2024 Honda Shadow Phantom Review | Daily Rider

Hello, hello, everybody. Zach Hordes here with RevZilla and welcome to another episode of Daily Rider where we learn about motorcycles as we ride. Our guest today is the Honda Shadow Phantom that is 540 pounds of Japanese made and yet all-American cruiser for sale for about $8,000. Now, the Shadow and I have something in common, actually, which is that this year we both turned 40. And I figured rather than have a competition of which of us has aged better, I would talk about the Shadow's origins, its evolution, and its place in the world of motorcycling today. And hopefully I'll be able to get all that info out even in my rickety old age. I assume the Shadow will help me through it. Buckle up, everybody. We're going to work. Okie dokie, everybody. Shadow Phantom is ready to go and I am just about there myself. Just a friendly quick reminder that this episode of Daily Rider is brought to you in part by RevZilla, the YouTube channel that you are watching. RevZilla is a commerce company, makes money by selling parts and accessories to motorcyclists such as yourself. All the original content you see on this channel, Daily Rider, Aries DIY Tips in the Shop Manual, The High Side Low Side Podcast, CTXP Adventures, all of those productions are possible because, in part, we take money out of the company coffers to pay for those productions in the hope that it will make the world of motorcycling more fun, more entertaining, and a better place. So the next time you need something for you or your bike, you can have that in mind. Okie dokie, everybody. Honda Shadow Phantom. At the center of it, you have a 745cc liquid-cooled V20. Of course, it doesn't look liquid-cooled, does it? It has these contrast-cut fins. It has fins on it to begin with, which looks like an air-cooled engine. But if you look at the front here, of course, you can see a big old radiator. And I was interested to note that it's always been liquid-cooled. Since the get-go of the Shadow model, I believe, it's much more kind of blacked out this year than it has been in past years. The fender was cut a little shorter in the front, and the fender was cut in the back, too, I believe. The handlebar is a little farther forward. We'll talk more about ergos when we're riding the bike. The big thing, I would say, is the disc rear brake, which, yes, it had a drum rear brake up until recently. So that's a note for anyone interested in this bike that that is a fairly big upgrade, and we'll talk a little bit about the brakes as we ride along, of course. Other than that, it's largely the same kind of theory and mantra, I would say, behind the bike. It's an American-style cruiser. It's a V-Twin. It is a 52-degree V-Twin, I believe. So a slightly wider V than a 45-degree Harley. A slightly narrower V than a 60-degree... What's 60 degrees, Zach? Is an Indian Scout 60 degrees, maybe? And of course, you know, then the sort of wider liquid-cooled V-Twins from Europe, like a 75-degree KTM V-Twin or a 90-degree Ducati V-Twin. So it's closer to the 45-degree Harley, and of course, that's not an accident, right? It's got some Harley vibes, I think we can agree. This one even has orange paint, which is a pretty obvious shot at the motor company, I would say. Okey-doke. I'm not sure what else to talk about, really. It's pretty basic suspension. It does have preload adjustment for the rear shocks, and I guess, before we take off, the only thing I really want to talk about is keep in mind the passenger accommodations, which are nil, as you can see. And also this rear suspension stroke, which is about three and a half inches, I believe. So that is something to keep in mind when we're talking about how the bike handles on bumps. Back to the passenger accommodations really quick. There is an accessory passenger setup where you get a perch back here, and you can see there are passenger footpeg mounts that are ready to go. I think it's about a hundred bucks for what it's worth. All right, that's probably enough yakking, Zach. Let's fire this bad boy up. So you got the key on the side here. Again, very cruiser-like. And this pretty basic dash setup with a few little warning lights on the triple clamp, and then this big chrome bezel-ringed analog speedometer. We'll talk more about that later, of course. For now, we can listen to this rumble. Sounds like a medium-sized V-twin, right? Yeah, I think it sounds pretty cool. All right. I think I promised I was going to stop talking like a couple minutes ago, so let's get on the road, shall we? All right, off we go. All right, now that we're rolling along here, we're going to talk about specs a little bit. I mentioned that it is a 540-pound bike. That's actually a little bit unfair. It tipped the scales at the RevZilla West office at 537 pounds, and that was with a full 3.9 gallons in this big, wide, rubber-mounted gasoline tank. The other thing that's important to note is a 25.6-inch seat height. You can see that I got a lot of bend in my leg, and I can stand up over the bike with probably a foot