[Nayra]

Prelude

I posted a thread on TeamBHP about two years ago now (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/motor...-reliable.html (Already have 3 motorcycles | Need a 4th bike that is fuel-efficient & reliable)).

TLDR: I wanted a proper commuter bike which could handle traffic and also be fuel efficient.

Fastforward 2 years and test riding almost every single bike out there on the market, we realized that commuters just do not work for us. The idea of a tiny, hyper efficient bike sounded amazing on paper but the more commuter bikes we rode, the more we realized the idea appealed to us more than reality.

We knew that the Splendors, Platinas and SP125s will not quench the enthusiast in us but that was not supposed to be the point anyway? right?

It's extremely difficult to smother that enthusiast in us especially when you've never owned anything even mildly commuter. The closest thing to a practical bike we own (have ever owned) was the Aprilia SR150. A scooter that corners better than bikes and has the fuel efficiency comparable to 250+CC bikes.

Every time we rode a Splendor-clone, we got off the bike feeling confused. It felt lifeless and extremely toyish. When you open the throttle, engine yelled and wailed but the speedometer just would not budge. There was nothing wrong with the bikes, it was our expectations that were just flat out foolish. We had to understand whether we even needed another bike.

The Search

So, did we need another bike?
We already had a Ninja 300 for the highway, an SR150 for the city, and an RX135 for pure, unadulterated fun.

Technically, no, we didn't. But in our minds, we had already prepared to welcome a new bike into our garage, so we figured we might as well get one that fulfilled a few needs our current lineup couldn't. My dad was feeling less and less comfortable on the Ninja 300, so we started searching for a bike for him.

Our new requirements were-

1. Light and easy to manoeuvre
2. Must be able to handle a 70% city 30% highway split
3. Japanese
4. Budget of about 2lakhs
5. Streetfighter
6. Performance between the SR150 and Ninja 300
7. Most importantly, fun to ride

After a bit of research, the only bike that fit all our requirements was the Yamaha MT-15, or so we thought.

We had ridden the MT-15 before purchasing the Ninja and loved it. With its incredible fuel efficiency and peppy performance, it seemed like the perfect choice.

Back in 2018-19, when we inquired about the MT-15, we received a quotation of about ₹1.5L–₹1.6L on-road. We expected to pay a little more this time, but boy, were we in for a surprise. In just five years, the price had jumped from ₹1.6L to ₹2.3L, an almost 45% increase. Thank you, inflation?

As much as we loved the bike and as perfect as it was for our needs, paying that much for what was, at the end of the day, a 150cc bike felt like a stupid move. We really didn’t want to spend that much, so we explored other options. The second-hand market didn’t make sense either, as most used MT-15s seemed abused and poorly maintained, they would be fine mechanically but the bikes looked very rough. If nothing else appealed to us, we’d have to bite the bullet and get a new MT-15.

A few more test rides later,-

1. KTM Duke 250 - Lack of low end torque would've made it difficult to commute on.
   We did check out a few KTMs (125, 200 and a 250) and though the bikes seemed fun, even the best
   maintained ones had a bunch of warning lights and one Duke 200 broke down mid test ride. Not for the faint
   of heart and definitely not for us.
2. Gixxer 150 - Felt close to the Splendor world than the MT15 world.
3. Jawa 42 - We had booked the bike when it first came out but cancelled it after the reviews. I still absolutely love the aesthetics of the bike and consider it to be one of the best looking bikes on the market and I really want to own it one day but the after-sales support stories combined with the reliability issues stopped us from taking the plunge.

We settled on the Gixxer 250 as a second option. It was now uncomfortably close to the Ninja in terms of cubic capacity, but hey, it still felt much calmer and more sedate, so it was fine.

My dad, in particular, fell in love with the Gixxer. The ample torque and easy-going nature appealed to him, but I felt like the bike lacked character. In a couple of ways, it felt like the polar opposite of the Duke 250. It was easy, perhaps too easy. If the KTM will overheat, blow a cam and leave you stranded in the middle of nowhere, it'll atleast be fun before you have to call up the RSA but the Gixxer felt like it could do 100,000 KM and the main issue would be trying to stay awake on the bike while doing the distance. Certainly a mature bike for a more mature audience and since this was mainly for my dad anyway, who was I to judge? A brand-new one was way out of budget, but unlike the MT-15, the resale market had plenty of well-maintained options.

