The search for the ragged edge

The agile Honda Hornet CB600F is a powerful everyday ride you can have a ball with, and rewards a little effort, writes Jacqui Madelin.

Naturally, when a couple strolled over wanting to look at "your Honda", my companion thought they meant his muscular XR650 supermotard, but it was the CB600F Hornet I was riding that had caught their attention.

Hubby had been through a wide range of bikes. His wife was upgrading from a learner machine.

She wanted a bit of fun, not too intimidating, able to keep up with and eventually overtake her man. As it happens, I had barely collected this bike, so could only tell her the basics.

The CB600 suits a wide range of sizes, including shorties, thanks to the narrow waist.

The riding possie is a neat compromise between sporting feeling and long-distance comfort. The CBR600RR-derived engine has been retuned for better mid-range torque, and is as happy to potter as to rev, but if you wind the throttle on, you will find plenty of surging acceleration on tap.

The test bike included a few after-market goodies courtesy of an accessories pack. That gives you the colour-matched rear-seat cowl, which can be removed to carry a pillion; a colour-matched crankcase ring set to protect the engine cases if you drop it; a tank pad; a fly screen; and a colour-matched lower mudguard that hugs the tyre and morphs into a chain guard. That lot would total $2140 if bought separately, but the kit costs $1299.

Oh yes, and the CB600F now features adjustable suspension front and rear, more of which soon.

After a bit of a chat about bikes – chiefly the fact that outright performance doesn't always match ownership-grin factor, which is why people still buy Triumph Bonnevilles – we went on our merry way.

Mine, however, wasn't so merry, because the standard suspension setup wasn't working for me. Most manufacturers assume an average male rider, which means slimmer men and most women aren't well covered by their bike's suspension. And because the rider-to-bike weight ratio is much, much closer on bikes than in cars, it's more important. Which is why adjustable suspenders are worth every cent for anyone under or over the average.

It turns out that this bike was set up for the man who had done the first few kilometres, and he is more than 30 kilograms heavier than me. So the rear tyre was skittering over lumps and bumps I wouldn't normally notice, skipping disconcertingly at times and actually flipping my backside from the seat on more than one occasion, which also meant I couldn't get the power down smoothly.

I was not having a good time.

Fortunately, adjustment is easy. The rear monoshock has seven positions of adjustable preload, plus a tension adjuster. You need a tool for the preload, but the tension adjuster out back and for the forks is a screwdriver affair.

With both turned towards the softer end of the range, I went back out for a ride.

Well, what a revelation. The bike was still firm – it would repay a bit more fiddling – but no longer unacceptably so.

The first thing I noticed was the power. It arrives smoothly from early revolutions, coming on strongly across the mid-range. At 100kmh in top, it is at 5250rpm, in fifth at 6000rpm and in fourth gear on 6500rpm or so. That's way below the 10,500rpm at which the torque peaks, but it is still pulling assertively.

You can ride her on the throttle at these revs at the open-road speed limit, or slap her down a gear or two, thwack the throttle open, turn her into a little screamer and go for it.

There is a bit of a buzz through bars and pegs at higher revs, but you're concentrating too much to mind, and anyway, it's gone when you're back in long-term cruising or commuting mode.

By now hooked on the power delivery, I was getting more firmly onto the brakes. Again, they were more effective now that the rubber was sticking to the road. These are what Honda calls combined brakes, with some rear coming in along with the fronts for better control. You don't feel the process, you just feel confident braking.

That matches the now more confident handling.

This riding position lets you make the most of an agile machine that carries its weight low. Just look at the exhaust system. It's not pretty, but the under-slung plumbing and sawn-off muffler sit weight closer to terra firma and central, and are part of an equation that's keen to flick from bend to bend, or into traffic gaps, without being too extreme.

Where sports bikes such as the CBR are an exhilarating ride, they are a tad too extreme for the everyday.But a bike like this has the flexible power, handling and stopping ability to let you work around everyday hazards and still have a ball, to correct your line, or fly across bumps that would send a sports bike rider's underwear to the laundry.

Now this is where it gets interesting, because this CB600's bigger sibling also impressed in performance terms. But despite that and its aggressive styling, it fell short of grin factor.

I have ridden more characterful bikes than this 600, but it trumps its big-brother bike in terms of enjoyment. Perhaps that is partly because you do have to work it a little to get the very best from it.

The 600 requires a bit of suspension adjustment to fit the bike to you, and a bit of throttle play to go from commute to B-road fang, to woo-hoo-hoo speed demon, and that means you're putting more into the ride than the effortless 900 demands.

It's that relationship between human and machine that makes motorcycling fun, combined, as here, with enough performance potential to reward the search for the ragged edge.

- © Fairfax NZ News