Honda Hornet-based Bol d’Or Rumoured For 2025

Back in 2022, Honda pulled the wraps off a concept model that had bikers of a certain going weak at the knees.

It was a version of the CB1000 dressed up to look like the famous CB900F machines that were original poster bikes back in the 1980s. Sadly it was confirmed shortly after the concept was revealed that the model was to be mothballed, forcing a collected sigh of disappointment from a large number of weak-kneed bikers.

Well, it might be about to make a comeback, as Japanese insiders are pointing to a revival of the machine, and they are all suggesting that it will be arriving at some point in 2025.

We are, though, taking this news with a big spoonful of salt, and the main reason for that is because the bike it’s being reported to be based on (the Honda Hornet 1000) still hasn’t officially been launched.

Should the bike actually make it to production, it likely has another rose-tinted retro to thank, although not from within the Honda range. The Yamaha XSR900 GP was the big news story for 2024. It grabbed headlines, attention from onlookers and rave reviews from the press when it was launched earlier this year. It also proved that there is an appetite for bikes that look backwards at not-so-recent history and offer a level of performance tuned for genuine road riding.

The XSR900 GP isn’t the only retro sports bike announced this year, with CFMoto bringing us the 500SR Voom concept, again a neo-retro machine biased towards the road and not the track. Could Honda be looking to cash in on this retrospective bike boom? If you believe the Japanese motorcycle press they could well be about to do that.