Ms. LongRanger and I spent several hours at the Paris International Auto Show today, where they had an entire exhibit hall dedicated to motos. There were a lot of brands I've never heard of, including Mash, which offers a line-up of very nicely done vintage bike copies (Triumph T140, Norton, Dunstall, HD, etc.). Really cool.
Also lots of tour operators hawking 2-week moto trips to the U.S., mostly on Harleys and mostly along Route 66. One map I saw had Colorado mistitled "Nebraska." Yeah, right.
Of course, we headed straight to the Honda exhibit. No CB1100's in sight but they did have the new CB300R, which looks like a winner, and of course the Monkey. It's a bit bigger than I expected:
Kawasaki had their usual current model line-up but also a wonderful display of NOS Z-1's and KZ900's, each labeled by year:
Ducati was very well represented, as were the Japanese and Korean brands, but by far the most crowded manufacturer was Harley. I guess the Europeans have a fascination with these bikes. And Indian was there as well, though not with the same crowd size. I did see the FTR1200. A few stalls down was a "new" Brough Superior 1000. Some things can't be held sacred, which is a pity. BMW and Moto Guzzi were conspicuously absent from this year's show. I understand there's another show in Germany next week and that's where they'll be.
On the way out, I glimpsed a CB1100EX parked at the curb, so that makes five so far...