Car blogs

Engineers have tried and failed for decades to build motorcycles with automatic transmissions. Honda finally gets it right with the new DN-01 "sports cruiser" bike. Conventional automatic transmissions, like those in cars, lag when you hit the throttle and can throw a bike off balance during turns. Honda's HFT (for Human Friendly Transmission) responds to the throttle instantly by using hydraulic pumps instead of standard gears.



read more

Tags: Cars, Dan Carney, dn-01, February 2008, honda, motorcycle, transmission

---

Born to be Mild was originally published by Popular Science - honda. Read the full story by clicking here.