A VFR 1200 in my garage

[Richard Thompson]

Even though I thought I wouldn’t get one straight away, there is now a brand new silver VFR 1200 in my garage. I did a 100km test ride last Tuesday, took a couple of days to chew it over, wrangled over quite a few of the details, worked out all the costs etc and picked her up Friday afternoon.
So my beloved RWB is gone, but not forgotten, and she covered roughly half the cost of her replacement. At first I thought this was an expensive bike but when I researched a bit I found it cost less than the new list price for both the Yamaha FJR1300 and BMW K1300S by at least a $1000, so in the context of its current contemporaries it does ok on cost factor.
First thing I would say is that it looks better in the flesh than it does in pictures.

My second initial impression is that it looks much smaller than I expected it to and it is indeed narrow. This plays well with the handling and I was throwing it around quite quickly. I would note that compared to my 6th gen (which I rode back to back with the1200 after the test ride) it feels heavier, but it’s a bit like the CBR1100 black bird in that respect. Once underway it feels easy to maneuver and with a truck load of power! The 6th gen felt like a 600 supersport by comparison afterwards.
Speaking of power, the most useful comparison i have is against the ST1300. The ST’s 1300cc transverse V4, shaft driven engine has a similar feel, sound and delivery. Having spent a year with an ST13 it was immediately apparent that it was part of the VFR1200’s heritage.
Its certainly not fireblade type power, as its very bottom end/midrange orientated and is much like a rampant steam locomotive (that’s my best visual comparative) its also like a V8 type power delivery with a smooth torquey spread. Roll ons were excellent fun!

Handling wise I found it to be very neutral and balanced. At speed in the corners it feels totally planted and steady. And with mucho power on tap it was easy to power through sweepers at some serious pace.

The front USDs seem well matched to the rear suspension for my riding style. It has a handy, easily accessible preload adjuster knob on the left side of the bike The shaft drive didn’t worry me at all, and I’ve had a couple of other shaft driven bikes. There was certainly no sign of ‘shaft jacking’ that pumps the rear up under acceleration on some older designs. And on the bright side there’s no stretchy chain or adjustments and no rear wheel coated in chain lube.

The ride position is reminiscent of a 6th gen with a forward slant to the bars. The angle at the rear of the tank is a good indicator to your body angle as you sit on the bike. It’s relatively comfortable, with bar risers similar to a 6th gen. The rear end kicks up in sport bike fashion with a reasonable amount of pillion seat available. I thought swinging a leg over may be an issue, but at 5’ 10” I have no problems. I found it very similar to my 6th gen and defiantly more sport oriented than tour.

The instrument cluster is excellent, with lots of info at hand and I was pleased to see a gear indicator (very handy) along with all the usual VFR readouts. To the left is the speed in digital form with the all important fuel gauge right next it. The central tacho dominates proceedings and on the right you have the gear indicator, eng temp reading, amb air temp and clock. It also does that zippy thing, where the tach needle sweeps around to the stop and back on start up! When you look over the instruments at windscreen it is very reminiscent of the 6th gen with its air slot at the base of the screen blade.

Its definitely got that ‘cylon head’ thing going on in the front…LOL. And I do like the floating panels on the fairing, the styling is discreet, with a small Honda badge and the VFR1200 logo sitting midway down on the front fairing in a subdued manner.
The mini VFR tank pad is standard and also a nice touch.

To my mind the rear end of the bike looks totally modern and really dates other bikes of a similar purpose. The single sided swingarm and rear wheel uber cool. As for the muffler, well….i guess that’s down to personal taste, and its not mine. But it does its job, and it makes the VFR sound a lot like the ST. I will prefer to change it out when some suitable replacement becomes available. At the moment the best thing I can say about it is that you can’t see it while your riding! I do like the under slung position and really, underseat pipes are now so 1990’s!...LOL

With all this comes the loss of the centrestand…bummer.

