Re: Cbr 600F 2001
 

Children :rolleyes: :p :p

Re: Cbr 600F 2001
 

My 1998 CBR600F-W has cartridge forks as standard

Re: Cbr 600F 2001
 

Anyone who says the CBR600 isn't fun to ride or is 'anodyne' has obviously never really ridden one in anger or can't ride a feckin' rocking horse to save their life, or could quite possibly be so blinkered that they can only see one bike as ever filling their and everyone else's needs or wants. It might also be that they've never ridden any distance on anything but an SV and have had a brief ride on one CBR and that's enough for them to dismiss them altogether and make them an expert on the 'multiple failings' of Honda's most popular 4 cylinder bike ever.

Well armchair pundits, as the current owner of a CBR600 race/trackbike that I did use on the road for a while and the past owner of three SV650s, here's some news:

Yes the CBR600s are smooth, yes they are quick, yes they handle, no they do not vibrate, no they do not break, no they do not have SV-like 'character' - in every respect other than the 'character' (a CBR doesn't vibrate like a jack-hammer, if you can call that a lack of character) they kick the SV's underpowered, under-suspended, under-braked, under-smooth lily-white flabby ar5e.

Quite simply, you won't find a much better affordable all rounder than a CBR600, and whilst an SV may be considered fun to ride, if you'd owned a CBR600 before trying an SV650 you'd get off the SV and be absolutely dying to get back on your CBR. Even a brand new SV feels crude and almost historic compared to an early CBR.

CBR600s only really have two recurring problems and that's the camchain tensioner (can also be a problem on SV650s, but don't let things like that get in the way of a slating) and the reg/rectifiers (again, another big problem with SV650s). When you consider the list of problems that other bikes get, the CBR600 is a paragon of reliability.

There, I hope that's brought a bit of balance to the discussion.

Re: Cbr 600F 2001
 

I've had one too. It was a very good (as YC mentioned) neutral handling bike. I have managed to get out of some difficult situations that other bikes would not have allowed me to. A very forgiving bike. If you like your riding smooth, no hassle and effort, a good bike to consider.

Re: Cbr 600F 2001
 

woa i dont know anyone who ahs said the cbr is a bad bike. its very good. its more than fast enough and brakes, turns and goes a lot better than most.

however one thing it does lack (for me) is that fun factor. its like buying a focus. its a great car but when you compare it to a mini its not as much fun is it?

Re: Cbr 600F 2001
 

I dont expect they have, but there are people on this forum with an awfully awfully blinkered approach to owning a motorcycle that isnt an SV.

"SV Good anything else bad" is basically the theory.

I've never ridden one, but I did consider a CBR before I bought my SV. Liz had one for her first bike and she absoloutly loved it.

Re: Cbr 600F 2001
 

I had mine for an age and some. For me the fun factor didn't go away. Only reason I changed the bike is because I killed it. Well I nearly killed it. I part exchanged it after having a bit of a highside on it. But the point is the bike was brilliant. It never lost the fun factor because it was so good at being a motorcycle. It went like snot when you wanted it too but pootled around just as easy.

Re: Cbr 600F 2001
 

That's just your perception of it. The Mini was always marketed as a fun car, hence you have it in mind that it's just that, which admittedly they can be. I've recently given up a Focus 1.6 TDCi and had a huge amount of fun caning it. The standard common or garden Focus was marketed as a family shopping car, but there's no denying the fact that they can be incredibly rewarding cars if driven in a hoologan manner.

Re: Cbr 600F 2001
 

If the R6 hadn't popped up in an unrefusable manner - I'd have had one. It's what I was mainly looking at. Not sure if that's a recommendation or not.

Had a couple of friends who took a Steal framed version endurance racing for a season without problem. (Well apart from dinging the wheels on a curb but that wasn't the bike's fault)

Re: Cbr 600F 2001
 

Precisely what I meant. It makes me laugh that the people who rave about the SV and how brilliant it is and how boring other bikes are happen to be the ones who have little real world riding experience, and have owned maybe two or three crap bikes in their very short riding career.