Cycle News

VOL. 51 ISSUE 22 JUNE 3, 2014 P73 audience for this bike - car driv- ers who are relatively new to mo- torcycling. The CB650F also likes to be revved hard, especially as the power delivery is totally linear. It really comes alive above 5000 rpm, making it a lot of fun for more experienced riders, with torque peaking at 8000 rpm, and maximum power delivered at 11,000 rpm - accompanied by an invigorating angry wail from the four-into-one exhaust that you can actually hear quite well, thanks to the silencer exiting just under your right foot. Ridden in something ap- proaching anger, the Honda isn't let down by its handling, with the steel frame tuned to give good feedback from the front Dunlop D222 via a mixture of controlled flex, and quite firm settings for the front (non-adjustable) 41mm Showa fork. You can feel the grip, or lack of it, along shiny sections of tarmac, allowing you to ride accordingly thanks to the good feedback. But the sweet-handling CB650F feels agile yet predictable in flick- ing it from side to side through a series of turns, delivering a con- fidence-inspiring ride backed up by a level of suspension compli- ance that's frankly much better than you might expect from a bike at this price level. The rear Showa shock is ad- justable only for seven-stage pre- load, but its default damping set- tings give good ride quality at low speeds over bumps and broken tarmac, as well as excellent re- sponse to surface defects when going for it. Kudos, Honda. And Showa. That's an impression repeat- ed by the Nissin brakes, which in spite of being just two-piston non-radial calipers with twin front 320mm Sunstar discs were more effective from high speed than I expected. They didn't overheat coming down a mountain pass with successive hairpins inter- spersed by straights that let you build up speed again, and can be modulated nicely in flowing sec- tions of road. That's where you can knock off a touch too much speed entering a turn with just a single finger on the six-way ad- justable lever. Non-switchable ABS is fitted as standard in Eu- rope to provide reassurance. Again, this is a better brake package than you might expect for the money and you don't get the feeling that this bike was en- gineered down to a price. That impression extends to the CB650F's accouterments, such as the ultra-legible and good-looking dash comprising twin screens, with the large digi- tal speedometer surmounted by a tach sweep on the left, with on the right a fuel gauge, clock, odometer and the warning lights. You can scroll through the but- tons separating the two screens to access twin trips, DTE plus instant and overall fuel economy. But there's no gear selected in- dicator, a perennial Honda fault that they really should address to help beginners figure out what gear they're in. And more expe- rienced riders, too, on a bike as torquey as this one. Honda's HISS security system is fitted as standard, but there's space under the seat for a disc lock as well, plus there's a cable- type helmet lock, and four points to clip luggage to the rear of the seat via bungee cords. While Honda seemingly did very little for the first couple of years of the global economic meltdown (beyond an awful lot of thought and planning on how to address the fact that the world had changed, especially with the revalued yen), how it's developed a blitz of new models that are now hitting the marketplace half a decade after the implosion. All of these have several things in common – they're priced to sell, economical to run, bring a new design philosophy to the mar- ketplace, plus they're real-world rational, and best of all practical – but still lots of fun. How very Honda. Of course, you can't imagine that Honda invested so much capital in designing this all-new four-cylinder motor just for use on a single platform with two model variants. Allegedly, there are no more spinoff 650cc Thai-made models currently planned – but a four-cylinder rival for Suzuki's good-selling 650 V-Strom can only be a matter of time, perhaps with a slightly larger version of the engine. You read it here first. CN

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