CB1000R 2011 – New Take on The Timeless Concept

This muscular and versatile superbike doesn’t afraid to show his muscles and pride. Engineers managed to retune the powerplant, build a special lightweight chassis and improve the comfort and the looks of the CB1000R. The results are astonishing.

The new Honda CB1000R is equipped with a superbike-strong 998cc DOHC inline-4 engine. Honda says that they took a CBR1000RR power unit and retuned it to deliver huge blast of power with plenty of torque in any rpm’s. Also, since it’s a four cylinder, it’s very smooth for long rides.

This engine has induction PGM-FI Fuel injection with automatic enrichment circuit and 36mm throttle bodies. Ignition is ECU controlled, with digital transistorized 3D mapping. But this advanced level of technology is common for Honda.

Let’s see the numbers:

• Power: 125.09 HP (92 kW) @ 10000 rpm
• Torque: 99 Nm @ 7750 rpm
• Compression: 11.2:1

Pretty impressive, don’t you agree? Honda managed to boost the power up a notch, while size of the engine remained 1 liter.

Now let’s see some interesting technical improvements:

Gravity Die-Cast Aluminum Mono-Backbone Frame – this progressive technology gives the CB1000R a chassis that’s very strong, but light. The single backbone architecture links the steering head to the swingarm pivot without any interruption of the CB1000R’s lines.

Fully Adjustable 43mm Inverted Fork – CB100R has sturdy and solid, large-diameter 43mm inverted fork that’s fully adjustable. It also improves the handling drastically.

Pro-Link Rear Suspension – this Pro-Link® technology offers spring preload and rebound damping adjustability.

Lowboy-Style Muffler – The Honda CB1000R’s new exhaust system not only looks cool and sounds great, but it also offers small handling advantage because the silencer is closer to the motorcycle’s center of mass.

All Digital Instrumentation –  high-tech, all-digital instrument display features tachometer, LCD speedometer, temperature, odometer, 2 tripmeters,clock, mpg and average fuel consumption.

Radial Front-Brake Calipers – The new radial-mounted monoblock front-brake calipers are very stiff and powerful.  Brake feel and performance greatly improved. Each caliper uses 4 pistons that push on the lightweight 310mm floating discs for exceptional stopping power.

And few words about the looks. It suffered drastic design changes, but it was all good. The big and bulky CB1000R is a “naked” bike with exclusive LED-headlamp and brutal-looking engine. The rim on the rear wheel is very appealing now, and the whole profile of the bike looks really aggressive.

However, there were some complaints about the paintjob, the 3-color (white-red-blue) painting with golden rims looked not very promising on the show EICMA show. But fortunately, there are few other painting options, like black or white, which are really nice. And the most attractive part of the bike is probably its engine. Honda engineers once again built awesome looking (performance of it should be even better) power unit, which gives very high impression.

In conclusion we can say that new Honda CB1000R is a perfect example of Honda innovation. It combines exceptional power, light weight, and refined, responsive handling with its striking looks. And the bike feels at home in any situation, be it a racing track, high traffic area or long highway ride.