A few calls and texts later, we got news of a Suzuki showroom selling December 2023 models at mouthwatering discounts (This was August 2024 IIRC). We spoke to the showroom guys, who showed us the bike. It was an odd yet funky orange and black, but at a 35% discount, could we really complain? The bike was a bit cheaper relative to a new MT15 but the price made more sense for a 250CC compared to a 150cc.

We requested they bring the bike from the warehouse so we could test-ride it, and if everything checked out, we’d take it. They informed us it would take four days.

And so, the wait begins!

The Wildcard

A couple of days before the Gixxer was supposed to arrive, I came across a classified ad for a 2020 Honda CB300R (CBU). We’ve always loved the café racer aesthetic and circular headlights. I had heard about the bike before but never seriously considered it, I remembered it being overpriced at launch, and I wasn’t particularly interested in that segment. But the price in the ad caught my attention.

I figured it would be a poorly maintained, high-owner vehicle, maybe four or more previous owners. But no.

• First owner.
• 15k on the odo.
• The seller actually seemed to care about the bike.

But what would we do with another 300cc bike? Sure, it had less power and one fewer cylinder, than the Ninja, but the difference wasn’t all that significant on paper. Out of curiosity, we pulled up the Autocar review, and the moment they mentioned the bike’s weight, we were very interested.

140 kilos? That’s it? That’s barely heavier than our Aprilia and 40 kilos lighter than the Kawasaki, for heaven’s sake.

We called the seller immediately and arranged to check out the bike the next day.

The moment we picked the CB off the side stand, we were smitten. We had ridden so many bikes and were used to their general heft, but this? This had no weight. Nothing.

Lighter than the MT-15
More fun than the Gixxer
Better built than both

We were hooked.
We paid the advance, checked the service records and a couple of days later, the CB was home!




With its native brethren

The Ownership Experience

We've bought the bike at around 15k in September and the odometer stands at 21.5k.

The pros

• The Weight : No two ways about this. This is the bike's USP. It feels feather-light while moving the bike around at parking lot speeds and it sheds all of its weight the moment you move it. Hell, I can dead lift this bike if I have to.

• The Power to weight ratio : It's light yes but the engine also outputs some serious enough horses. 30bhp at 140kgs which means it's technically only slightly less than powerful than the Ninja 300.

• The Brakes : Yet another advantage of being light is that, the lighter a bike is, the easier it is to stop and with the Nissin calipers on this, it stops hard and very fast. Equipped with TVS Protorq Extremes , be prepared for unintentional mini-stoppies now and then.

• The Mid-range : The bike has a decent low end, a nice sounding top end with the induction noise blaring but the midrange is where the bike is fun. Mellow below 2k but it feels like it dumps all of its torque at >3k rpm at once which makes it an absolute joy to ride within the city.

• Ownership Cost : None of the bikes we own are easy on the pocket to service and maintain. The Ninja isn't too bad to service but the cost of spares makes my bank account tear up while the Aprilia SR150 needs servicing every 3 months and the less I talk about that, the better.
  Enter the ChiBi. 6-month service intervals, we got our first service done at the new Honda Bigwing Topline and we were billed 3.5k. Hallelujah!

The mediocre

• The Refinement : Perhaps I've been spoilt rotten by the twin on the Kawasaki but the CB feels buzzy to me. Quite buzzy infact. There's a general high frequency buzz that I feel emanates throughout the RPM range of the bike which you can sort of hear too. It isn't noticeable when you're cutting through traffic but holding a constant speed on the highway for a while will cause your hands to feel tingly when you get off the saddle.

• Heat Management : Good but not great. The radiator fan switches on very quickly and remains switched on. More so, if you're riding in rush house traffic combined with the summer heat and you wear pants which do not cover the entirety of your legs, a narrow yet strong stream of hot hair is directed towards your ankles, mostly on the left side which gets uncomfortable.

