New Honda CBR300R announced

[sendler]

Honda just announced that they are updating the CBR250R with all new body work and more displacement. Watch for great deals on left over CBR250R's and used bikes.
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Honda Worldwide | October 17, 2013 "Summary of Honda Announcement at the 12th China International Motorcycle Trade Exhibition in Chongqing"
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Bye-bye CBR250R, hello CBR300R - Motorcycle news: New bikes - Visordown
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[renault_megane_dci]

Originally Posted by sendler

Honda just announced that they are updating the CBR250R with all new body work and more displacement. Watch for great deals on left over CBR250R's and used bikes.

Great idea !

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

It might be nice, too bad it probably will be still made only in Thailand. If I were going to buy a 300cc Honda I'd probably rather get the Brazilian CB300 which is flexfuel and air-cooled (which is a feature that I still like a lot).

[B440]

Maybe trying to keep up with the new Ninja 300? Should be interesting to see if Honda chooses to keep the single cylinder or go twin like Kawasaki.

[mechman600]

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

too bad it probably will be still made only in Thailand.

There is nothing wrong with Honda's Thailand build bikes. They are build to a price and they get the most per dollar by building them there. The testers all agree that quality has not suffered at all.

Originally Posted by B440

Should be interesting to see if Honda chooses to keep the single cylinder or go twin like Kawasaki.

It will be a single for sure. Honda knows it cannot compete with the Ninja among the "sportier" crowd. Honda did what it does best with the CBR250R by reinventing (going with a single) and attracting those who do not want a high revving screamer. And since they are building to a price, it will be far cheaper to modify the existing engine than to redesign and retool for a twin.

[sendler]

Slight increase in stroke to 286cc.
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http://blog.motorcycle.com/2013/10/1...pecs-revealed/

[mechman600]

I do like the sharper look of the new one over the old one. It's nice. If this bike fit my needs (or if I had room for a collection of bikes), I would get one. But it doesn't so I won't.

[alvaro84]

According to the spec sheet, will be powered by a fuel-injected 286cc single-cylinder engine, with a bore of 76mm and 63mm stroke. Based on this, we surmise the engine is indeed based on the CBR250R’s engine which has a similar 76mm bore, but with a 55mm stroke.

So they go for a longer stroke. Good news, I suppose

[sendler]

Originally Posted by alvaro84

So they go for a longer stroke. Good news, I suppose

With the increase in displacement realized by increasing the stroke only, the fuel economy might not be much worse than the 250 depending on how aggressively they tuned the cams and intake runner. A few of the larger riders in the USA complained of top speeds of only 75 mph/ 120 kph into headwinds with the CBR250R so Honda may have selected a higher rpm state of tune to get more power per cc along with the extra displacement. But now that they make the excellent family of CBR500's, riders over 200 pounds/ 90kg would be better off to just choose one of those as their fuel consumption at highway speeds will be about the same due to the 500's square bore/ stroke even though they have almost twice the power available.
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[alvaro84]

Interesting that a Hungarian site found that the 500 had awful FE, even though they found the NC700 a real fuel miser.

Especially interesting in the light of the fuelly data. Is it possible that they found a way to drive that's especially bad for the 500 so they make a real bad combo...? (Like running DosBox on a Trinity APU?) Or could it have some defect? No way to know, I asked them too, I'm just musing...

(And I trust the fuelly crowd more than a few testers.)

(My other thought that the 250 seems to be a better hypermiling platform as the bell curve has a longer 'tail' on the 75+ mpg side. Or it's just used the 'correct' way more frequently...)