Honda CBR650R

The Honda CBR650R is easily one of the most handsome-looking fully-faired motorcycles you can buy in the middleweight category now. The muscular stance and slightly laid-back styling perfectly match its sports tourer image, with the overall design being proportional to every inch.

The Honda CBR650R looks distinctively different from its naked sibling with a full-fairing slapped at the front. This fairing comes with angularly placed all-LED headlamps, which have sharp-looking edges on upper corners and small air inlets below them. The sides of the headlamps have slim air vents which are neatly integrated into the sides of the fairing. Just above the LED turn indicators on the sides of the front fairing, the Honda CBR650R also gets a faux carbon-fibre finish, which looks like winglets from a distance.

The Honda CBR650R looks properly muscular when viewed from the side, with the large side panels of the full fairing which partially cover the inline-four engine that has a dual-tone finish of black and golden highlights. The lower part of the fairing also partially hides the stubby 4-into-1 underbody exhaust outlet.

The slim black-plastic side body panels of the Honda CBR650R merge well with the slim body-coloured tail section, which flows towards the tiny LED tail lamp unit, placed behind the pillion seat. The Honda CBR650R comes with an aluminium rear fender attached to the frame below the tail lamp, which serves as the number plate holder of the motorcycle.

The Honda CBR650R comes with a sporty riding posture with rear-set footpegs and low-set clip-on handlebars, though it is not as outright aggressive as a proper supersport motorcycle. Just behind the clip-on handlebars, the Honda CBR650R gets a compact reverse-LCD instrument console, which packs in a speedometer, tachometer, odometer, fuel gauge, temperature gauge, gear indicator, clock and a MID with average and instantaneous fuel consumption figures and remaining range. While this unit is informative, the overall size of the console looks small for a motorcycle this big. As a typical Honda trademark, the overall fit and finish levels of this motorcycle are top-notch.

The Honda CBR650R offers premium machinery when it comes to its basic architecture under the skin. It gets 41mm inverted hydraulic separate-functioning telescopic forks at the front and a mono-shock with a 10-stage pre-load adjuster with an aluminium swing-arm at the rear. The suspension is neither too stiff for outright sporty riding dynamics, nor too soft for a perfectly plush comfortable setup. It is somewhere in the middle, thus offering the best of both worlds. Riding on 120/70 ZR17 front tyre and 180/55 ZR17 rear tyre, the Honda CBR650R is equipped with dual 310mm disc brakes at the front and a single 240mm disc brake at the rear.

The Honda CBR650R shares its four-stroke, liquid-cooled, inline-four, 649cc engine with its naked counterpart, the CB650R. Here too, the engine is paired to a 6-speed gearbox and is in the same state of tune – 95 PS of maximum power output and 63 Nm of maximum torque output. The Honda CBR650R claims a decent fuel efficiency figure of 20.9 kmpl.

It is where the Honda CBR650R has lost out on a golden opportunity of having a clear lead over its rivals. The list of safety features in the Honda CBR650R is quite limited, with inclusions like a dual-channel ABS and an assist and slipper clutch.

For its price, the limited number of features on offer do make the Honda CBR650R a slightly pricey proposition. However, in the bigger picture, the Honda CBR650R is a well-sorted motorcycle with a refined and powerful engine and a perfectly-tuned suspension setup, which gives the much-required big bike feel, even in the way it looks.