Honda CBR250R

I haven't seen any of the new CBR250R's anywhere in the states yet. I just saw my first one on display at a mall here in Malang, Indonesia. The standard version advertised price is 42,770,000 IRp (about $5,200 USD) and the ABS version advertised price is 49,570,000 IRp (about $5,800 USD). It is a very nice looking bike. Pictures are below.

Scooters are the main form of transportation over here. Most are in the 75cc to 150cc range. There are millions of them everywhere. A 250cc motorcycle is big for over here. I told some Indonesian Air Force officers I ride a 800cc, 100hp, 500lb 6th gen and they thought that was just massive. Oddly enough Harley Davidson is big here, though they are a rich man's toy. I have seen a few of them around Jakarta, both choppers and full dressers. I was talking to an American expat who likes to ride Harleys. When he moved here from the Philipines he wanted to big his Harley over with him, but the government would not let him import it. So he sold it and planned to buy one in Indonesia, until he saw the price. He said a HD that goes for $15,000 USD in America goes for $35,000 - $40,000 in Jakarta.

I would never ride over here. Traffic is insane. The rule of the road is the guy in front always has the right of way so people dart left and right without looking and it's other drivers responsibility to avoid them, even if they are turning onto another street and into traffic. The front of my car or scooter can be 1 foot ahead of the front of your car and I can just come over on you and you are expected to adjust to me. The other rule is that scooters dart all over traffic and it's car and truck drivers responsibility to not hit them. If a car and scooter collide it's generally considered to be the car driver's fault pretty much no matter what the situation was.

Oddly enough I have not seen one wreck here and you almost never even see a car, truck, bus, or scooter with any kind of damage on it. No dents, no scratches anywhere. This is amazing since they don't follow lane markings at all and just drive every which way. If you can squeeze your vehicle in a space then you can go there. A two lane road is usually 4 vehicles wide with scooters zipping in and out all over. I guess the saving grace is traffic is almost always snarled up, gridlocked, and slow moving. Everyone here wears helmets, so I'm guessing it's the law.

One other weird thing I've seen is women riding side saddle on the backs of scooters. It's not super common, but I've seen it quite a few times. The odd thing to me is that the woman was never wearing a dress or anything that would prevent her from sitting normally, just jeans or slacks, so there was no need to ride side saddle. She just chose to and these scooters are darting in and out of cars all over the place.

Here are the pics.

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It's a very nice looking bike! Over here you really don't want or need anything bigger. Traffic is so slow and tight you couldn'y use any more power and you wouldn't want any more weight since it would make it more unweildy and cumbersome when threading through stopped traffic.

They are on sale here in the UK, there is rumour of a 250RR coming out to cash in on the Moto3 singles hat will be replacing the 125cc racers next year. You will be seeing offerings from the other manufacturers shortly.

They have been in the states a while now. I sat on one at a lower-tier dealer (the kind that rarely ever had a VFR800, and never a 1200) a few months ago. Red color, no ABS. Build quality looked exceptional for the price point. So, so light... If only it was a 350-400 twin of some kind... Hmmmmm.

They launch it in India about 2 months back for USD 3500 + taxes. It selling here like hot cakes.

carlitos92, on 17 July 2011 - 11:12 AM, said:

They have been in the states a while now. I sat on one at a lower-tier dealer (the kind that rarely ever had a VFR800, and never a 1200) a few months ago. Red color, no ABS. Build quality looked exceptional for the price point. So, so light... If only it was a 350-400 twin of some kind... Hmmmmm.

That black looks pretty sharp! I figured we probably won't see anything other than VFR red over here...
Are they offered with ABS elsewhere?

I have not ridden one, but to compete with the ninja 250, I think the little cbr should have been a twin not a single. Jm2c

[image: View Post]KPerham, on 17 July 2011 - 04:42 PM, said:

That black looks pretty sharp! I figured we probably won't see anything other than VFR red over here...
Are they offered with ABS elsewhere?


The black does look nice.

I knew it was offered with ABS here, but looking at Honda's website, I guess the black is available, too. Cool.

all the reports are that the single is sophisticated and doesn't give up much on the twins.......

[image: View Post]Egg on Leggs, on 17 July 2011 - 11:01 AM, said:

They are on sale here in the UK, there is rumour of a 250RR coming out to cash in on the Moto3 singles hat will be replacing the 125cc racers next year. You will be seeing offerings from the other manufacturers shortly.


Honda already has the details of their Moto3 bike (NSF250R) and a price ($22,990) for Australia, but that's a track only model and not a road-going vehicle. It's unlikely we'd see a road-going version here, because at 48 horsepower it would fall outside of the allowed learner permit rules of 150 kilowatts per tonne (or something thereabouts). Having said that, if Honda de-tuned it a bit (easy enough on an injected bike), there would stil be a market because with the swingarm, frame and suspension combination it looks absolutely mean!