between my buns and the seat. It is very, very low. The other little tidbit I threw out there is it's for sale for about $8,000, which is, again, a little bit unfair. It is a little more than that, actually. $8,400, I believe, $8,399. There is an ABS option and a non-ABS option, though I think the ABS option is not... Sorry, the non-ABS option is not available in California, if memory serves. I don't exactly know why that is. It could be because of model combinations with emissions hardware and software in there, as well. I know that doesn't apply to all of you. I just figured I'd throw it out there. In any case, just over $8,000 is a pretty good deal, I think, for what you... Well, I don't know. I'll let you decide if you think it's a good deal or not, but it's not all that much money for what you get, in my opinion. Geezum crozum. What do we got going on here? That was a bit of a hornet's nest, but we made it on through. My first shock through my spine as we hit that bump. And wouldn't you know it, that's a good segue into ergonomics, which are relaxed, very feet forward, classic cruiser. The handlebar being slightly farther forward has made it... Whoop, foot pegs on the ground. That'll happen. It's made it a little bit more aggressive cruiser riding stance for this year, rather than the bars being swept back a little bit. You sort of hunch forward a little bit more, which is... I'm not going to say is good or bad. It just is, like I said, very relaxed with the feet forward. And that does mean that there's quite a bit of weight on your sit bones and tailbone and all the bones in the middle of your body, because it's hard to put weight on your feet when you go over a bump. And, of course, there's only three and a half inches of suspension travel, which means sometimes your spine gets a bit of a jolt. That's life on the open road on a cruiser, though, you know? You gotta know that's coming. And I did. The only other ergonomic note I'll make is it's got these quasi-Harley grips. The grips are real fat, which, again, I don't say as a complaint or a benefit. It just kind of is what it is. It's a pretty clear reach for American V-Twin style and feel. And if you have enormous hands and you don't like skinny little grips, then that would be a weird reason to buy a bike. But you now know that if you get a Honda Shadow, you will receive these grips as well, which some people like. And while we're on the topic of Harley-Davidson feel, you very much get an American V-Twin sense when you're cruising down the road like this. The engine rumbles along. It's got a nice pulse to it. I mean, you could say that it vibrates too much, but I don't know. It doesn't seem that bad to me. The lack of wind protection and the riding position I often find is kind of a, I mean, a bit of a flying squirrel position right here with, all my appendages out, but it's pretty comfortable on the freeway. Even still, we're going just about 70 miles an hour right now. And it's not so bad. The seat is very wide. I think the seat is a nice density too. It's sort of firm enough to feel like it transmits enough of the road to your buns, but soft enough to be comfy. I mean, it's not the most comfortable bike you can ride on the highway. That's for sure. But considering what it is, it's not so bad. Well, I can hear some of you thinking, Hey, Zach, what kind of RPMs you pull in there? 65 miles an hour in a top gear out on the highway. Well, who knows? There's no tachometer. And that's the vibe that you get from the shadow a little bit. And maybe cruisers in general, sometimes one of the things I like on the simple and you just sort of focus on the road, focus on the figurative or literal wind in your face. You know, you don't spend too much time worrying about data. And because I mentioned top gear in the gearbox, I will say that it is a five speed gearbox. And it's one that I like quite a bit. Actually, I think the transmission works well. There's good feel. And I appreciate that even though it's a five speed, the ratios are appropriate. I'm in top gear right now and I'm cruising along and the engine feels perfectly comfortable. It's good. It's not over revving. It's a nice overdrive. I think for cruising along the highway, you might feel a little strained if you start going 75 or 80, but I don't really ever feel the need or desire to do that on this bike anyway. And yeah, very much like that Triumph T100 that I tested earlier this year on daily rider, which also has a five speed transmission, a nice wide ratio, those nice widespread between the gear ratios. And that makes for a comfortable ride at low speed or high speed. And you only need five years to do it. I appreciate they did a good job with that. As for fuel economy on the open road, my figures on the Honda Shadow Phantom were in the mid fifties. And that means with 3.9 gallons, theoretically, you could go 200 miles ish, but 3.9 gallon tank, nine tenths of a gallon of that is reserved. So the fuel light's going to come on pretty early. I think the fuel light came out 125 miles for me. So it's one of