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Honda CBR600RR (2009) – Bob Pickett squeezes himself onto Honda’s supersport superstar

With thanks to Johns of Romford, London Road branch for the loan of the bike

When I looked back at my tester’s notes about the CBR600RR, the first three words scrawled down were:

“Tiny”
“Ouch”
“Pain”

The first complaint from my back came shortly before I had to stop for the first time… about a hundred metres from the dealer. You don’t so much sit on a CBR600RR as fold yourself into the bike – and my back was none too happy.

Of course, it has to be remembered that Honda – like the other major manufacturers – put together this generation of supersport 600s to perform on the track. This bike was designed for the Dani Pedrosas of this world; not a 5ft 10in rider with a larger (read: ‘portly’) frame, more used to riding sports-tourers and fairly upright, middleweight all-rounders.

OK, so that is the ‘It is tiny’ thing out of the way (except one last comment; when tucking in on the main straight, um, I mean a straight section of road, finding I could take some weight off my arms by resting my elbows on my KNEES highlighted the compact nature of this bike rather sharply!)

That said it is less heavy on the wrists than the riding position would lead you to expect. And once you get on the move and explore the bike a little more, there is a surprising amount of space to slide around until you find a position that works best.

I needed to learn this bike without the hassle of pottering along in traffic; so I left the town/commuter stuff for the moment and moved onto a set of major ‘A’ roads. And once you get onto these – well surfaced, wide and flowing – the CBR600RR tells a very different tale.

The real surprise came from the engine (the engine of choice for the new Moto2 series remember): it is no top-end-only screamer. It pulls cleanly from as low as 5,000 revs and also has a good dollop of midrange; but when you do want to up the pace, it feeds in the power in what feels like a controlled and composed way… until you realise you’ve despatched a serious chunk of road in no time at all and you’re accelerating at an astounding rate of knots.

Partnering that engine performance is the handling. It is just… sublime.

Racking my mind for words to explain the handling, I recalled the (apocryphal) tale of when Richard the Lionheart met Saladin. The story goes that the two monarchs compared swords; after Richard showed the brute force of his broadsword, Saladin threw a silk scarf into the air, and with a single stroke sliced it in two – his scimitar made for precision and accuracy. And the latter is the CBR600RR experience; I found myself using every inch of the road with utter confidence that the bike would go where I wanted with inch-perfect precision.

The electronic steering damper deserves a mention here. At lower speeds, it stays switched off to allow the rider a more sensitive ride. Corner over 60mph and it kicks in; not obtrusively, just stiffening the handling enough to add stability.

On faster, flowing roads, the way to get the best out of the CBR600RR is not to try to boss the bike, just shift your backside, move around the saddle and work with it. For a race-focussed machine, it is remarkable how controlled and composed it feels.

Aiding that control and composure is the suspension. Fully adjustable it may be, but I was out there on standard settings – and I can’t see any need to tweak them, unless you’re a trackday fanatic perhaps. I took this bike on the whole range of motorways, ‘A’, ‘B’ and town roads; nothing ruffled it. The suspension is stiff, but soaked up the bumps in the centre of London with no drama.

Talking London, it was time to get back to town work. And to be honest, this isn’t the best environment for the Honda. That cramped riding position comes back to haunt you in slow-moving, backed-up traffic as sitting still in that hunched stance brings back the aches and pains.

So it was with relief that I got back onto the ‘A’ roads and then to the motorway stint. Motorway speeds showed up the next surprise as that tiny, stub-nosed fairing (the result of race-derived design) deflected every bit of wind away, a welcome discovery.

But motorways are boring places and so as I’d now been on board for some time and got to know the CBR, it was time for the part of the test that I had been looking forward to; moving onto the back-roads.

The test route I use takes in a section of ‘B’ roads popular with bikers – a set of decently surfaced single lanes; with a bunch of corners ranging from flowing to tight. Thrown into the mix are a couple of awkward blind bends and small roundabouts that need treating with respect. And the CBR600RR is a thing of wonderment in this environment. I quickly have to recalibrate my brain – on the slower, tighter bends the damper switches off and I have spent quite a bit of time riding at higher speeds, so the additional sensitivity throws me for a moment.

This takes a fraction of a second; of course, it doesn’t faze the Honda. – I change line mid-corner, it just accepts it, sorts itself out and lets the weakest link (me) catch up in my own time.

As I exit one corner and into a flowing section of road, I come up behind the inevitable Saturday morning car driver, in dawdle mode. So time to apply the truly awesome brakes - just brushing the lever bleeds speed in a way that a firm squeeze on most other bikes would not match. When first getting used to the huge amount of stopping power on tap, I found myself braking using just one finger at times – and still stopping harder than a full-handed firm squeeze on my (admittedly less than impressive) GSX650F’s bars.

By now I had been riding for 90 minutes with only brief stops at traffic lights, so time to take a break for the photo shoot – and I got an extremely painful reminder of the size of the bike and cramped riding position. I could barely walk or bend. OK, the feeling went away quickly, but a long ride isn’t a prospect I’d fancy on the Honda.

Given the fuel consumption, you wouldn’t be riding for too long anyway. Half a tank of petrol was used up in 50 miles. The CBR600RR has an 18 litre tank, with a 3.5 litre reserve indicator. So just shy of 7.5 miles a litre is going to see you visiting the petrol pumps on a regular basis.

But this is not a bike meant for touring. It is built to move at speed, perfectly balanced, in a racing environment for perhaps 60 miles: looked at in that way, the CBR600RR makes perfect sense.

Verdict: Would I own one? Honestly, no. And I am saying this about a bike that saw me handing it back to the dealer with a huge smile on my face.

It is truly wonderful - you can see where the race tech has gone into it (the stubby fairing that removes all windblast when you up the pace; the engine that will pull nicely at relaxed revs, but drives you in an instant to ballistic speeds in an utterly controlled manner; the brakes that feel like slapping your hands against a wall). But it is too focussed for someone that needs a bike that can do a spot of everything, especially racking up a fair few miles on the commute, plus long rides.

The CBR600RR really is a race bike with headlights. It can live in the real world a lot better than I expected (especially on poorer surfaces), but I feel the need for a good, long soak in a Radox bath right now... not something I'd be able to do at the end of the morning commute! For the right rider, it would be great, but I’m honest enough to admit that rider isn’t me.

Oh, but does it look gorgeous and go beautifully though...

Thanks again to Johns of Romford, London Road branch for the loan of the bike

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