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Ownership Review: My pre-owned Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade Repsol Edition

26th May 2022, 13:16 by Rahul Nagaraj

I take the Fireblade out almost every day, in traffic, in rain, under the scorching sun and out for long rides as well.

BHPian Xaos636 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

The Beginning

The motorcyclist in me was well up and kicking when I was a kid through my Dad's Bajaj Stride and my uncle's Bajaj Chetak and fast forward to when I was 18 and standing with a freshly baked driving license, the first instinct was to get a motorcycle and there comes the fastest Indian (or so, as the company claimed) in the name of Bajaj Pulsar 220. Fast forward to 2022, I have used only Japanese motorcycles after the P220, owing to their unmatched reliability and have owned vehicles from the YZF-R15 to the YZF-R3 and then the biggest capacity motorcycle which I owned was the Honda CBR650F.

Back in the day, I always had this shiny little poster of a Yamaha R6 and an R1 on my room wall and the R1 has always been the ultimate dream, knowing nothing of the bike other than it is 1000cc and it was not on sale in India. Come 2008, Yamaha came all guns blazing and launched the R1 and soon Honda followed with the launch of the CBR 1000RR.

Introduction

I have penned a small ownership review of the CBR650F here.

The motorcycle is very capable, very well-engineered and so good that there are very few things that are wrong with the bike. This has been a sport tourer's delight since 2015 and continues to be so with the CBR650R now. The service is cheap, parts are very well priced for an inline-4 and the moment you keep it for sale, it flies off the showcase like hot chocolate.

A very close friend has had his 1000RR for sale for 2+ years now, and as the asking price was a bit high and he being on-off India for a few months, it was a tough ask for him to sell it. Back when he bought it, I had ridden it and never in my dream thought one day I would own it. The bike was parked for a few months since the owner was out of the country (the bike still was started and rolled once or twice every week), I was able to convince him through the phone about selling the bike at a decent price comfortable for both of us, and the bike needed a bit of work like tire change (costs half a lakh now!) and a few other smaller stuff. We struck a deal considering everything and I can comfortably say that @krishnaprasadgg was the mastermind behind this as I had no plan to sell the 650F nor jump into the litre-class territory, at least this year.

Other bikes considered were very few and it includes the legendary YZF-R1 and my favourites of the lot, the Triumph Daytona 675R and the Ninja ZX-6R 636. The ZX-6R was considered because I get a fairly new bike (~2019 manufactured), can keep it for long and it's easy to live with (without taking it to Kawasaki of course) as it's not too committed. But very few units were sold in India and finding one in KA or KL was a tough task. When I found one, the owner was asking for the same cost as a new one back in 2019 which never made any sense to me.

I did not consider a new superbike simply because of the reason that I upgrade more often than I wish to. But can I upgrade from a 1000cc supersport? I can say Yes, the newer ones are an upgrade definitely, but more than half of the cost involved goes into the government's hands. I am still not comfortable to digest that, but yeah we all know that day might come. Talking about my riding experiences, my first superbike experience was a 2008 R1 (pre-cross-plane) in 2011 when the ZX-10R was launched in 2014. I got some decent time on it and then have experienced most of the lot after that. I always had a love for Supersports and not much for the tourers or naked, irrespective if this statement makes sense or not. I try very often to keep on the Japanese side of things, but someday I know I might need to go European as no one can take an eye off something like a Panigale V4 or an Aprilia RSV4.

I have upgraded in a phased manner, from single to twin to inline 4's. And they were not sudden too, it took years in the making with planning both monetarily and the physical side of things as well. I am not one who wants to keep the bike at home and ride for a coffee every weekend or so. I take the Fireblade out almost every day, in traffic, in rain, under the scorching sun and out for long rides as well. I do not want to keep any of my bikes a garage queen and irrespective of the weather, I do take her out often and hope to keep it that way as well.

Likes

Predictable power delivery.
Good service support.
Decent spare part pricing.
Smooth motor.
Fuel economy of 20+kpl.
Decent headlights.
Combined ABS works great.
Impressive mid-range power delivery.
The instrument console.

Dislikes

Brakes. Could be miles better.
Clutch feel is a bit hard.
No rear tire hugger as standard to even save the shock.
Very difficult to work on. Fairing clips, bolts etc. are very tightly and oddly placed to say the least. Removing the fairing itself takes a lot of time. Inexperienced hands can easily crack your wallet.
No traction control.

The first sight of the bike

This was around 3 years back when I was casually rolling around @krishnaprasadgg's YZF R1 and my friend invited me to take a look at the Fireblade. Hence went to his home, took a few clicks and returned. This was the first time I was seeing a Repsol edition in front of my eyes. The mind never had a thought or a clue that one day it was going to be mine, the same exact bike. Below is one pic from that day. The first sighting of the blade.

Decision to buy it and bring her home.

I and @krishnaprasadgg decided to go and take a look at the bike in detail before putting the cash down, and a big thanks to my friend who allowed me to keep the bike for how much ever I wanted before putting the money down. Even though I politely declined the offer, that's some offer that you don't get with a used car/bike. I gave the money upfront after multiple test rides and OCD detail checks and rode her home. She was accompanied by the mighty RS230 as well.

First fuel stop means mandatory pics.

The bike had a not so original(read fake) MIVV slip-on and that was the first thing to go. It looked good but screamed fake.

You can see the stock exhaust mounted back. Personally, I love how the stock exhaust gels with the machine as a whole. Special thanks to Bikers Lounge, Calicut for mounting the exhaust on short notice.