those bikes that you need to learn how far you can go with reserve old school style because there's no fuel gauge. But either way, I would think, as I often do with many different motorcycles, that by the time you've gone 120, 140, 150 miles, you're going to be ready for a gas stop anyway, because you get beat with wind and this sort of clamshell riding position will likely wear your body out sooner than a more standard riding position. The Harley Davidson sticker on the back of this Chevy pickup got me thinking about Harley Davidson again. And I guess I'd like to address head on how I feel about the Honda Shadow being a knockoff Harley to put it really impolitely. I don't think that you can blame Honda for seeing Harley Davidson do well by selling cruisers and then come up with a model that is typical Honda. When the, when the Shadow first came out, it was very high tech hydraulic valve lifters, I believe a dual spark plug head, a slipper clutch, hydraulic clutch, some stuff that it has abandoned over the years and not necessarily stuck with. The point is Honda took it seriously and they built a motorcycle that was low maintenance and good. It's hard to blame the company for going so far as painting their bike black and orange, which seems absurd. It's a successful model for a reason. And I think the Honda leaning into the fact that it's a bike that people have enjoyed over the years is, there's nothing wrong with that. And of course, with all that, I skipped over the mirror discussion. They're a little too short. I think they could be out farther. That would be more helpful for seeing behind you, but in general, not so bad. They don't even shake as much as they should, considering the engine shakes a lot. All right, it's time for the stop sign challenge where we try to get to zero. I screwed up the first one. Try to get to zero miles an hour and keep our feet on the pegs, which is actually one of the things that I wanted to circle back to about the low center of gravity and the low seat height and the low weight, because it makes the shadow, I often use the word approachable. And I think that's a good word for this motorcycle because it is just, it's kind of unintimidating considering it weighs 500 and something pounds. And I often found when I was doing these practice stops anyway, that it was surprisingly easy. That was a wobbly one, but surprisingly easy for a 500 pound bike to come to a stop and feel sort of secure and balanced. And I think it is because it's just, it's so low to the ground. It's worth noting. Last one in the neighborhood here. We can do this. Come on. Oh my God. I think I technically did it. So ugly though. Ah, foot peg on the ground again. That's one of bad things in my opinion about the low center of gravity is that you can't lean the thing over. We'll talk more about that later for now. The thing that I need to address about the Honda shadows round town manners is to point out the things at which it is very good to do with it being a Honda. Uh, I already mentioned the transmission. I think it's really positive and easy to interpret. I like that. Uh, the clutch feel is nice. It's good. It's, it's like, it's again, easy to, to interpret, easy to adapt to, which I think is an important factor for a bike with this price point. And, um, and with the seat height, frankly, uh, and that kind of stuff, um, you know, it sounds, oh gosh, I think I finally, finally got to fill this stop a little, little more elegant, but not much. Anyway, all that stuff that the shadow seems to have an easy time with in an urban environment is important to note, I think, because whether it's the truth or if it's the actual sort of myth around American V twins or American style V twins is that they're cantankerous and, and a little bit difficult and kind of hot rods, you know, in, in one way or another. And I think to be fair to Harley Davidson and, uh, and especially Indian, I think they've gotten away from that. Uh, those companies have gotten away from that kind of, uh, attitude and, and mantra, but it is refreshing to ride a bike like this, which in so many ways is so clearly designed to be an American V twin and have it just be easy to use, start to finish. All right. Lovers Lane, where we talk about passenger accommodations. Of course, I pointed out that there are no passenger accommodations on the shadow phantom, this shadow rides alone, but you can get the accessory kit and yada, yada, yada. Instead, what I'd like to use this time for is to address the fact that there's also a Honda shadow arrow, which, uh, I occasionally just refer to this bike as a Honda shadow, but that in technically not specific enough because there's the shadow phantom and the shadow arrow, which is a sort of more classically styled, a little bit less new age cruiser. Um, it has the sort of swoopy fenders, bigger fenders, and I think it has the slightly swept back handlebar if memory serves. Anyway, I just wanted to point that out in case you look at this bike and you think, well, it's cool, but I don't like how hard it's trying to