To me this appears to be a more road going sport touring version of an adv bike, vs the S10, that is an excellent sport touring bike which can handle unpaved roads and even some forest trail riding, as evidenced by some of our more talented off road riders. They are also offering the Africa Twin for those that prefer a more dirt worth adv bike. While the lack of cruise on a road focused adv bike is a bit puzzling, I saw Honda do the same thing with the first Gold Wing F6B model, which is a 100% touring bike. Finally this year they added cruise.
I know several of the top American Honda folks from my time as Prez of the Honda Sport Touring Association (HSTA, now the MSTA) including one good friend that works at HQ and is involved with new bike announcements, etc, and have been talking to him in particular about their reasoning for not bringing the Crosstourer to the USA. Before they decided to bring the CB1100 to the states, they had one on display at our MSTA national rally in Colorado in 2012, along with feedback forms for us to see if we thought they should import it. In my private discussions with my friend that brought the CB1100 there, I told him that my opinion was that they should get into the adv market with the Crosstourer instead. At the time, their research indicated that they would do better with the standard CB1100. Well, it didn't go over that well, just as the standard VFR1200 didn't do as well as expected and this year I was told that we should stand by, as they were now getting serious about the adv market.
As for me, I am on on my second S10 and just recently, as I was on a day ride on it, I was thinking that this is by far the best bike I have had in 49 years of riding and it was perfect in every way for me and made me smile every time I rode it. I am positive that at 17,000+ miles, it runs better with every mile. While I am glad that Honda is finally getting into this market, I can't see either the more dirt focused Africa Twin or more road focused (without cruise) VFR1200X tempting me to replace my 14 ES with either. If this had happened 4 years ago before I bought my first S10, it may well have been a different story.
