The big news of the 2004 race season was the sudden emergence of Team G Cross Honda. As far as we know, mountain bike DH racing is the only non-motorised sport that the motorbike and car giant has ever got itself involved in. And it made quite a splash, with the moto-inspired, mystery-gearbox-driven, Showa-forked RN01 race bike, the air of secrecy and mystique with which the team surrounded itself and of course the many, many race successes of its riders, in particular 2005 World Cup Champion Greg Minnaar. The team as a whole, which has included at various times Minnaar, Matti Lehikoinen, Brendan Fairclough and Cyrille Kurtz, has won the UCI World Cup team ranking for the last two years.

But now it’s all over. Honda announced at the weekend that 2007 was the final year for Team G Cross Honda and that Honda Racing Corporation will have no involvement in MTB racing beyond this year. It’s a somewhat surprising move, especially in light of the persistent rumours of a production RN01 being launched for 2008 – Honda held a hush-hush presentation some time ago, the hype was that they’d booked a stand at Eurobike (but cancelled it at the last minute) and further unsubstantiated gossip had Interbike’s Outdoor Demo tagged as the venue for a launch. Which didn’t happen.

So where does Honda go from here? It would seem unlikely that it’d stop its race programme and then launch a production bike, so it looks like the Japanese giant has decided that it’s achieved whatever it was it set out to achieve (which is still something of a mystery, really) and has thus pulled the plug. Then again, maybe it’s decided that DH is too easy, so it’s going away ready to unleash a 20lb gearbox-equipped XC bike on the World Cup circuit in 2009…

A statement from Honda Racing Corporation says:

“We want to express our gratitude to Team Director Martin Whiteley, riders Greg Minnaar, Matti Lehikoinen, Brendan Fairclough, and Cyrille Kurtz, and the talented technical staff of 23 Degrees for their complete understanding and cooperation to the challenge; realising a completely new and world class race category for Honda.”

“We deeply appreciate the cooperation and warm guidance we received as a company from both the race scene and the bicycle industry, allowing us to learn a lot over these years, and of course, we greatly appreciate and respect the warm and sincere appreciation of our efforts by the fans of Team G Cross Honda, which was obvious at every race we attended.”

Martin Whiteley, CEO of 23 Degrees Sports Management, the company that ran G Cross Honda, said:

“Team G Cross Honda has been a very important part of the international race scene over the past four years, and the successes have been well documented. However, I think the greatest success of the project has been the way in which it has asked the participants (riders, fans, media, sponsors) to look at our sport in a different light, and to think outside the box when it comes to race technology and the approach to racing. As a company we are indeed indebted to the Honda Racing Corporation for having the confidence in our abilities to carry out their objectives, but we are also extremely appreciative of the co-sponsors that joined in with our efforts, namely Alpinestars, Maxxis, Showa, Formula, Mavic, Funn, SDG, SRAM, Motorex, Sapim, PowerBar, Chris King and ODI.”

“I also want to pay a particular tribute to the talented riders and staff who have formed part of the World Team since 2004, namely riders Greg Minnaar, Matti Lehikoinen, Brendan Fairclough and Cyrille Kurtz, as well as mechanics Mike Van Zyl, Mark Maurissen and Adam Bonney, Road Manager Paul Schlitz and Photographer Gary Perkin. Their contributions have been invaluable.”

As for the riders, Matti Lehikoinen has signed for MS Intense Factory Racing for 2008. No word yet on where Greg Minnaar and Brendan Fairclough will end up, but with both riders still on 23 Degrees’s books and Martin Whiteley without a team to run for the first time in about eight years, we wouldn’t bet against something new emerging for the start of the 2008 season…