look tough. And I'd just assume have a more elegant American style V twin than maybe the shadow arrow is your thing. Okey dokey down into the twisty road section. And I sort of alluded to this earlier. I think I said something like you can't lean the thing over, which is a little bit unfair, right? Like it goes through these corners going fine. We're having fun. But as soon as you go a little faster, can you hear that near how much metal I'm leaving behind? Uh, yeah, the foot pegs are set wide and there's not a lot of ground clearance. And when you lean over the foot pegs track, which is just as well, frankly, because I don't think that the tuning of the suspension is designed for this kind of thing. Anytime you're in the middle of a corner like this, Jesus, when the foot pegs on the ground or not, and you hit a little bump, you get like a little bit of a wiggle and a wobble. It's nothing like the kind of instability that would cause a problem or any kind of disaster or anything, nothing like that. It's just clearly not a chassis that is intended to perform when it's leaned over. That's not what it's for. And so I'm not throwing too much shade at it. I just want to be extra clear that if that's what you want from your motorcycling experience, this ain't the bike for it. Still, if I'm going to pluck a positive arrow out of my quiver and fire it at the Honda shadow, it's that I often find myself more interested in the scenery on a bike like this. You know, whether it's a Harley, an Indian, uh, any kind of, um, you know, Japanese made American cruise or whatever, any bike that doesn't go through corners, even a sidecar, whatever. I find myself enjoying the sights and looking out over Los Angeles, for example. But the point is the experience in going down a twisty road on a bike like this can still be enjoyable, even though it is not performance oriented. And that is something that I would like to tip my cap toward here. Ready? We go on to surface streets and we can let this shadow rip. It is not exhilarating particularly, but it's satisfying. I'll give it that. Hey, we got a red light. We'll talk about brakes while we have an opportunity. You know, despite the, this is a non AVS bike, just in case you weren't aware, uh, despite the single front disc, which like doesn't sometimes doesn't seem like enough, uh, on a bike like this. In fact, I think I had a question on social media about that. Um, as you can see, there's plenty of power to lock the front tire, which is all you really need. And it also brings us back to the point of why that new disc brake on the rear of this bike is important because the way that you break often on a bike like this is with the front and rear brakes combined. That's what they'll teach you at MSF on any kind of bike, but on a cruiser, on a bike with so much weight on the rear tire, using the rear brake a lot is a good idea. And so I do, and it helps keep you from situations like that, where you lock the front tire, which of course I did for demonstrative purposes. That could be a scary situation, especially if you're not ready for it or not what you're expecting. So overall, I think the brakes are, are totally adequate though. It seems like they are not because you see a 500 and some pound bike with a single rotor. And if you're used to our affiliates, Wonos and whatever Yamaha MT models or something like that, you're like, what are you kidding? One only one disc, but it's because you use more rear brake on a bike like this. And that's why what we just experienced. Okay. This traffic light usually takes forever approximately. So let's talk about the dash. So it's going to be a short discussion. As you can see, you got, um, your speedometer here and that's just about it. Uh, there's a button over here. You can ship, uh, switch through your chips here. Trip one trip to clock odometer, and that's the lot plus a neutral light, high beam light, and a fuel light. The fuel light's actually handy considering there's no fuel gauge, of course. Um, but it is Spartan. All right. Finally, time we had, uh, we had a lot more time than we needed to talk about the dash, just like I predicted we would. Uh, but like I said, you know, simplicity is not a bad thing at this point in the ride. Sometimes we talk about, um, engine engine characteristic and sort of, uh, I don't know, like whether or not the engine could be the reason that you buy the motorcycle. And in the case of the Honda shadow, I don't think so. It's a perfectly good engine. I can't really think of a thing that I don't trust about it. I don't like about it. If you want a mid-sized V-twin, I mean, it's a, it's great, but if you're after the, you know, the, the, the character, you really want that rich, true, you know, corn fed American V-twin character from your engine, you're not going to get this bike, right? You're going to get a Harley or something. The Honda has its things that it's good at, which hopefully we'll address later on. And, uh, the Harley is the, you know, is the, is the real deal. All right. Well, we're coming to the end of