The Confession or How I Ended Up on a 2005 CBR600F4i.
By Eric Jacobson
A few months ago, I started riding on a regular basis with some friends of mine (both old & new) that bought each bought motorcycles. Ever since then, I’ve rediscovered the joy (and differences) of riding with other people instead of just riding by myself.
I’m no stranger to riding with other people. Back when I bought my brand-new blue 2001
SV650S, my brother bought a brand-new 2001 Katana 600 and we cut our teeth on
motorcycles at the same time. However,
all good things had to come to an end and my brother had to sell his Katana so
he could go to graduate school in the horribly humid flat-lands of
The concept seems very oxymoronic – when I ride with groups, I ride my own bike and I can’t talk to anyone, but, at the same time, the experience of riding in groups is extraordinarily different from riding alone. The camaraderie helps provide ongoing support to continue riding as well as to make it more fun. Stopping for smoke-breaks (or “air breaks” for you non-smokers out there) allows for discussion about the ride, pointing out the idiots in the four-wheeled cages rolling around, and just provides more entertainment than pulling off at an overlook and admiring the view by myself (which isn’t a bad deal, I must say, it’s just more fun with other people sometimes).
What’s even weirder is that the mix of bikes I’ve been riding with lately is more eclectic than Michael Jackson’s legal team.
Most of the time, I go riding with my friends Ben, Aaron, and Woody. Ben rides a 2005 Honda Shadow Aero (750cc), Aaron rides a 2002 Honda VTX1800 (1800cc), and Woody rides a 2005 Suzuki GS500F (487cc). My SV fits in pretty well in the group except when going up against Aaron’s VTX (or when Ben borrows his kindly Dad’s 2005 Harley V-Rod (e.g. “The Death Machine”)). In fact, when I first started riding with Aaron back in May, he only had a 2002 Suzuki Volusia (800cc). It was his purchase of the 2002 VTX that has made me want a new bike repeatedly; partially because there’s so such a thing as “new-bike fever” but also because his was the first bike that really put the SV to shame (granted, the VTX’s engine is almost three times the size of the SV’s, but still…)
The big realization of exactly how much torque a 1800cc V-twin produces happened a few weeks ago when Aaron
and I went rode up to the Harley dealership in
Now, I know what you’re asking yourself: Eric, are you
looking at cruisers again? My answer to
that question is quite simple: nope. One
part of the poker run was to start at the end of the
However, riding with Aaron motivated me to go out and start riding new motorcycles again (it’s at this point where I’ve just lost you but hear me out). For one, the SV1000 has been out for three model years now (2003, 2004, 2005) and I’ve never ridden one. Seeing as how it’s the big-brother to my little motorbike, I felt like it was important that I ride one. So I did. Wow. Now, I took out the non-S version (something I never did even on my SV) and it’s a very different experience having what feels like virtually limitless amounts of torque and then 90-100mph winds blowing DIRECTLY on you. Fun… but very different.
It was at about the time that I took the SV1000 out that I
decided I would also test-ride the Yamaha power cruiser knows as the Roadstar Warrior.
There just happened to be a 2003 for sale at the local Ducati dealership
(again) so I rode by there after riding the SV1000 to take a look at it. The Roadstar
Warrior was 1370cc worth of engine goodness so I figured that it might be a
good contender as my next bike. After
jumping on the heavy monster and riding it around town (including a quick
sprint on the
Don’t get me wrong, the Roadstar Warrior can take the SV650 to town with its exorbitant amounts of torque and luscious horsepower, but considering the insurance costs on the thing are twice as much as my 2001 SV650S (and right around a 2001 Hayabusa), there’s no need for me to look at the cruiser. Verdict: not fast enough. If looks could kill, I’d be dead a thousand times over after returning the bike to Myer’s (the Ducati dealership) and telling them all that the bike simply wasn’t fast enough.
At this point, I’d gotten it into my head that the only way for me to go would be to get a Hayabusa. What’s the point of even looking at 600cc sportbikes when a 1370cc Roadstar Warrior can’t cut it? Right? But, my friend Woody talked me into going to the local new-bike dealership and checking out a 2005 Yamaha R6 Raven.
