'17 EX tank design

[pdedse]

This forum would be the last place Honda's marketing department would poll: it is populated by owners, the vast majority of which own pre-17 bikes, which means their stated preferences about tank shape would be colored by already owning another tank shape and not wanting to think about what owning the new tank shape would entail, financially and psychologically. Which it to say, we might be expected to be a statistical group particularly resistant to its charms. Pre-17 owners have already voted with their wallets (though of course they voted for things besides a tank), have gotten used to their choice (or would have traded it in by now for a Triumph), and confirmational bias suggests they will now want to defend that commitment, except for those few who joined the two bike club. Honda would be unwise to build any kind of business plan on that latter demographic.

A valid point, but the "last place"? Not if I were on the marketing team for this bike, if a marketing team for the CB1100 even exists! : )

I think they (whoever that might be) are in fact interested in mc forums and what owners have to say about their products both before a particular change is made and after. As VLJ has pointed out in his in-depth reviews, the '17EX underwent substantial changes. What motivated the design people to carry these out? Do they rely on motorcycle journalists' opinions? Do they read mc forums? Do they have their own unbiased mc testers? Do they primarily consider the Asian / European market feedback and the U.S. is an afterthought?

I'd love to be sitting in the room where they decide how real changes are made from one model year to the next.