• Fuel Efficiency : The strong mid-range and short gear ratios means that this bike begs you to ride it hard. Which also means though the bike is capable of being fuel efficient, 30kmpl+ within the city is possible if you're sedate, it isn't easy to extract mileage out of this engine. It does not like being lugged and you'll find yourself getting about 22-25kmpl within the city if you give in to the bike's pleas to be revved out. It's a different story on the highway and if you hold the bike at 80kmph, 45Kmpl+ is easy.

The cons

• The Switchgear : I absolutely, truly, viscerally despise the switch-gear design from the bottom of my heart. More on this later as this deserves its own section.

• Tank Size : 9.7 liters. Leaving aside 2 liters as reserve, that gives you just over 7 liters of usable fuel. It’s fine for the city, but touring on this bike is a serious hassle. For reference, my dad and I did a 400 km round trip with some spirited riding, me on the Ninja, him on the CB. He had to fuel up twice, while I made it home with two bars left.

• The Ride Quality : The CBU version of this bike came with premium Showa shocks and that would make you think the suspension tuning is great? right?
  The ride quality is very harsh. Too harsh even. I understand it's meant to be sporty but god, this bike can hurt your family jewels and bring tears to your eyes if you aren't careful over bad roads. The bike is capable of doing 160kmph but due to the way the suspension is set up and the quality of our roads, the front starts to feel light and bouncy over 100kmph and once you cross 120kmph, it feels like you're resting entirely on the rear wheel. Also found out the rims have a slight bend which was not surprising considering how much impact they would have to take due to the stiff suspension if you hit a bump hard.
  Cornering confidence is great, though.

• The Lights : What lights? They exist on the bike only as a formality with none of the functionality. It's the equivalent of holding a candle in front of you while riding the bike

• The Transmission : This is an odd one and might very well be an issue with my bike specifically. The up-shifts are crisp, smooth and typically Japanese. The downshifts on the other hand, are rough and frustrating. If you're downshifting hard to utilize some engine braking, it refuses to downshift sometimes, a bit like going into gear from neutral when you're at a standstill, which needless to say, can be frustrating at best and downright dangerous at worst. We had the chain slack rechecked which has helped but it's still not perfect.

The best part about this bike is how it turns mundane city commuting from a chore into something you actually look forward to. It has completely transformed my mindset when it comes to riding in traffic, rush hour has never been this fun. A street fighter that lives up to its name is every essence of the word.

The Featherweight (Street)Fighter

As a mechanical engineer, I appreciate good engineering and, in my experience, good engineering is the result of relentless optimization. That aspect is showcased brilliantly on the CB300R through its weight. This is a 140-kilo bike that feels like it weighs 120, all while pushing 30 horses. And that weight, or lack thereof, is the defining factor of this bike. It influences everything: the way it launches off the line, the way it drops speed effortlessly, and the sheer ease of handling.

It’s easy to build bulky, overweight, under-powered bikes and pretend the extra weight is intentional, as if it somehow meets some phantom, logic-defying expectations of "build quality" and "stability." On-foot maneuverability? U-turns? Who cares, right? But I digress.

At the end of the day, a good bike, even one that’s objectively heavy or tall, shouldn’t stop you from wanting one as long as it makes sense since you will adapt to a good bike. It took me about a year of riding to feel at home and adapt to the Ninja 300 after graduating from the RX135. But with the CB? That entire frontier of adaptation isn't just instantaneous, it doesn’t exist.
If you find yourself in an awkward position and need to muscle your way out of dropping the bike, and if you need to reverse out of an incline, or even if you do drop it, 140 kg is a hell of a lot easier to deal with than 243 kg.

A comparative analysis of the power-to-weight ratio of the CB vs other bikes

The Dyslexic Switchgear

I spoke about good engineering, so now let's move on to horrible engineering.