the ride here. And I did promise at some point that I would talk about the origins and evolution of the Honda shadow. And I'm not going to try and do a full verbal history here because I'm certain that, uh, if you really want that, you can read the Wikipedia page. But one thing I would like to point out and be very clear about, uh, as it is the shadows 40th birth year. If you're not interested in a brand new shadow, like this one, you have a lot of bikes to choose from. There are a huge variety of shadow models. They vary in size. There are 500 shadows, 700, 800, seven fifties, 11 hundreds. And as far as I can tell from my research online, and then just sort of anecdotally being part of the motorcycling community for my whole life, I haven't heard a lot of bad things about the bikes reliability or service life. And I think that if you were after a good deal on an American style cruiser and the shadow came up, it seems like it would be a great choice. And again, I, the thing I'm trying to get across here is there are a lot of choices. There are ones with a larger front wheels. There are more 80s style ones. The early models had sort of a higher handlebar and, um, sort of two-step seat in the back there. There's a lot to explore in the shadow kingdom. All right. Dirt road shortcut time on the shadow and something tells me, Oh, I bottomed out. Okay. Well, first of all, sorry, Honda. And second of all, that's something to keep in mind that the ground clearance is of course less on a bike like this compared to almost anything else, I suppose. But I think my test for stuff like this is often, if you want to go down a dirt road to get to a campsite, cause you're on a little camping adventure, can you do it on the bike? And yeah, you can on this bike. And I think the shorter, flatter handlebar makes it feel like a little bit less of a tiller, even though the front end is fairly raked out. It feels fine. The tires don't love these sort of sandy bits, but in general, the suspension is too short as always. And there's no traction control, so you can get all swayzy, which is pretty fun. Let's do that one more time. Yeah. And the wheelbase is long, which means it slides nice and gently and slowly. It doesn't really snap sideways like some other bikes might, which I struggle to call a feature. I'm sure that Honda wouldn't want me to call it a feature either, but it's something. It's something. All right. Back to the safety of pavement and into the wheelie zone where we find out if the Shadow can wheelie. And I'll just tell you that I tried leading up to this in the hopes that I'd be able to deliver you a wheelie, and I did not have any luck. There's someone out there, maybe many people that can wheelie a Honda Shadow, but I am not one of them. This Shadow, it beat me in the wheelie contest. So I'm sorry to say that there won't be a Shadow wheelie for you today. But as long as this next cut is nice and snappy, I've got good news for you. You can back it in on the Honda Shadow, which is unexpected, or very expected, since there's no ABS. Not exactly a hooligan bike, but you know, I got the foot peg on the ground backing it in. Okay, just maybe one more. Oh, there's a new sealer on the office parking lot. It's nice and grippy, more so than I was expecting. All right. U-turn challenge, everybody. I'm going to line up on this line here. We're going to go full lock to the left, and then we're going to go all the way around. And that's, yeah, 2.2, 2.3 parking spaces. That's not bad considering how long the wheelbase is. One thing I will say about parking lot manners is, as with many cruisers, because the front end has more rake than maybe a standard or adventure motorcycle or something like that, the steering is weighted kind of funny. It'll feel a little different than a normal motorcycle. As you lean into the corner, the handlebar will fall, and you have to kind of catch it. And that's just an effect of the geometry of the chassis. So if you're transitioning to a bike like this, you get one and you're wondering if that's normal. Yes, it is normal. All right. Let's listen to this famous little V-twin. I mean, that's a pretty burly sound. I think it sounds cool. It's peppy. It doesn't have the kind of, I don't know, the sort of like lumbering, heavy kind of feel of an air-cooled, an older air-cooled sports or an 83 iron or a Harley 48 or something like that. