BikeTest/ Honda NT700V Deauville/ABS: First seen at the NEC Show in November, 2005, the new Deauville is a development of the NT 650 V Deauville which we tested exactly three years ago.
The major differences are revised bodywork with an improved screen, a larger engine, ABS, fuel-injection, a bit more power and a tunnel linking the two fixed panniers at their rear ends, which has been christened "the baguette locker".
The ancestry of the Deauville goes back to the naked NT 600, itself the liquid-cooled, shaft-driven successor to the illustrious CX 500. It grew into the NTV 650, just a slightly more powerful NT600, and the first Deauville was simply a covered in version of the NTV 650, complete with screen, a half-fairing and panniers.
The 2006 Deauville looks distinctly different from the earlier model, thanks largely to the improved fairing and better screen.
Like the previous Deauville, if you want proper weather protection for your lower legs, then you have to add the optional fairing lower sections.
The Deauville is perhaps well described as the Pan-European's "little brother". It is a thoroughly respectable, sensible machine, so much so that the mainstream motorcycling media - whose target audience seems to be adolescents overflowing with testosterone and older adrenaline junkies - called it the Dullsville. A description that totally misses the point.
One has to make allowances for young motorcycling journalists who think anything not closely rivalling MotoGP winning machines is a moped. Not everyone wants an uncomfortable machine with the performance of a high-velocity bullet.
Some really do like a degree of weather protection and at least some permanent luggage space coupled with sufficient performance. The Deauville has never pretended to be a sports bike, nor really that hoary misnomer, a sports tourer. It is an unashamed tourer/commuter.
Deauvilles are now standard issue for the bulk of the Garda motorcycles, replacing the Kawasaki GT550s. Only the élite get the more powerful Pan Europeans and BMWs. Deauvilles are also used by the paramedics in the Dublin area and, not least, by hundreds of discriminating motorcyclists.
We know of one, a professional engineer who, in the course of his work, clocks up 50,000 miles a year. Another high-mileage rider we know also regularly does 1,000 mile/24-hour rides here in Ireland and on the Continent with his Deauville.
So however dull some may think it to be, it is a very good, very sound, abundantly well-proven, thoroughly practical motorcycle.
Those of us used to one-litre plus, top-of-the-range machines would find its performance, especially riding two-up, somewhat modest.
Again, very few who have graduated to 100bhp top-of-the range tourers are in the market for such a middleweight machine. The vast majority of Deauville buyers will be moving up from less powerful machines.
In reality, making full use of the excellent and now much-improved gearbox, fast main road overtaking can be accomplished with ease and in safety. The Deauville will cruise happily all day in the 125 - 150km/h range and could reach 192km/h (120mph) if you insisted.
It has a pleasingly light feel about it, and is very easy to get on and off the centre stand. The brakes are first-rate with the added assurance of ABS. Our personal preference would be for a stand-alone rear brake rather than one linked to the front, but one quickly gets used to this set up copied, we suspect, from Moto Guzzi.
The mirrors are now far better placed and give a really good rear view. The two small cubby holes in the fairing are useful for all those odds and ends.
We were surprised to see that the clutch is still cable, admittedly light and easy in its operation. The clutch lever, unlike the front brake lever, is non-adjustable and lacks that very sensible shearing notch as on the brake lever.
Consequently, drop the bike to the right and you should still have some brake lever to get you home. Drop it to the left and you could end up with no clutch.
The tiny, almost irrelevant niggles apart, the Deauville is a worthy machine which, at a modest enough cost, is capable of meeting about 90 per cent of motorcyclists' real needs.
With its NTV ancestry - NTV 600s and 650s are the serious high-mileage couriers favourite machines - it is so well-proven as to virtually guarantee years of honest service.
The shaft-drive does away with all the tedium and mess of chain adjustment and again is about as bomb-proof as you can get.
With the neat fairing, side panels and integral panniers it is amongst the simplest of bikes to clean in minutes.
It does more than "it says on the tin". If only every bike was as good.
Tech Spec
ENGINE: 680cc liquid-cooled, SOHC 4-stroke, V-twin. 48.3kW (64.8bhp) @ 8,000rpm. 66.2Nm @6,500rpm. 5-speed gearbox. Shaft drive. PGM-F1 electronic fuel injection.
CHASSIS: 41mm telescopic forks, 115mm travel. Rear: single damper with adjustable pre-load, 122.5mm travel. Brakes, front 296mm twin disks, rear single 276mm disk. Combined braking system & ABS.
DIMENSIONS: Wheelbase: 1,476mm. Seat height: 805mm. Dry weight: 236kg.
Fuel: 19.7 litres.
PRICE: €11,299