This won’t be what you might expect from the owner of a CBR600.  The thing is that I really can’t see why anyone would ever buy one.

At the time, it was the right bike for me.  As time has passed, and the biking world has changed, I don’t think it’s particularly right for me, now anyone else.  I got a good deal on mine.  It’s the last of the steel-framed ones; a 98 ‘R’ plate in black, grey and bronze.  The new version had just come out and was lighter and more powerful.  Mine was six months old with 593 miles on the clock and was fifteen hundred quid off list price.

So why do I still have it?  Well, it’s done 20,000 miles, it’s been dropped on both sides so it’s a bit scruffy, and it gets me to work in reasonable comfort at reasonable speed with the baglux tank-cover and bag that I have. I don’t owe any money on it, and it costs relatively little to run so I might as well keep it and knock the hell out of it on the A13 every day.

I wouldn’t advise anyone to get one.  The reason is largely because it appears that there are other bikes that are better for whatever the owner wants.  For a newbie who wants a reasonable sized bike, an SV650 or a Bindit 6 is the way to go.  The R6 is an awesome track bike, the ZX6-R has a better engine and is more comfy, and the GSX-R6 is a better sports bike.

Okay, it’s not a bad motorcycle.  It’s quick enough for most things, it is comfortable enough for most things, it has a pillion seat, a reasonable tank range and it’s not ugly.  These things, however, are dispassionate, logical, physical factors.  In my opinion the bike has little character, little to
endear you to it.  It’s got no soul.  In fact, it could do with some things wrong with it, just to prompt some form of emotion from the rider.

The standard end can makes the most pathetic noise, too, which doesn’t help in the least.

If I was doing it all again, I’d get a ZX6-R, I reckon.