#cb1000r

Honda has updated the CB1000R for 2021, giving its “Neo Sports Café” flagship a slightly new look, a color TFT display and Euro 5 compliance, as well as a Black Edition variant. As of this writing, the new 2021 Honda CB1000R has only been announced for Europe, but we expect a U.S. announcement to come soon.

Honda revealed a new concept model based inspired by the CB900F. The Honda CB-F Concept is based on the Neo Sports Café-styled CB1000R, but with a decidedly more retro vibe. The CB-F Concept was originally intended to be a part of Honda’s display at the Osaka and Tokyo Motorcycle Shows, but due to COVID-19, was instead revealed in an online “Virtual Show” along with other models like the new CT125 Hunter Cub.

We probably didn’t really need to compare the Honda CB1000R and Kawasaki Z900RS Cafe since they’re polarized enough in the looks department to make it appear that potential consumers will be drawn to one or the other – and their performance and mission statements both are close enough on paper to make them more or less interchangeable, aren’t they? I think we really just wanted an excuse to ride both of them again, they’re both such charismatic motorcycles. Everybody wants to hang out with them. What is a café racer? One that flits from Starbucks to Starbucks? Close enough for us.

With the motorcycle industry collected in Cologne, Germany, for Intermot, Honda made the surprise decision to present its latest Neo Sports Café concept at a car show in France on the same day. Debuting at the 2018 Paris Motor Show, the CB650F-based concept follows in Honda’s new styling language for naked bikes established last year by the CB1000R, CB300R and CB125R.

Honda Racing UK has created a one-off custom CB1000R for the 2018 Glemseck 101 in Leonberg, Germany, with none other than five-time 500cc GP World Champion Mick Doohan tabbed to ride it in the event’s Sprint International drag race.

Okay so maybe I have grown a little bit jaded, ogling then hopping on all these exciting new models year after year, only to stumble across so many of them parked in the gutter a few years later with bald tires and faded paint. Like a grizzled combat veteran, you learn not to make new friends, to control your expectations. Lots of us were knocked for a loop by the Kawasaki Z900RS last year, and I was swept up in the rabble. Later, I felt the bike was a little too derivative of Kawasaki’s earlier work, too obviously grasping at middle-aged heartstrings. Ten minutes later the cool kids were slobbering all over the Vitpilen. I didn’t quite feel it, personally, and riding the bike a while ago didn’t convert me. Next.

It took a while longer than we had hoped, but American Honda has finally announced the new Neo-Sports Café-inspired CB300R is coming to the United States as a 2019 model. At $4,649 for the base model and $4,949 with ABS, the 2019 Honda CB300R is priced $300 higher than the 2018 CB300F which it will replace.

The Honda CB1000R, a legendary model from the company, had its latest iteration, the 2018 Honda CB1000R, unveiled today at EICMA in Milan. To escort the CB1000R onto stage for its debut was none other than five-time world champion Mick Doohan – a Honda legend in his own right.