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I will say there are already a lot of CBR250R's on the road here. One parks outside my office every day!

[image: View Post]KPerham, on 17 July 2011 - 04:42 PM, said:

That black looks pretty sharp! I figured we probably won't see anything other than VFR red over here...
Are they offered with ABS elsewhere?


They are selling the ABS here in Indonesia. It's a $600 upgrade over the standard version.

[image: View Post]Veefer800Canuck, on 17 July 2011 - 04:56 PM, said:

I have not ridden one, but to compete with the ninja 250, I think the little cbr should have been a twin not a single. Jm2c


I have heard it compares pretty well on performance. One thing to consider is pricing too. There was a Ninja 250R on display about 20 feet away from this CBR250R. The CBR250R was priced at $5,200 USD and the ABS version was priced at $5,800 USD. The Ninja 250R was priced at $7,050. In a country like Indonesia an $1,850 price difference is pretty big. If Honda can sell CBR250R's for that much less than Ninja 250R's with very comparable performance than you can bet most of the world will choose the CBR250R.

I am an American, I have been living in Indonesia for the past 18 months, Working ( conversational English teacher ) , Married , and Now a proud father. I will put about 200-300kms a week minimum on my motorcycle sometimes 600kms a week Due to work. Here the traffic just sucks ass. takes me 1 hour to go 35 kms lol or sometimes not but yeah expect that most of the time.

They are really not that common to see on the roads here i have seen 1 new cbr250 and 3 new cbr150s. Seeing that 40+ million rupiah is more then 3x of allot of peoples salaries and 2x more then the average workers salary. And require a down-payment of 18Million rupiah in most cases.

Recently Bajaj Auto Famous for their three weel Motor taxis and Since early part of the century their Pulsar Line have released new prices for their Motorcycles.


I personally use a Bajaj pulsar 220 DTS-i [image: Posted Image] that's a single cyl dual spark plug engine with 21ps and 19nm More then enough then you will ever need for here in Indonesia. I can be going up the mountain here in Bogor and sometimes I can get up to 80kmph for a few seconds before having to slam on the brakes to start bob in and out of traffic again.

I personally say that in this environment Indonesia where it is illegal to use motorcycles on the Freeways( here it is all tol roads nothing free except city streets.) that even my 220cc Bajaj Pulsar is a bit big and i never get to use the maximum it gives of around 150kmph. The pulsar 220 is 18.9 million rupiah the pulsar 180 is about 15 million rupiah. It is a good bike with rather good quality.

I feel the CBR and Ninja 250 are just not the right market here in Indonesia. It is priced at what about 48million rupiah so for that price I could almost in all honesty Build a house or Feed my family for 3 years.

Bajaj has really started to become rather popular here. they also have a pulsar 135 LS ( light sport ) that is about 14 million rupiah. So their quality and price have started to take people awayy from honda. I think the 250 is a beautiful bike and seems a bit fun but for half the price and just 5 or 6 less power I will stick with my Bajaj pulsar. and that is the attitude most people have had recently with more people switching from Underbone and Scooters to Street/sport bikes.


Hehe again the Pulsar 220 pic [image: Posted Image] It has HID projector headlight too.

[image: View Post]johotogame, on 18 July 2011 - 07:12 AM, said:

Hehe again the Pulsar 220 pic [image: Posted Image]


That's a cool looking little bike. I surprised you ride in Jakarta. The traffic is insane and everyone drives/rides so close together! People just come over on you without looking. Though I guess after I had lived here for a few months and gotten used to the traffic and learned the rules of the road I would probably be tempted to pick up a small bike so I could work my way through traffic quicker. Driving anywhere seems to take a minimum of 1 hour no matter how short the distance is.

I didn't realize that motorcycles were not allowed on the highways. I figured that was the case with scooters. But there are so few bikes here capable of highway speeds I guess its not that big a deal. It was interesting watching a small group of full dresser Harleys threading through the horrible Sunday traffic in Jakarta.

I've been looking at buying the CBR250R since before it landed here in the states. There are already dealers in the ATL area that are selling the non-ABS for $3700 and ABS for $4200. The red one looks better to my eyes. It looks like a mini VFR1200. I sat on one and it is as light as a feather. Feels even lighter than my old Honda Hawk GT even though the two are about the same. Of course the reason I got rid of that bike was because it only made 45 hp or so (if that). I would love to zing to 12,000 rpm once in awhile on that bike to see how it performs at speed, but I'm sure i'd get tired of getting blown off at the stop light derby by moms in minivans. I do think I'm going to get one, I just need to figure out where it can fit in the garage.
http://powersports.h...50r/colors.aspx

This bikes is sold in NL as well, Eur 4,190 non ABS Eur 4,790
Multiply by around 1.35 to get the $.....

Magazines here like it but would call it a CBF250F instead of an R.......