Before we start I want to clear up something. If I ever hear the term ‘like a 600’ again, I may have to take serious action. Nearly every time I read a liter bike test some monkey writes these exact words. I imagine if you Google’d it correctly you’d find all 1000cc superbike articles contain the words ‘feels just like a 600’. Well I wonder if these people have ridden a 600cc machine because the 2008 Honda CBR 600RR feels like a 600…because it is a 600. Liter bikes have about as much in common with it as Paris Hilton has in common with a sheep farmer. Apart from the lewd sexual allegations…nothing. So what do they mean? It’s a sport motorcycle, of course they feel the same, hell they have handlebars, an engine and wheels, of course they are going to feel similar. It’s like someone saying, a guy who just had an accident was ‘like dead’, well obviously he’s still alive which is nothing ‘like’, dead.

Obviously these reviewers are referring to the size of the bike, sadly they are clearly mistaken. Yes the latest series of 1000cc bikes are smaller and lighter than they used to be, but so are the 600s. What these monkeys should be writing is, ‘this 1000cc bike feels like an old 600cc bike from back in the day’, because when you jump on the CBR600RR it really is tiny, not ‘like’ tiny, actually tiny. Its seat is a sensible height for a human being of normal proportions; you can actually easily reverse it. The bike feels incredibly light, given that it is not a hell of a lot lighter than the latest 1000cc machines it’s a mystery to me why, but it does.