Seriously? Who thought it was a good idea to swap the positions of the horn and indicator buttons? The number of times I’ve tried to honk in an emergency only to trigger the indicators instead is beyond frustrating. Even worse, when I actually do manage to hit the horn button correctly, it's pivoted so awkwardly away from your fingers that it doesn’t even click down properly.

Then there are the mirrors and their positioning. The mirrors themselves work fine, but the gap between them and the handlebars is ridiculously small, especially on the clutch side. So, what happens? If you take your left hand off the bars, say, to adjust your intercom, and go to grab them again, you risk hitting the mirror and causing a wobble.

That exact thing happened to me during an emergency situation. I reached for the handlebar, slammed into the mirror, and ended up destabilizing the entire front end at 100 km/h. Nearly kissed the tarmac right then and there.
Easily the worst part of the bike. Completely unforgivable. And infuriating.

It might seem like a small and rudimentary issue, and if you have a single-bike garage, it is, since you’re bound to get used to it. But if you don’t, and you're switching between bikes with proper switch gear layouts and Honda’s monstrosity, prepare to cuss the bike out inside your helmet every single time you need to honk or use the indicators.

Street Fighter, Highway..Hustler?

If it wasn't clear enough, this bike feels like it's been birthed and molded for the city. The weight means you can park in awkward places and push the bike around to adjust it, the short gearing, wide handlebar and the mildly aggressive yet upright riding position pushes you to attack the 200 meters between signals.

But what if its 200Km instead of 200m? Well now, the bike becomes a bit more complicated. The very reasons that make the bike so much fun in the city start to drag it down once you take it out on the highway. The short gearing makes the engine feel a bit buzzy above 100 km/h, just enough to make you start complaining about it after 50 kilometers. The slightly aggressive rider's triangle with the wide handlebars, with the complete lack of wind protection, begins to feel slightly cumbersome after the first 100 kilometers, and by the end of 150 kilometers, the stiff suspension means the bike never really settled down and the seat will have started taking a toll on your backside, making a break feel necessary. This actually works out well, because by this point, if you’ve been riding the bike in the spirited manner it deserves, you’re probably down to one or two bars of fuel and need to tank up anyway. Let's not even talk about sundown touring because you'll be literally riding blind.

I occasionally go on night rides to the airport, which is about an 80-kilometer round trip. My go-to ride for this has always been the Ninja. It’s easy, simple, and when I return home, I just hang up my gear and sleep without any issues.

The last time, though, with fresh sticky rubber on the CB, I thought, why not test the tires out? Well, 80 kilometers later, after a lot of squinting to actually see the road without headlights, I returned home with tingling hands, a slightly sore mid-back, and ringing ears from the wind-blast. And that was just 80 kilometers.

You can still tour on the bike and do whatever you want. After all, it is a Honda My dad does tour on it quite a bit and he personally find it to be perfect and that's primarily because if you maintain speeds of sub-80KMPH, it is very functional on the highway. But the bike, in its stock avatar, is really not an optimal tourer. You can change the sprockets, add risers and a windscreen, ride a bit slower, swap out the seat and add auxiliary lights. These changes can turn touring from something the bike does begrudgingly into something it actually handles very well. But why take a camel, put a sweater on it, and send it to the Arctic when you could just let it thrive in the desert? Street fighter, certainly, highway hustler? not as certain but doable nonetheless,

Upgrades/Changes on the Horizon

Aux lights are on the cards for the bike as the stock illumination is comparable to the illumination offered by the RX135, if not worse due to the colder hue.

A more offbeat addition I'm eyeing is a fairing kit. The wind-blast while touring on a naked is no joke, it’s a relentless and continuous battering that sucks a good chunk of the joy out of the ride. The bike’s a real looker, and that's half the reason I bought it; therefore, I refuse to slap on one of those tall windscreens that make bikes look like they’re growing a tragic Mohawk, completely wrecking the visual flow of the front end and turning clean lines into chaos, but what would perhaps suit the bike's aesthetics would be a classic cafe racer bikini fairing. (Reference pictures attached). It'll help with the wind-blast and also satiate my obsession with cafe-racers.



