I always wanted a sports bike, but I never liked the highly committed seating position on these bikes, which is purpose-built for track riding
BHPian sac23 recently shared this with other enthusiasts:
When I first used Computers while studying in 1st or 2nd standard, I saw the Road Rash game.
I was fascinated by this game, and more so by those bikes that were faired. Decades later, the Dhoom movie was released, and I can confidently say almost all bikers today who were born in the 90s got the fire of riding from that epic movie.
In 2012, I got my first bike, a Yamaha FZS, which I had upgraded with a 180 big bore. However, the engine later blew up, so I rebuilt it myself with stock parts.
Later, I got a 2017 Duke 390, which has been a great bike!
However, I always wanted a sports bike, but I never liked the highly committed seating position on these bikes, which is purpose-built for track riding. This was the sole reason I avoided the RC390.
My options were limited to the Aprilia RS457, the Kawasaki Ninja 500, and the Yamaha R3.
The RS457 was quickly off the list due to ongoing events on engine failures, and how Aprilia’s spare parts availability is the worst. One of my friends could not even source basic parts like the accelerator cable for their Aprilia scooter.
The R3 felt like a downgrade after riding the 390. No offense, it is a well-built product, but it lacks the punch.
The Ninja 500, although low on equipment, was a solid product at but overpriced!
Therefore, I went the pre-owned route. There were a lot of options from a Ninja 600 to the Triumph Street Triple. I narrowed down on Japanese bikes for reliability and ease of availability of parts, since I do most work myself. After talking with some users, I found out that Yamaha’s spare parts availability is poor for big bikes, and even R1 owners are struggling to get parts. Kawasaki is infamous for not selling its parts over the counter. Honda was the one that checked all the boxes.
I found a listing for a 2016 CBR650F in Team Bhp Classifides.
I was able to find several posts about the bike in Team BHP from the owner, and it looked promising to me. I contacted the gentleman who was living in Bangalore, and we decided on the price. That weekend, I travelled to Bangalore and inspected the bike myself. 
The bike looked fine and had no signs of oil burn, as there was literally no soot in the exhaust.
The owner got the bike serviced from a Honda Authorized service center, and he had explicitly told them to replace anything that needed replacing. This was assuring.
Since the owner felt genuine from the way he talked, I trusted my gut feeling and settled on the deal.
The ride home was 650km
As soon as I got the bike home, I removed the fairings and headlight to address excessive vibrations from the bike and to make sure there were no hidden surprises.
And yes, there were surprises!
I would like to say all the faults I was able to dig up from the bike were hidden deep within, and the previous owner had no clue of it, as he was not at all mechanically inclined and depended on the service center to do all the maintenance. So, please don’t think he hid the issues and sold me the bike.
The headlight dust cover was a Harley-Davidson one, which did not seal the headlight. This let a lot of sand into the dome.
The rear tail section had a crack and was poorly fixed with glue.
The mudguard had a crack on the left side, which was hidden with a sticker.
The lower black fairing had a crack on the right side. The ground clearance of the bike is too low, and one can easily scrape it or hit it if not careful.
There were multiple broken tabs in the fairing, and it was held with zip ties inside. Thankfully, fairings are not expensive for the CBR. I decided to put them back with a bit of plastic welding and zip ties for the time being, as I am still getting used to the low ground clearance and do not wish to bash up a new fairing.
I removed the tank to see if any more surprises were waiting for me, and thankfully, there were none except for some dust!
I cleaned up the throttle bodies and put the tank back.
The bike was in decent shape mechanically, except for a few bits.
The front master cylinder was shot and needs replacement/rebuild.
The radiator was bashed up by dust and stones thrown off the front tire.
Radiator after hours of cleaning.
R&G Aluminum Radiator guard repainted.
The front brake pads were almost close to minimum thickness. Replaced them with Versah Ceramic brake pads.
Bled the brake system with KBX DOT 4 Brake fluid and greased front callipers.
I also had to remove the thermostat to fully flush the coolant from the bike, as I was planning to use Castrol OAT blue coolant. The bike takes close to 2.6L
The thermostat seal gave up, and it started leaking.
Since the part was not readily available, I fixed it temporarily with high-temperature RTV and ordered the part to replace it later.
HJG fog lights installed in my Duke have been performing well, so I decided to go for the same brand when I decided to do a headlight upgrade for this bike.
The headlight, unlike a normal LED H4 replacement, is a projector type, while on low beam, this light does not use the reflector, and it works like a projector light setup.
When the high beam is turned on, another LED will light up, which uses the reflector.
The OEM dust cover was a shared part with the old-gen Honda CR-V.
I was unable to find the original part, so I ordered a universal 7.5mm dust cover from auxbeam.
The new light output is 100x better than the stock candle-like light.
A short video on how the bike sounds
I finally put the puzzles back together!
All bolts were tightened to spec with torque wrenches.
The cockpit view.
What I like about the bike
- Honda’s reliability and ease of sourcing parts.
- Extremely good rideability. It can for 40 kmph smoothly in 6th gear and, with the twist of a throttle, go all the way above 200kmph.
- Comfortable sport-tourer riding triangle.
- Great fuel efficiency for an inline-4 650cc, which is close to my single cylinder 390
- Great value for money while buying used. It depreciated more than a Honda City of the same year!
- It has HISS, an immobilizer key.
- The bike, although close to 10 years old, still has the charm, especially in the bright red and white paint scheme.
- It is a capable sports tourer that can munch miles.
What I dislike about the bike
- The engine is vibey, especially at 4500 RPM, which is surprising for a Honda who are known to make butter smooth engines.
- The bike is not what I would call nimble when it comes to handling.
- Extremely low ground clearance, which is in par with supersports.
- Reversed horn and turn signals! Why Honda? Just Why?
- Basic speedometer setup with no gear indicator or temperature gauge.
- The stock exhaust note is so silent.
- The pair valve system of the bike, which injects fresh air into the exhaust to control emissions, makes a weird rattling sound at low RPMs
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