
X3 XRS: 3:28
XP 1000: 3:51
Turbo RZR: 4:29 (timid driver, likely the most capable machine out of the group)

 

[Admin]

 

[Sheetmetalfab]

Lol. So the snow is finally melting up here in the the great white north, so we got to go for the first ride of the year yesterday which was nice. Suspension was harsh as always, however I finally understand what the engineers were thinking. (It's also improved some since I had the blown shock replaced)

We took a ~3 mile section of fairly rough, very bumpy, windy trail and spent the afternoon doing timed laps of it. There was my Talon, my buddies Turbo RZR, an X3 XRS, and a XP 1000 RZR.

The Talon, driven at 10/10 on said trail, was phenomenal. Suspension worked perfectly, the DCT was amazing, it just worked so well. Riding the same trail at 1/3 the speed after our fun, the suspension sucked again. I finally found where and how the engineers tested the suspension. Lol. Fun day.

Best time:
Talon 3:24
X3 XRS: 3:28
XP 1000: 3:51
Turbo RZR: 4:29 (timid driver, likely the most capable machine out of the group)

Talon X or talon R?

Live valve?

 

[McCarthy]

Talon X no LV.

 

[PaulF]

Yup, you can't please everyone, that's impossible. It is a "Sport" machine so Honda set it up that way as evidenced by your fastest time and many other stories like yours. This is also shown by all the Talon commercials I have seen. I noticed most of them are fast paced.

Had Honda made it a nice soft trail machine, the other half would b**** because it bottoms out too easy.

Could Honda have put it in the middle? Maybe but then maybe everyone would b****. I think they went one way because...

I had Weller set mine up for slow-mid trail and rock crawling knowing fully well it would take away from the dunes. They did not recommend something in the middle because most riders spend most of their time either slow OR fast and not in the middle. I choose slow for the DW, she hated the machine at first and now loves it. It does suffer in the dunes but is well worth it for the slower speeds and especially rock crawling.

Did Honda choose the correct setup? I would say probably not. I think there are many more slow trail riders and rock crawlers then there are duners/desert racers. However, I suspect the Talon would not pass the rollover test with a soft suspension so it forced them to the stiffer, faster paced (and rougher) suspension tune (and advertising that went with it).

 

[Stilly1155]

I had a Polaris General 4 seater before and if you think the Talon is a rough ride you should drive one of those. My Talon LV is like a Cadillac next to my old General. But I also put a lift kit and 32's on the General so it's not really Apples to Apples comparison. Overall I'm very happy with the Talon's ride.

 

[Dankathy]

All this is very true, but internal bypass with high and low speed compression as well as rebound adjustment was not new when the talon was built- just a few more $$$$!

 

[McCarthy]

Yeah it's odd to me that they set it up for such a specific task when a sport side by side is usually a versatile vehicle, I don't know of anything else other than maybe a YXZ that is setup in such a way.