Apart from those two changes, which realistically speaking, is just me nitpicking at this point, I do not wish to make any changes to the bike nor do I believe it requires any.

Miscellaneous

1) The fueling on the bike is sharp and choppy at lower speeds which is further exacerbated by the way the power is delivered (meaty mid-range is an understatement). Though the rider gets used to it and even starts to love it, your pillion will not be too pleased by the constant jolting they will experience in traffic.

2) Speaking about the pillion, pillion comfort is strictly OK. The seat looks more comfortable and inviting than it is especially if you're taller than 5'5 due to the hard cushioning and raised foot pegs. Two up touring will take some serious grit and determination to pull off.

3) The bike really only has two painted parts, the tank shrouds and the front fender, and since pulling them off takes about 20 minutes, you could easily buy a stack of shrouds and fenders in different colors, or even fabricate your own, and swap looks whenever you feel like it. The OEM components cost a pretty penny but there are a few aftermarket options available.

4) The rear fender (or mudguard) is flimsy and tends to shake a bit side to side on uneven roads, which in Bangalore, basically means every road. The wobble makes it look like the bike’s twerking its way down the street. Looks a bit cute to me but might get on the nerves of the perfectionists out there.

5) The chain is very noisy. It's loud enough to be quite annoying if you're riding sedately at low speeds - higher gears. The chain needs more attention and care than most other bikes to manage the chain noise and considering how loud it can get, you will be forced to engage in frequent and on time chain maintenance.

6) The noisy chain is only an annoyance at lower speeds as when you open the throttle up, it's overwhelmed by the boisterous hum of the intake. Sounds great for a single cylinder bike!

7) The seat height is low and easy to manage but the seat itself is a bit wide and squared off which means pushing the bike around with your feet while sitting on it can cause some discomfort in your upper thighs due to the edges of the seat digging into them.

Closing Thoughts

I have always found it difficult to recommend any of the bikes I own to others. I cherish them but the rational part of me also understands their quirks very well.
The Ninja 300 is my favorite bike BUT it's outdated by more than a decade.
The SR150 is rapid BUT it's impracticality defeats the purpose of a scooter.
The RX135 is legendary BUT it will kill you if you aren't careful.
The R15 V1 is wonderful BUT when the V4 exists, why would you even glance towards a V1?

Enter, the Honda CB300R which is the one bike in my garage I could recommend to everyone, from a college student just getting his first bike to a hardened, experienced rider looking for his last bike.
If you want a streetfighter for a single-bike garage around ₹3 lakh on-road, just head straight to the nearest BigWing showroom and book the CB. It’s more refined than the Speed 400, a lot easier to live with than the Duke 250, more fun than the Gixxer 250 and at the end of the day, it’s a Honda.

If it wasn’t already clear from everything I’ve said, I adore this bike. I love almost every part of it, and in many ways, it’s reignited something in me that I thought I was losing, the pure, stubborn love for riding.
I had started to grow jaded. Everywhere I looked, it felt like the walls were closing in, the looming bans on anything powered by fossil fuels, the hostility on Bengaluru’s roads, and tarmac infrastructure that seemed like it was giving a tribute to the Lunar surface.
We’re a dying breed, shunned by the future, forgotten by the past. Taking my bike out stopped being about the freedom of the open road and started feeling like a fight just to hold onto a fading dream. To us gearheads, machines aren’t just transport, they’re freedom, rebellion, and identity all rolled into one oil burning heart, and amongst the machines, bikes sit at the very top. No machine strips it down more brutally, no walls, no cages, just you, your thoughts, and the road breathing beneath you.
This bike brought that feeling back from the brink. It reminded me why I fell in love with riding in the first place. It has provided a lifeline for my ambition.

A few parting shots!

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[Deamon0508]

Originally Posted by Nayra

The cons

• The Switchgear : I absolutely, truly, viscerally despise the switch-gear design from the bottom of my heart. More on this later as this deserves its own section.

