2008 Honda TRX700XX - First Ride

Suspension
Honda introduced a two-spring front shock to the XX, which are both single-rate springs. The top front spring is a soft-ride height control spring (ZPS type). This allows the long-travel Honda to have a lower ride height. The two rear shocks only have a single spring. Both ends have a reservoir for cooling the oil in your shocks, but they surprisingly don't have adjustments for compression and rebound. We for sure would have expected both compression and rebound adjustments on Honda's flagship sport ATV so that it could be dialed in to each rider's preference. The rear offers 9.3 inches of travel while the front delivers even more at 10.5. Obviously, being an IRS suspension system, the shocks control double A-arms both front and rear. The IRS system allows this 700 a whopping 10.2 inches of ground clearance for clearing huge rocks and obstacles along the trail. Honda has introduced an 11-inch rim size to the rear of this performance quad. The 11-inch rim is needed to give ample clearance to the A-arm, CV joint and hub. A unique feature introduced by Honda is a scraper inside the rear wheel. A common problem with independent rear ends is that rocks get thrown into the rear wheel and hub area and they get wedged between the rim and the A-arm, thrashing the rim. The scrapers were added to spit out all of the little rocks. This is the first time we've seen this, and we're pretty stoked about it.

Overall Handling
Like any new ATV model, there will always be challenges that must be overcome and tweaks to be made. With this new Honda, we were anxious to find out for ourselves just how well the newest addition to the TRX family would fare after hearing such rave reviews from the Honda staff about its handling abilities. For us, we could never quite come to grips with the handling characteristics in the terrain that we rode. In our preride orientation the night before our ride, we were informed that we'd be able to just sit on the seat and allow the suspension and IRS to suck up the small whoops and obstacles like a trophy truck. Excitedly, we did test these claims and allowed the suspension to do its thing under us, but unlike a trophy truck, it became a rough ride. This was mainly due to the stiff suspension at the rear of the quad.

While the rear suspension felt slightly stiff, the front suspension bottomed out and was a bit too soft. Reversing that scenario may have been the better way to go, as a plusher rear and a stiffer front might've made for a more comfortable ride, but that just wasn't the case. We put it through its paces in the whoops and could never get it sorted out. We got back on it and hit the whoops at speed and continued to pop off our line. We found that we could shift our body weight up over the bar and hammer it, but the rear end began doing a little swapping. We concluded by agreeing that we were asking more out of this machine than what it is was designed to do. As for the tamer speeds, it handled fairly well. But once again, it's not as plush as we expected.

Another issue is that we had problems with turning under power. The rear end hooks up so well that it ends up pushing the front tires under acceleration in the corners. This really reared its ugly head in the dunes when we were trying to cut some tight corners. We also found the steering was a bit on the quick side, which is a normal trait for MX-type quads, but on quads that are to be ridden at high speeds, a little more caster would've been a plus. This is a large quad and it's not going to whip through the tight stuff like a smaller, sportier machine. We felt that a couple more degrees of caster also would've improved its steering and possibly save it from needing a steering stabilizer in the future.