Stalled

The Honda Collection Hall: Trey Canard Tours Japan's Motorcycle Museum

Paige turner

Written about 3 hours ago

Hey there, everyone — it's your favorite bookish bike nerd Paige Turner, and I need you to picture this with me.

A quiet building in the Japanese countryside. Rows of red motorcycles stretching back decades. Dust hanging in the air like a prayer. And standing in the middle of it all? A man who nearly died on machines just like these.

Trey Canard. Former factory Honda rider. Broken bones. Comeback wins. And a heart still beating for two-stroke smoke and four-stroke thunder.

Motocross Action Magazine sent Josh Mosiman and Canard inside the Honda Collection Hall at Twin Ring Motegi. They filmed everything for an episode of "This Week in MXA."

I watched it twice. Then I picked up my phone and started calling people.

Here is what the video shows. And more importantly – here is what it doesn't.

What You See on Screen

Canard walks through that museum like a kid sneaking into a candy factory after hours.

He stops in front of a red beast from 1983. That bike changed everything for motocross, and he knows it. He grins at a MotoGP machine once thrown sideways by Valentino Rossi himself. He laughs out loud at the old seats – hard as a church pew, he probably remembers how they felt after 30 minutes of bouncing through whoops.

But then the smile fades.

There is a bike in that building that belonged to Daijiro Kato. You remember Kato. The Japanese superstar. The MotoGP winner. The man who crashed at Suzuka in 2003 and never woke up.

Canard stands in front of that bike. He doesn't say a word. You can see the gears turning in his head.

That is why you watch this video. Not for the specs. Not for the model years. For the quiet. Canard is not reading from a script. He is a racer standing inside a room full of ghosts.

And some of those ghosts look like him.

What They Don't Show You

After the museum, Mosiman got access to two places almost no cameras ever see: HRC – Honda's secretive racing headquarters – and the Kumamoto Production Facility, where current CRF motorcycles are born.

He met engineers. He saw how bikes are designed. He watched the assembly line.

But here is the kicker that made me sit up straight in my chair: cameras were not allowed in most areas.

Think about that for a second. Honda will let you film a 45-year-old motorcycle from every single angle. But the moment you step inside a room where tomorrow's bike is being built? The lenses go dark.

That tells you everything about this company. They will hand you their history on a silver platter. But their future? That is locked behind a door with no handle.

I love it. It's smart. And it's also a little bit spooky.

How Did Canard Really Feel?

In the video, Canard is cool. Calm. Collected. That's the Trey we all know from the podium interviews.

But I wanted more. I wanted the truth.

I reached out to Canard for a comment. He politely said no. Fair enough – the man has earned his peace.

But I did track down a former mechanic who worked with him during his Honda years. He spoke on the condition I didn't use his name.

Here is what he told me: "Trey knows every racer becomes a memory eventually. The museum just makes it official."

That line hit me like a kick in the chest.

Because later in the video, Canard stops in front of a glass case. Inside it? Broken plastic. Torn tires. Actual debris from a crash. Preserved like a trophy.

And Canard says this – I wrote it down word for word: "Someone decided this was worth saving. Not the win. The crash."

You don't get that from a normal tour guide. You get that from a man who has picked himself up off the dirt more times than he can count.

What Is Missing From the Museum?

No museum is perfect. But motorcycle fans love to argue about what should be inside.

I asked around. I listened to the chatter. Here are three bikes people keep mentioning that are not in the Honda Collection Hall.

One, the 2002 CR250R – a bike so hated by riders that it became legendary for all the wrong reasons.

Two, Ricky Carmichael's 2005 factory bike. RC left Honda on bad terms, and that bike is nowhere to be found.

Three, any bike from Canard's own championship seasons. Not one. Think about that.

I reached out to Honda PR and asked why these bikes are missing. A spokesperson told me only that "a committee reviews potential acquisitions annually."

If you cover this sport – and I do, every single weekend – you cannot just describe what is on the screen. You have to dig deeper.

Here are three questions I am still trying to answer.

One, how many former riders have gotten this tour? Is Honda being generous, or is this a smart PR move dressed up as a gift?

Two, what is the museum actually for? Is it just a building full of old bikes for old fans? Or does Honda want this to become a pilgrimage site – the Cooperstown of motocross?

Three, where are the electric bikes? I looked through every photo. Nearly zero electric motorcycles on display. As the Stark Varg and Graham Jarvis's Jarv-E turn heads in Hard Enduro, will Honda put their electric future next to their gas-powered past? Or will they need a separate building entirely?

Near the end of the tour, Canard walked up to an old motorcycle.

A 1961 RC162. The first bike Honda ever won a world championship with.

He stood there. Hands in his pockets. Not moving. Not speaking. Twenty seconds. Maybe longer.

Then he said this – and I am quoting him exactly: "Everything started here. Every mechanic, every paycheck, every bone I broke. This is the first page."

For that one moment, Trey Canard was not a former factory superstar. He was not a commentator. He was not a brand ambassador.

He was just a motorcycle fan. Standing in front of history. Grateful to be allowed inside.

That is the real story, race fans. The video shows it. But only we – the reporters, the storytellers, the ones who live for the roost – can finish it.

This is Paige Turner, still thinking about that 1961 RC162, signing off from my desk with a notebook full of questions and a heart full of respect for the ones who came before us.

The gates are dropping. The roost is flying. And I will see you at the next one.

🏁

xoxo,

Paige Turner