Quick ride: 2015 Honda CBR650F

Quick ride: 2015 Honda CBR650F

An everyman superbike with an enthusiast-class price

Luxury brands tend to get the good press, globally. Mercedes is a symbol of luxury around the world, and particularly so in India. Other, more accessible brands too have made unique, resilient names for themselves in the Indian psyche, like Toyota and Honda. For many, the badge on the boot/tank is a large part of the buying decision. It is, then, a great burden of expectation on the shoulders of Honda Two Wheelers India as they begin deliveries of the Honda CBR650F sport/sports-tourer motorcycle in India.

More than a few times I’ve had a conversation about the entry-level ‘big’ Honda which quickly veers toward its Rs 7,60,970 (ex-Mumbai) price. For me and many other enthusiasts, this is a matter of concern, but such conversations usually seem to end with “but it’s a Honda”, which is some indication of how this bike is perceived. So here’s what you get for your money: a steel chassis, full fairing in a well-designed, sporty package, decent Dunlop tyres, double discs up front, a slick under-body trapezoidal exhaust and the all-important 650cc inline-four engine with its characteristic wail. That’s really what it’s about here: that sound. Benelli may have beaten Honda to the punch with its musical TNT 600i naked sportsbike, but hey, this is a Honda!

We had the opportunity to test the CBR against all of its peers recently, and came away very impressed with most of its characteristics. To begin with, it rides extremely well if you’re riding it normally as will most riders. The ride is plush, the seat comfortable, the position of the handle not too extreme. Wind protection is also adequate, as it should be for a bike that can easily top 200kmph. The CBR feels narrow between your legs, which masks a bit of its 215kg kerb weight. In contrast, the Ninja 650R, which is slightly lighter, feels like a bit more of a handful at low speed. Heat management seems good and we didn’t experience toasted thighs during our all-day (hot) outing. You can, conceivably, buy this motorcycle and use it every day, on weekends as well as for longer tours. We even took it off-road, standing on the pegs and it fared better than the Ducati Scrambler in terms of comfort. Having just spent almost Rs 8 lac on that bike, this author was not pleased.

There’s a caveat for potential tourers, however. By nature of the CBR650F not being an all-out sports bike, it sort of automatically falls into the sport-tourer category. The seat is certainly comfortable, but it’s still not all-day comfortable. And if you’re not hammering along at triple-digit speeds continuously, your back and arms will be a bit weary at sundown. But that could be said of any motorcycle. A more significant bugbear is the engine’s tendency to vibrate. One expects an inline-four to be silky-smooth, but Honda’s 650 isn’t, at least on our test bike. There’s a constant buzz felt through the handle bars which plays spoiler to its otherwise good performance. Speaking of which, the CBR650F makes 84.11bhp at 11,000rpm and 62.9Nm of torque at 8,000rpm, which is at the upper-end of its class. The power advantage was evident as I saw the CBR pull away from me on the Ducati with ease, despite both rider and pillion being on the upper-end of their weight class.

On twisty roads, the CBR is a no-brainer. Tip it into a corner, don’t do anything stupid and the bike just glides through the line until it’s time to right the bike for the next corner. Dynamically, it won’t surprise and delight track junkies, but for a majority of regular riders, it will come as something of a revelation. It’s very forgiving, handles mid-corner bumps well and holds a line like a train. The dual discs up front work beautifully and combined with a conventional, right-side up fork, bring the bike to a halt with authority. Despite the lack of fancy names attached to the calipers or suspension, the Honda brings its modest components together as more than a sum of parts. Top speed is north of 210kmph, so make no mistake: this is a friendly, accessible, but very fast motorcycle. Fueling is perfect, with no snatchiness that we felt with some other bikes on this test outing.

Like the Ninja 650R, the Honda CBR650F is a bike that we wholeheartedly recommend to others, just not to each other or to enthusiasts. It does everything right, in some cases even better than the competition, but it doesn’t exactly set your loins aflame. We’d recommend the CBR650F for a rider new to big bikes, but she’s likely to quickly want to upgrade once she really gets into it. It also works well for the late-life motorcyclist who has nothing left to prove and wants an honest, no-nonsense four-cylinder that won’t immediately result in insurance claims. It even makes sense as an additional bike, for when your tricked-out European track tool is awaiting a much-delayed parts shipment. The Honda CBR650F is an everyman superbike with an enthusiast-class price. That, ultimately, will be its only failure. If Honda had launched it when they first showed it at the 2014 Auto Expo, perhaps things would be different but today, there are more fun ways to spend over eight lac rupees.

Originally published at thrillofdriving.com on October 9, 2015.