• Tank Size : 9.7 liters. Leaving aside 2 liters as reserve, that gives you just over 7 liters of usable fuel. It’s fine for the city, but touring on this bike is a serious hassle. For reference, my dad and I did a 400 km round trip with some spirited riding, me on the Ninja, him on the CB. He had to fuel up twice, while I made it home with two bars left.

• The Ride Quality : The CBU version of this bike came with premium Showa shocks and that would make you think the suspension tuning is great? right?
  The ride quality is very harsh. Too harsh even. I understand it's meant to be sporty but god, this bike can hurt your family jewels and bring tears to your eyes if you aren't careful over bad roads. The bike is capable of doing 160kmph but due to the way the suspension is set up and the quality of our roads, the front starts to feel light and bouncy over 100kmph and once you cross 120kmph, it feels like you're resting entirely on the rear wheel. Also found out the rims have a slight bend which was not surprising considering how much impact they would have to take due to the stiff suspension if you hit a bump hard.
  Cornering confidence is great, though.

• The Lights : What lights? They exist on the bike only as a formality with none of the functionality. It's the equivalent of holding a candle in front of you while riding the bike

• The Transmission : This is an odd one and might very well be an issue with my bike specifically. The up-shifts are crisp, smooth and typically Japanese. The downshifts on the other hand, are rough and frustrating. If you're downshifting hard to utilize some engine braking, it refuses to downshift sometimes, a bit like going into gear from neutral when you're at a standstill, which needless to say, can be frustrating at best and downright dangerous at worst. We had the chain slack rechecked which has helped but it's still not perfect.

I connected with your sentiment, because I had the same conundrum to liven up the peak Bangalore traffic commuting, without breaking the bank. Got a 2022 CB300R in August '24, mine was barely 4k on the odo, which now stands at 9k-ish. I don't see my usage increasing drastically, unless the family goes on a vacation without me and I get a week to myself to ride across the Indian coastline, but I digress.

I'm absolutely onboard with your observations, mine being a single bike garage, I could unlearn and relearn the indicator and horn swap, but I think now I'm okay 95% of the time. Plus, as you mentioned, due to the featherweight handling, it's somehow easier to brake or swerve than to honk (which is puny and barely audible anyway).

I agree with the headlamps, no matter how you'd try to adjust, by previous bike had a far better and more confidence inspiring Halogen setup than this one. But then my usage is 90% city and stuck in traffic so they're not a deal breaker for me. Would definitely invest in aux lights for when the coastline calls out to me.

I've read the opinion multiple times for the fuel range, but perhaps my highway usage never goes into needing more than 150km of continuous riding, but this definitely isn't a bike for venturing into the unknown, where fuel pumps are far and few in between.

What surprised me was you comment for the gearbox, because I could swear this is one of the slickest ones I've ridden. If your issue is only at downshifting (mildly aggressive), then maybe relook at the chain slack you're running.

For the suspension, I've dialed my rear from the stock 2 (2nd from the softest end) to 4, I weight between 75-80 kg, am 5'11". This has resulted in the bike not squatting as much on the rear, bringing more weight on the front and improving the damping for 80% of the usage, plus a steeper rake makes it even more dart-y, but a little more prone to tank slappers. The front feels a little more attuned to what the rear is doing, previously, patchy roads felt dispatched differently by the front and rear, where the front was too stiff and the rear was too soft. Now both of them are mildly stiff and I think I like this setup (comfort-wise) more than the stock.

Happy riding!

[Grimlock]

I know what you mean about the mirrors on this bike. You just have to experience it to know how such a small issue can become annoying.

Would highly reccommend a mirror extender, It increases the height of the mirror and gives a lot of flexibility with the position of it.

Here's a pic of it moved a bit inwards so filtering around gets a bit less anxiety inducing. Only con is that it becomes slightly buzzy, but a big pro is that you never hit it mistakenly with the wrists anymore.

[MDED]

I ride Hiness 350 and totally agree with the horn button positioning. BigWing folks informed that the Japanese folks have got small thumbs and hence their engineers place the horn button in the second row instead of conventional third row, as the case with Indian makers. Also, the mirror positioning also remains very short gaped.

