Haven’t previously document the CB, I bought it new after selling the GSXR and whilst recovering from more shoulder surgery in 2018.
As soon as I got it home I stripped the wheels and swingarm/shock out to ensure everything was greased correctly and then coated it ACF50.
The CB has been a great bike for most things, you’re never going to call it exciting but its great to commute on, comfortable on long motorway trips and there’s not much else to say other than the stock suspension is rubbish.
I appreciate the bike was built to a budget but at £6k it was a pretty good budget and Honda completely missed what people were looking for, NO ONE wants an A2 bike they wanted a mid sized bike that was fairly light with about 60 -70 HP. I’m pretty sure they could have done that easily but instead have ended up going down the same route KTM did with Adventure models after the 990 they’re all massive. The latest CB500X is now even bigger, wider and heavier, but still with 50HP 9on a good day). They should have restricted the bike through the ECU for A2 and offered a full power option fitted with CRF250L (slightly lowered) suspension and it would have been awesome. The 2019 model was better with a 19″ front wheel, but still not enough power or good enough suspension.
I did have plans to fit revalved CRF450 forks using conversion bearings and a CRF250L aluminium swingarm, you would not believe the weight of the stock one. Swingarm would need different bearings and spacers but would be doable. I bought a swingarm and crf yokes and measured it all up but lost interest.
I did several few mods – Black Widow full exhaust (poor fitment), K&N filter, folding levers, Evotech crash bungs and radiator guard, had a ventureshield paint protection kit designed by Invisible patterns, replace stacks of bolts for stainless ones, renthal bars (pitbike bend, bit narrower but about the right height) and grips, a litium ion battery, a wider and taller screen plus an adjustable extension as I found the wind noise still an issue and a 16 tooth front sprocket.
To sort the useless front suspension I fitted a YSS spring and emulator kit, which a huge difference.
