This motorcycle is as fast as you'd expect a 400cc bike to be and for many riders that might be enough -- it was for me once. The bike's taut steering and smooth power band make the thing one of the friendliest bikes I've ever ridden. What it doesn't have in acceleration it makes up for in its quick and light handling and brakes that stop the thing like time was halted. It would be a blast to take this thing to a really tight road and leave the big boys behind. A really, really tight road maybe.

There weren't many curves where I rode the bike on the north side of Lake Ontario so, since I was in a foreign country on a borrowed bike it only seemed right to see how fast the thing would go. No? I wound the little bugger out in every gear as I came down a gently grade past a brick farm house, and just after I shifted into top gear at about 190 kph the engine died. Uh oh, I thought. I'm in trouble now. The engine popped back into life after a few seconds so I decided I should return the bike before something worse happened.

After I returned I was talking to one of the people from Honda who mentioned that the bike had a high speed cutout switch at 190 kph. Ohhh. I admitted I had found it. For you Yanks, that comes out to 120 mph. If you're wondering why a 400 cc machine has a cutout switch and an 1100 machine doesn't, that's because this bike is built for the Japanese market and that's part of the regulations. Over there, riding a bigger bike requires a big bike license.

There isn't much to compare this bike to in North America because the manufacturers don't tend to bring in their little bikes. That's because nobody buys them. I liked this bike very much, a number of women like it, but that doesn't really add up to a market. Nearly every manufacturer has been burned trying to bring little bikes into our continent. But keep your hopes up, it's not the end yet.

Peter Jones