Honda CBR 400RR

On a recent visit to the Great White North, the nice people at Honda Canada showed me a new Honda CBR 400RR they had in their possession. They had brought the bike into Canada to gauge reaction to it at the Canadian motorcycle show last January. They were most interested to see if the bike might appeal to female riders and open up a new market for Honda. Thinking that I might need to get closer to my feminine side, or something, they let me take the little Honda for a short ride.

It's been a long time since I've ridden a bike this small but Ihave to admit that I have an affection for little sportbikes. In my early days of motorcycling I rode a CBR 400F. I loved that bike. To modify it I had installed clip-ons, a Yosh pipe and jet kit, and a set of rear sets that put my knees above my head. That bike was cool. It made me cool.

This little Honda, though, is lightyears better than my old 400F even without having any modifications. Oh alright, it's only 22 years better but in bike years I think that translates out to be about 186,000 years, so there. This new little Honda has conventional forks, an aluminum frame, and a reinforced aluminum swingarm. It has all the stuff that big sportbikes have, just all a little smaller. In many ways this bike is a baby twin brother to the CBR 900RR.

The CBR 400RR is as nimble as one would expect such a small bike to be but it is also very precise in its steering and is rock stable. My old 400 had the first of those features but very little of the second one. Going 100 mph on the old thing was an attention grabbing experience whereas that speed on this bike is of no event. Modern lightweight frames are designed to take giant horsepower loads of big bikes so it was no problem for the Honda engineers to make this bike's frame smaller, lighter, and still flex free.

The frame of this 400RR is so small that the rear shock had to be mounted on a steep angle, reaching up underneath the gas tank. By mounting the shock in that position they were able to maintain a low seat height which, with the bike's light weight, contributes to making the package so nice for women.

The neatest thing about this bike is that the redline on its inline four engine is at 14,500 rpms. At first it took me a little bit of encouragement to convince myself that going to that rpm wasn't doing a naughty deed, but once I broke myself of my self-imposed rev limiter, it was hard not to go there in every gear at every opportunity. What a great sound. It got me to thinking that this bike would be even more fun with a louder pipe. But I guess that might be a guy thing.