What a great all rounder. (Honda CBR600F)

Member Name: Steve P

Product:	Honda CBR600F
Date:	16/01/02 (5217 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Comfort for a sports bike, Honda reliability, good resale

Disadvantages: Boring looks, poor lights, brakes could be sharper

It was quite a number of years since I had been biking to any great extent. All my old Pals were still or back into bikes, so what to get? It needed to be quick enough to get the adrenalin flowing, safe enough for an old fart and reliable. I looked at all the current "sports" 600's. Yamaha's R6, Kawasaki's ZX6R, Suzuki's GSXR600 and the Honda CBR600.
I almost forgot, it needed to be comfortable to ride. I didnt bother with test rides, just sitting on these pocket rockets was enough. The only one that felt right straight from the beginning was the Honda. Fabulous reliability, my Dealer was so helpful and professional it made the buying experience trouble free.
The bike turned out to be all I expected and more, most reports say there is a flat spot around 5,000 rpm, not on my bike. Just seamless smooth power, fantastic acceleration and brakes that were good but I always thought they could have a bit more bite. Handling was excellent balancing a good ride with roadholding, easy to wear out those hero blobs on the foot pegs. I did a few long rides and was pleased to have made the right choice. One long ride did show up what I consider to be a major fault, the lights. Mine were appalling. Particularly on dip beam. I wasn't able to keep up with my friends once the sun had set. I did buy a special Piaa bulb from Demon Tweaks and that improved matters considerably, but night time riding was always severely hampered. 2002 and time for a new bike, what did I get? Another CBR600 but a new sport version this time. If I have another comment on the CBR600 FX, its that it looks boring, compare it to all the other supersport bikes and it doesnt look half as sporty. I think the new sport version fixes that, I hope the new twin headlights are better too. So if you are 'young' get an R6 but if you are more mature with that stiffening in the joints get the CBR. Although on the road theres not much in it.
So when the Sport gets on
to the road after March, I'll write a report on that.
This is just a brief opinion from an actual owner, that I would hope gives a prospective buyer some small idea of whether people who have owned one liked it or not. If you need full specs on height, width, length, bulb wattage, tyre pressures etc then please get a brochure from your Honda Dealer. A complete professional road test can be obtained from MCN. They even compare it on a joint test with other 600's something I couldnt do.

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