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. It is a little bit peppier, but you do get a cool sound and a cool look, I think. I don't know. It's a handsome bike. Is it reaching for some piece of style that is not truly Honda? Yes, it is. But is it doing a pretty good job? I kind of think so. I don't know. Let's do some Instagram questions, shall we? We can round out this Honda Shadow Daily Rider. First up, we have Raul Salenranjo. Raul Salenranjo? I hope I said that right. Who says, and I quote, we do not get the Shadow in Europe, only the Rebel 500 and the 1100. What's the most important thing we are missing? I like this question. That shows curiosity, which I appreciate very much, Raul. It's an interesting question because the Rebel 500 and the Rebel 1100 are displacement-wise just below and just above or below and above this Shadow 750. But they're also very different. Those are much more modern style of engine, of chassis, of cruiser in general. Mostly what you're missing, not having a Shadow, is this very American style of bike. I do think that this engine, especially compared to the Rebel 500, but even compared to the Rebel 1100, which has a sort of oddball firing order, this engine feels sort of lopier and different and a little bit less, I don't know, in a rush. I think the Rebel 1100 engine is obviously a shared power plant with other models, as is the Rebel 500 engine. And I think because this engine in this VT750 is and kind of has always been for this, it feels more appropriate for, I don't know, for lack of a better term, cruising. I think that's mostly what you're missing. Aside from the aesthetic stuff, as far as capability, I don't think you're missing out on anything. It's just the sort of the feel and the charisma of an American style cruiser is what this has that those ones have less so, in my opinion. Next question is from Alastor Hacon. Alastor Hacon. Alastor Hacon, maybe. Does it breathe life into you or do you breathe life into it? This is an interesting question too. Very, yeah, esoteric, as Alastor said. Sometimes motorcycles, they feel rowdy and they feel peppy and interested and boisterous in some ways. I've said this about the Ninja 400. I've said about the Impreza Tuono. You know that sporting style bikes often have that, right? Where they sort of like feel like they're goading you. They're encouraging you to do certain things. And that's not what you get with a Honda Shadow, predictably. Follow along with me here. This scenario. You go to work all week and you bang your head against your expense reports and your documents and your whatever. And when you get on a motorcycle to go home, one of the things I love about riding a motorcycle is that sort of meditative state that it puts you in. And sometimes people's meditative state has to do with performance. They love going up the on-ramp onto the freeway and hearing an Aprilia V4 go roar and make this amazing noise. Sometimes it's going through curves and sometimes it's just the sort of focus that riding a motorcycle takes and a calmness that you need after going to work all day or all week. And this bike does do that. And I think that if you are looking for a shot of adrenaline, this bike isn't going to be the bike that breathes life into you. But if you were after that meditative state and sort of a sense of calm and a sense of control and ownership over the situation, I think that this bike will do that. Absolutely. So it depends what type of life you need, what kind of feeling you're looking for. But it has something and it does it quite well, in my opinion. Next up, a couple of comments I saved that aren't really questions, but one is from Bear Field M and one is from Ten Stringer 82, the first of which says, my 2007 is still going. Glad to see updates. Finally, are they enough for an upgrade? Thanks for this choice. Look forward to comments in the radio. So to answer your question, Bear Field M, are the equipment upgrades enough to make it worth upgrading to this bike? I've never ridden a 2007 Shadow, so I couldn't say for sure. My hunch is no, not really. A disc brake is a big upgrade as opposed to a drum. And like I said, you do use the disc, the rear brake a lot on a cruiser or you should be. And so that is valuable. But I don't know, aside from it being a new bike, I'm not sure what else you get. It's cool. Look, the new look is cool. So if all that seems to make sense to you, then yeah, upgrade. Ten Stringer 82 says, my 96 going strong here. And this is back to my comment on the Shadow in general, right? There's definitely a sense of pedigree with this model just because it's been around for so long. And I love that people were sort of chiming in and being like, I got a 96, still going good. I got a 2007 going good. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that this bike won't break or that it's impervious to failure or anything like that, or that you should get it because Harleys always break. I'm not going to be as binary as that because I think that's ridiculous. But if you were asking me to put money on a motorcycle to buy and that it just will not break over the next 10 years or 20 years or whatever, I got to say a Honda Shadow would be pretty high up on my list of bikes that I would expect to be reliable. And these comments back that up. And I'm not saying that's the most important thing to every rider on the road, but it's something to consider. And I, again, tip my cap to it. I appreciate that about the Shadow. All right. Last question here is from DRC Jasper, a long time daily rider, viewer, and commenter who says, if it was a kitchen appliance, which one would it be? Now, this is a tough question, right? Because I am automatically going to associate the Honda Shadow