The Raven is just a black-on-black “special edition” (there’s so many Ravens out there that I can’t really classify this bike as “limited” or “special”) of the standard R6. It’s a very attractive yet standard full-faired sportbike. In fact, out of the GSX-R series, the Yamaha R6, the Honda CBRs, and the Kawasaki Ninjas all look very similar in full-faired dual-headlight garb. I jumped on the Raven, expecting nothing exciting after having taken out bikes with significantly bigger engines. Boy, was I in for a shock. The R6 is nothing short of a lightning bolt with two wheels (which, by the way, have a hard time both staying on the ground as I popped wheelies by accident in second, third, and fourth gears). It’s fast. Very fast. Big, giant speeding ticket fast. After bringing it back to the dealership, I was sold… I no longer needed to get a 1300cc Hayabusa with its giant insurance costs (and overall MSRP expense) when the 600cc bike-series could do so much.
I’m still confused at how bikes with smaller engines (the 600cc race series) can so seriously kick the ever-loving poop out of my beloved SV650S in the straight line. Granted, their engines have the exact opposite of a smooth, level powerband like the SVs, but we’re talking a size difference of 46cc’s (the 600-series bikes, excepting for the Yamaha (which is 600 dead-on), are all 599 while the SV650 is 645). To this day, I haven’t heard a justifiable explanation for this outside of “their engines are tuned differently.” Well, duh.
Anyway, by this point I was settled on getting a R6. Sure, Honda makes slightly more reliable
engines but at the MSRP pricepoint, the R6 Raven is a
very nice bike with a little more of a unique paint-scheme. And then I found the bike. Located in
The 2005 Honda F4i has an MSRP of $8,499. The 2005 that Schroader’s had in-stock (with 0.3 miles on it) had a sticker price of $7,490. In addition, Schroader’s offers the full four-year additional extended warranty (full coverage with no deductible) for $399 (or less than $100 a year). Instantly, I’m intrigued.
For those of you not familiar with the Honda line-up, they have two different CBR bikes, the F4i and the RR. Both are 599cc. Both are very similar in setup. However, the RR focuses almost exclusively on the racing crowd. It’s seat is renowned as one of the most uncomfortable in the entire sportbike industry and its engine is tuned for racing (in addition, it has inverted front-forks which are appealing for racers). The F4i, which used to be Honda’s racebike, has been detuned a little and has ergonomics built for sport-touring with a new seat and a better overall long-term riding setup. The F4i is my girl as after having completed a few long rides on the SV and getting off with back-spasms that lasted for days, I don’t need to look at a MORE uncomfortable bike than the one I own.
Unfortunately, Schroader’s Honda
doesn’t insure their bikes for test-rides so in order to get a real feel for
what the F4i can do, I needed to go to another dealership in
I was hooked immediately. The F4i doesn’t have the same “I’m going to rip your face off and hand it to you” feel that the Yamaha R6 does, but it’s an amazing bike. Copious amounts of manageable power (at least to a point) and very precise handling. Two days later, I went down to Schroader’s Honda and bought the brand-new silver F4 they had in-stock.
After getting it home, I realized I was in an interested predicament: I now owned two bikes. Schroader’s doesn’t accept non-Honda trade-ins so trading in my SV wasn’t even a possibility. It was now up to me to sell it. Everyone tells me the same thing at this point: keep the SV, it makes a great track bike. After riding my new F4i for a few weeks, I realized that I simply wouldn’t go back to the SV.
Don’t get me wrong. The SV is an amazing bike. It’s well-balanced, has spectacular handling and a good power curve. It’s everything that most riders could ever want or need. Unfortunately, after having ridden it for four years, I had outgrown it. I had lost “the fear.” It’s good for all bikers, especially sport-bikers, to have a certain amount of fear (or respect) for their bike’s potential – never fully riding it to its limits for fear of losing control. Having owned my SV for so long and constantly riding it through its paces on the Blue Ridge Parkway’s extremely curvy roads, I knew that I was taking chances every time I went out. Only the small amount of self-control I still had was keeping me from tossing the bike off the side of the road as I leaned in just far enough to start making the tires chirp.
After listing my SV in a few local papers and websites, I
instantly discovered that our cult classic is still unbelievably popular. Calls and calls followed by tons of emails
flooded every communication device I own.
It was amazing. Of course, the
majority of these people wanted to undercut my price of $3800 (Kelley’s finally
started valuing the S-version of the SV650 and it was $3985). After about two weeks, I found the perfect
buyer in
As I watched them ride off with the SV that had taken care of me for so many years now, I felt a twinge of sadness to see the bike go. I’d never had a single problem with it and I had many, many miles of fun riding on it. However, I think she knew she was going to take care of an all-new rider and do it all over again. In the meantime, I have an all-new bike giving me all-new challenges to experiment with, explore, and write about. Here we go all over again…
About the author: Eric Jacobson lives in