Through a latest scoop by MotorBeam.com, it appears that Honda CBR500R would be launched in India in the early part of 2014. The Japanese powerhouse will showcase the bike in Auto Expo in February and bookings should commence soon after. What gives credibility to the news is that training of service technicians for this bike has already begun in India.
CBR500R also has a naked brother, the CB500 and an offroading cousin called the CB500X. The bike houses a 500cc parallel twin engine that belts out 47bhp power and 44Nm torque, which are quite respectable. The downside is that the bike weighs almost as much as a Thunderbird 500! At 194kgs, it isn’t light by any standard, which is weird, considering the bike comes from the company that is dominating MotoGP this season.
Because of the hefty weight, the bike takes 5.7secs to breach the 100kmph mark, with a top speed of 185kmph. Both of these are in the KTM Duke 390’s range. Also similar to the Duke are the 320 and 240mm discs front and back, along with expected standard ABS.
The bike sells for 3.6lacs outside India, so expect the Indian price to be over 4lacs on road, which isn’t very competitive as compared to the Dukes and the upcoming RC’s from KTM. In either case, choice is never bad, and I would love to see this beauty rip down our roads!
Image source: Motorcycle-USA.com
Practicality, Rider and pillion comfort is missing in the duke 390 and more so will be in RC series. That is the area were Honda is better.
Pillion comfort is missing for sure, can’t say for the rider though! I just drove 1000kms in a day from Bangalore to Bombay yesterday, and it went rather smoothly! Took only 12 hours.
RC bikes will definitely not be pillion friendly, but if the success of R15 V2 is anything to go by, people don’t care about that much 🙂