with the kitchen appliance, which is automatically in my opinion, unflattering, but keep in mind the bounds of our work in here. It's a tough question to answer, but here I'm going to give it a try. Here we go. I think that this is the old school coffee pot. I don't drink coffee, but I know a little bit about it from my friends and family who drink coffee. You know what a mocha is? M-O-K-A, a mocha coffee pot. It's kind of old school and people still use it sometimes because they like the way that it looks on the stove. They like the way that it sounds when it goes off or whatever. In my limited experience and understanding with coffee, there are ways to make coffee quicker and there might be ways to make coffee better depending on what you like, but it makes something of a statement. It has a feel. It has a look. It has something very clear about it. You know, my dad always used this old mocha when he was making coffee when I was a kid and it sort of burned into my brain as this thing that just sits there and works every single day. And it might not be what everyone likes, but it is reliable and clear and simple. And I think maybe that's what my dad liked about the coffee and the device itself. And to me that's the Honda Shadow. Okay, thanks everybody. There were tons of good questions on this episode of Daily Rider, the 75th episode of Daily Rider, just in case you keep in track of a pretty fun little milestone to hit here. And I appreciate so much the comments on the Shadow. I thought it was going to get a lot of kind of like cruiser hate and negativity, but I didn't. People were into it. So I appreciate all the comments that you left. I'm sorry I couldn't answer them all. Let's move on and put the sucker on the Daily Rider leaderboard, shall we? All right. Yo, everybody. Here we are at the Daily Rider leaderboard at RevZilla West. And we got the Honda Shadow Phantom. As a reminder of the top slots here, we got a Suzuki lockout of the top three. V-Strom 800S, V650, and Gix 8S. Wouldn't have called that going into the year, but those are three very good daily riders. There's no two ways about it. The Honda Shadow Phantom is unlikely to kick any of the Suzakis out of the top spot there, I think. It is, as we said, a very, as far as we can tell, reliable, good, solid, easy to use, fairly approachable, not very expensive daily rider. It's got a lot going for it. However, the overall comfort, it is subjective. I just don't see how it's more comfortable than all of these bikes. If you sit on those bikes, and you sit on a Honda Shadow Phantom, and you think, this is what I want. I want my feet out in front of me. I want to be, you know, leaned back. I don't care about the short suspension travel, because all the roads near me are smooth. In that case, I'd probably put the Honda Shadow up near like Triumph Bonneville T100, something like that, or Z650. It would be in this ballpark for you. So that's good. But I don't think that that's the case. I think if you sat on all those bikes and a Honda Shadow Phantom, you'd think, oh yeah, yeah, this isn't actually quite as good. So it's going to be down here somewhere. Ninja 400 CF-Moto 450 SS, no way, sorry, better. Hayabusa, yeah, better. KTM 890, less approachable, but it's better. It's just better. CBR1000RRR. Those are two different Hondas that struggle with different things. Lack of comfort on both is a thing, but I'm going to give the Shadow the nod over the CBR1000. So it's down to the Shadow and the Zero DSRX. Where do we go, everybody? Where does it go? Above or below the electric bike? If you asked me right now, as at courts commuting across Los Angeles, what bike would you want? I would go with a Zero DSR. I would, I would. I'm not joking, I'm serious. That bike is so fun. It's so good. Front trunk, wheelies. It's awesome. And the electric thing's a pain, but it's so good. But I would not necessarily recommend that for every Tom, Dick, and Harry, as they say. So the Shadow is going to go above the Zero DSR. It's going to go right here, just below Spurge's KTM 890. That would have been really fun to rate it ahead of his bike. He probably wouldn't take too kindly to an $8,000 cruiser being ranked above his bike. It's not a particularly flattering place. I know. Like I said, if we're talking engine, transmission, things like that, then yeah, the Shadow Phantom would be up there. It's cursed with cruiserdom to a certain extent because it is limited in some ways that I just can't get past as far as a recommendation for a daily rider. But overall, darn good bike. Darn good bike. And I had fun riding it and I had fun, you know, shaking hands with it as two 40-year-olds in 2023. So I hope you got a kick out of this ride. And for all you Shadow lovers out there, I hope I did you justice. And for anyone who thought that it was just another cruiser and wasn't worth their time, I hope I changed your mind a little bit too. In the end, of course, I hope you learned something and hope you had fun. And I very much hope to see you next time on Daily Rider. See you, everybody.