Review-Stuff

The Honda Air Blade is the latest addition to the fleet of Honda motor bikes available in South East Asia at the moment. The Honda Air Blade is one of the sleekest of the scooter style motor bikes available on the market. The automatic Honda Airblade with its intimidating twin headlights has numerous features that make it one of the best value and most reliable motor bikes not only from Honda but out of all the other motor cycle manufacturers as well. 

While I have been living in Thailand I have wanted to get myself a small automatic motorbike for quite some time but since I was in no hurry I decided to wait until the time was right and just take a look around at what I saw on the street. Although I have seen and hired the very popular Yamaha Nouvo on many occasions and was very impressed I decided to go with the liquid cooled Honda Air Blade as it just seemed a little smoother to ride and extremely quick off the start.

The first time I hired a Honda Airblade I thought the owner of the bike had tuned the bike over and above the usual specifications for that type of bike. However after hiring a number of different Honda Air Blades while traveling around Thailand I realized that the first Air Blade I hired was not specially tuned and in fact the Airblade is just one very quick and beautifully smooth motor bike to ride.

I have tried the Yamaha Mio but was not impressed by the lack of power and it is also a little bit smaller than the full size Honda Air Blade and Yamaha Nouvo. The Honda Air Blade has a 110 cc engine which is the same size engine as the Yamaha Mio but the Air Blade is noticeably more powerful for some reason. The Yamaha Nouvo has a 115 cc engine and has a similar power level to the Airblade. However, I think the Honda Airblade is zippier from the standing start and more responsive and maneuverable in busy Thailand traffic. I do think though that the Yamaha Nouvo might be capable of a higher top speed than the Airblade but probably not by much.

The Honda Air Blade has enough room to fit a full size helmet under the seat or to fit in a reasonable amount of groceries which I find very handy indeed. I decided on buying an Air Blade over a Honda Click which has the same size engine because it not only looks like a sleeker motorbike but the space underneath the seat of the Click was so small it only just fits a very small size helmet and nothing else. The Yamaha Nouvo I might add is the only other of the scooter style bikes on the market that has a good size space under the seat.

The Honda Air Blade has disc brakes that work like a charm, you really can stop on a ten cent piece with the Airblade even if you are moving quite rapidly. I was really impressed with the Airblades braking capabilities.

Some of the other notable features of the Honda Air Blade include a park brake system that is fixed to the left hand brake on the handle bars. The Airblade has a twin shock system that is especially good when carrying a pillion passenger, the Honda Click only has one shock. The fuel tank is conveniently located on the side of the bike unlike most bikes that have the fuel cap under the seat so you have to pop the seat everytime you fill up with fuel. The Airblade tank costs about 120 baht to fill which is just over $3 US and gets over 140 km on each tank of fuel which is amazingly good fule economy for an automatic motorcycle. The Honda Air Blade being an automatic motorbike makes it so easy to ride in heavy traffic. The liquid cooled engine of the Air Blade is incredibly quiet and has a unique sound of its own that is different than the usual air cooled engine.

All in all I would definitely choose a Honda Air Blade over all the other small motorbikes on the market. It is only slightly more expensive than the Yamaha Nouvo which is its closest rival but costs a bit more than the other bikes on the market. At 52,000 baht or about $1,500 US it is one of the more expensive motorbikes in the small size bracket but it is far far cheaper than similar bikes of its size and power that are available in the West. Without a doubt I would recommend the automatic Honda Air Blade to anyone looking for a new small motorbike that is living in Thailand.