Hello Everyone,
I am own and ride a 2006 VFR800 every day, and yesterday I rode a demo VF1200F (manual), and I wanted to share my experience, thoughts, and impressions for those who own a 6th Gen now and are curious what the new bike is like to ride, back to back.
A little about the rider: I have had my VFR800, non-ABS, since early 2007, putting about 14,000 miles on it since purchasing. I ride almost daily, almost year round, splitting my riding between an Aprilia, my wife�s Ninja 250, and the VFR800 (which gets most of the commuting work). I ride at least 4-5 track days per year (intermediate-level track day rider), and I have attended a few track day/racing schools as well.
I road to the local dealer on my VFR800, with my intention to check out/ride a used CBR1000RR that the dealer had recently received for trade. The CBR had recently been sold, but talking with one of the salesmen, he mentioned that they had two VFR1200s for demo (one manual and one with DCT) that they were trying to push for demo rides. I said that if it was not too big of a deal to take it out for a demo, then sign me up. After mounting a dealer plate, signing the legal docs, and getting temp. Registration, he gassed up the big VFR and I was on my way. The bike had about 120 miles on it when I first got on it, and I road for about 25 minutes (highway/parkway/surface roads-mix). Afterwards, I filled out a Honda questionnaire- an easy experience overall.
First impressions and my thoughts:
-Seating position felt very similar to my VFR800, with similar footpegs/seat/handlebar triangle, with the pegs feeling a little lower. At walking speed, the bike feels long and narrow, and at highway speed, the feeling goes away, if only a little.
-The brakes felt powerful with good feel, definitely stronger than the brakes as they are on my bike now after 14,000 miles.
-Hydraulic clutch had a lot of feel- gearbox and shaft drive feeling excellent to me. Slipper clutch felt good on downshifts, too, and I was taking it easy- it felt similar to other slipper clutches that I have used. Shaft drive was not immediately noticeable.
-The bike felt polished and super smooth, and very easy to ride. Quiet, with a George-Jetson-like burble.
-The bike felt like it was geared slightly higher than my VFR800, at least in first, and had loads of torque. It was super smooth, and revved slightly slower than my VFR800.
-In the few curvy bits that I was on, the 1200 felt significantly longer, requiring more effort to change directions, with slower in turn-in and transitions. The feeling that I got was that this effort was not due as much to weight or wheelbase, but more due to fighting the rotational inertia of a much larger engine. This gave the impression that the VFR1200 was a larger/more massive bike than the VFR800, or at least, more than the 40-50 pounds wet weight difference between the two would suggest.
A note for comparison on this: The weight difference between my VFR800 and my Aprilia Mille is about 75-80 pounds, with the difference between the VFR800 and VFR1200 about 50 pounds. The VFR800 feels much closer to the Aprilia at speed, than VFR1200 does to the VFR800. I know that this is not a good apples-to-apples comparison, but this is one reason why I think that the apparent weight/mass difference between the 800 and the 1200 is more rotating mass increase than weight/wheelbase increase.
The overall impression from the VFR1200F compared to my VFR800 with 14,000 miles on it was that it was smooth, easy to ride, torquey, and polished (much like my VFR800), but also much more motorcycle to handle with a more massive feeling (if not in actual weight). This was feeling was perpetuated when I hopped on my VFR800 to go home- it felt immediately smaller, lighter, buzzier, revvier, less torquey, less polished and much more sporty feeling in general. I was surprised that the VFR1200 felt so much MORE, in every sense of the word (more torque, more rotating mass, more to weight to handle, etc.).
I hope that this impression and information is helpful to those on 6th gens who are curious about 7th gens. Again, these are my impressions/opinions from what was just a short ride, but about as close of a comparison as you can get, back to back.
I am own and ride a 2006 VFR800 every day, and yesterday I rode a demo VF1200F (manual), and I wanted to share my experience, thoughts, and impressions for those who own a 6th Gen now and are curious what the new bike is like to ride, back to back.
A little about the rider: I have had my VFR800, non-ABS, since early 2007, putting about 14,000 miles on it since purchasing. I ride almost daily, almost year round, splitting my riding between an Aprilia, my wife�s Ninja 250, and the VFR800 (which gets most of the commuting work). I ride at least 4-5 track days per year (intermediate-level track day rider), and I have attended a few track day/racing schools as well.
I road to the local dealer on my VFR800, with my intention to check out/ride a used CBR1000RR that the dealer had recently received for trade. The CBR had recently been sold, but talking with one of the salesmen, he mentioned that they had two VFR1200s for demo (one manual and one with DCT) that they were trying to push for demo rides. I said that if it was not too big of a deal to take it out for a demo, then sign me up. After mounting a dealer plate, signing the legal docs, and getting temp. Registration, he gassed up the big VFR and I was on my way. The bike had about 120 miles on it when I first got on it, and I road for about 25 minutes (highway/parkway/surface roads-mix). Afterwards, I filled out a Honda questionnaire- an easy experience overall.
First impressions and my thoughts:
-Seating position felt very similar to my VFR800, with similar footpegs/seat/handlebar triangle, with the pegs feeling a little lower. At walking speed, the bike feels long and narrow, and at highway speed, the feeling goes away, if only a little.
-The brakes felt powerful with good feel, definitely stronger than the brakes as they are on my bike now after 14,000 miles.
-Hydraulic clutch had a lot of feel- gearbox and shaft drive feeling excellent to me. Slipper clutch felt good on downshifts, too, and I was taking it easy- it felt similar to other slipper clutches that I have used. Shaft drive was not immediately noticeable.
-The bike felt polished and super smooth, and very easy to ride. Quiet, with a George-Jetson-like burble.
-The bike felt like it was geared slightly higher than my VFR800, at least in first, and had loads of torque. It was super smooth, and revved slightly slower than my VFR800.
-In the few curvy bits that I was on, the 1200 felt significantly longer, requiring more effort to change directions, with slower in turn-in and transitions. The feeling that I got was that this effort was not due as much to weight or wheelbase, but more due to fighting the rotational inertia of a much larger engine. This gave the impression that the VFR1200 was a larger/more massive bike than the VFR800, or at least, more than the 40-50 pounds wet weight difference between the two would suggest.
A note for comparison on this: The weight difference between my VFR800 and my Aprilia Mille is about 75-80 pounds, with the difference between the VFR800 and VFR1200 about 50 pounds. The VFR800 feels much closer to the Aprilia at speed, than VFR1200 does to the VFR800. I know that this is not a good apples-to-apples comparison, but this is one reason why I think that the apparent weight/mass difference between the 800 and the 1200 is more rotating mass increase than weight/wheelbase increase.
The overall impression from the VFR1200F compared to my VFR800 with 14,000 miles on it was that it was smooth, easy to ride, torquey, and polished (much like my VFR800), but also much more motorcycle to handle with a more massive feeling (if not in actual weight). This was feeling was perpetuated when I hopped on my VFR800 to go home- it felt immediately smaller, lighter, buzzier, revvier, less torquey, less polished and much more sporty feeling in general. I was surprised that the VFR1200 felt so much MORE, in every sense of the word (more torque, more rotating mass, more to weight to handle, etc.).
I hope that this impression and information is helpful to those on 6th gens who are curious about 7th gens. Again, these are my impressions/opinions from what was just a short ride, but about as close of a comparison as you can get, back to back.