[b16h22]

Originally Posted by MDED

I ride Hiness 350 and totally agree with the horn button positioning. BigWing folks informed that the Japanese folks have got small thumbs and hence their engineers place the horn button in the second row instead of conventional third row, as the case with Indian makers. Also, the mirror positioning also remains very short gaped.

I don't think it has anything do with that Honda isn't the only brand from Japan but they are the only ones to swap horn and indicator buttons. It's more of a Honda quirk and annoyance.

[t3rm1n80r]

Congratulations on your purchase!

Originally Posted by Nayra

If you find yourself in an awkward position and need to muscle your way out of dropping the bike, and if you need to reverse out of an incline, or even if you do drop it, 140 kg is a hell of a lot easier to deal with than 243 kg.

That's the biggest highlight for me. The things I can attempt on it on relatively flat gravely offroad surfaces are the ones I'd be scared to do an Adv 390 due to it's weight. The next upgrade to proper offroad bike would be a KLX230 or a CFR300L 🤞

[PreludeSH]

Wish if you could ride Tuono and see if the riding position is similar to this ! Handle bars seem similar.

I always find Honda gear shifts and clutch operation the smoothest. They are engineered to perfection with just enough fell and they are so great even in cars.

[Samarth 619]

I already had a 152 kgs BS3 Duke 390 (still do), when the CB300R launched.

Since it was already BS6 era, my first reaction on seeing the wet weight was, "ok so, what's the catch? Is this the dry weight, without battery, coolant, oil, fuel, etc etc?", but it was too less for dry weight as well.
The 150cc crowd was already doing 158kgs something (in naked bikes category). But CB300R turned out to be the real deal.


And now this is a bike I'd get for my wife, when she's done with her riding class.

This suspension, I'm not sure how it will be in comparison to Duke 390, because this is exactly how I'd describe my 390, rigid and helpful for handling, but a pain on substandard roads.

First service 3.5k is a bit on the heavy side (considering it's supposed to be free, excluding oil of course), at least by what KTM charges me. Could you break this up?

[Bombastic]

As a fellow CB300R owner, I agree with you on most of the points you've written about. Especially on the headlights and the horn-indicator swap. I mean, it's a great thing that the bike has such fantastic brakes, because I've found it's probably faster to brake for emergencies than honk because by the time I find the right switch, I'd probably have smashed into it anyway On the flip side, it's made me a lot quieter and more vigilant on the road lol. Tip: Having touring mirrors addresses your issues with the RVMs, and also give you a fantastic view of the rear. However, since they stick out of the bike, you would no longer be able to filter through traffic as easily - you'll have to consider the tradeoffs.

[Nayra]

Originally Posted by Deamon0508

What surprised me was you comment for the gearbox, because I could swear this is one of the slickest ones I've ridden. If your issue is only at downshifting (mildly aggressive), then maybe relook at the chain slack you're running.

For the suspension, I've dialed my rear from the stock 2 (2nd from the softest end) to 4, I weight between 75-80 kg, am 5'11". This has resulted in the bike not squatting as much on the rear, bringing more weight on the front and improving the damping for 80% of the usage, plus a steeper rake makes it even more dart-y, but a little more prone to tank slappers.

I figured it had to be an issue specific to my bike. I did have the chain slack checked which seems to have rectified the issue mostly, though it still occasionally refuses to downshift. Not as bad as it was before but I do wish it was perfect.
As far as the suspension, I'm running 3 so there is cohesion between the front end and rear end now.

Originally Posted by PreludeSH

Wish if you could ride Tuono and see if the riding position is similar to this ! Handle bars seem similar.

I have ridden the Tuono 457! Lovely bike and the rider's triangle is identical to the rider's triangle of the CB300R.

for your reference, attaching pictures. (Pardon the horrible editing, bit of a privacy nut)

Originally Posted by Samarth 619

First service 3.5k is a bit on the heavy side (considering it's supposed to be free, excluding oil of course), at least by what KTM charges me. Could you break this up?

This is a pre-owned bike which I bought at 15k KM and has since crossed 22k, the general service costs about 3.5k.