While we’re nit picking the biggest glitch for me is on the left side handle bar. It’s the giant sized horn button, which is now located where the indicator slide used to be.

The indicator slide button is now underneath the horn button and smaller ( which is opposite to the 6th gen set up) the bottom line is that you tend to hit the horn when you go for the indicator. So I find myself having to retrain my brain to ‘be careful’ when trying to operate the indicator. Quite frankly I rarely use the horn so why it should take priority over the indicator switch, which is used constantly, is beyond me.

I did get caught in a traffic jam on the way home and I did note a certain amount of snatch at low speed in first gear roll ons. Second gear seemed to help smooth this out (lucky this beast is a torque monster)

I also noticed my right foot got a bit of a toasting in the heel area, that’s something I will have a look into, and was reminiscent of my first ZZr 1100 which did the same thing
However this may be a handy feature in places like Canada.

The OEM tires are Dunlop Sportmax Roadsmarts, the front is a 120/70 ZR17 and the rear is a 190 /55 ZR17.I don’t have a lot of experience on Dunlops, my previous ones being the dreaded D204’s that came as standard on a couple of my VTR’s. So I’m interested to see how these run.

The fuel recommended is also 96+ octane. No cheap dino juice for this baby.

So to round up….

Good points: Latest styling
Fanastic torquey engine
Tight handling package
Great instrument console

Minus points: ugly muffler
Dumb position for horn/indicator
Snatchy in first gear/low speed roll ons

Its early days in terms of ownership and km’s ridden and I will post more insights as I go.
I expect to get in about 2 more months of riding before the summer starts to recess fully
So we’ll see what we can find out about this great new bike.

[park800]

Beautiful, that is my favorite color for the 1200, wish the U.S. would get it. CONGRATS!!!

[vfrcapn]

Congrats, it is a good looking bike.

[Meatloaf]

I'm diggin the bike more and more especially now that people are getting their hands on them and "real" pics are popping up. I've got three complaints about the bike and that deals with the rear fender, the muffler, and the area where the tank meets the fairings. Two of those can easily be addressed in due time with aftermarket parts but that look between tank and fairing just doesn't quite sit well with me. Oh well... everything else on it has grown... maybe that will too.

Congrats on the new Viffer!

[leftcoast]

Nice Bike. Very nice write up.
keep us posted as time goes on....

thanks!

[Joey_Dude]

Nice thanks for the writeup, I'm interested to see what kind of aftermarket pipes will come up for this.

[Metallican525]

Congrats on the new toy! Thanks so much for a prompt and through write up on the new beast, we've all been wondering how it is in real life (aside from seeing and sitting on one). Here's hoping to many miles ahead and happiness with your new purchace.

[Solomoto]

Congrats on the new VFR, nice color.

Regarding your complaint on the turn signal/horn button, there is a rationale behind this as you may suspect. It'll become very obvious once you see the DCT shift buttons. Since the down shift button is placed at the bottom of the stack, you don't want to have 2 similar looking buttons adjacent to each other which would be confusing. By swapping the horn/indicator as they did, you now have a comfortable spatial separation between the horn and down shift buttons.

[jasonsmith]

Congrats my friend! She looks great in that color and even better in YOUR driveway.

[RVFR]

LoL what can I say..... Nice write up Richard, best I've read from any site or magazine, Good job.

[jdmbird83]

Wow, that is such a beautiful bike. All the pic's I had seen up until the ones you posted didn't do her justice. Originally I thought it was a strange looking bike, but your pic's tell me differently. And that color is awesome. Congrat's on the new bike.

[Badbilly]

Since someone now has one, ridden it, likes it and has not yet run out of gas. I have decided I hate it. No particular reason involved. I mean did you see the color of those buttons? MY GOD! What are they thinking.

[RVFR]

Have to agree that silver makes the bike oh so much better, Now where's the white one hiding at? I heard the brits get one.

[SwitchBladeVfr]

Thanks for the pic's and great write up.

[CBR600F4i]

While we’re nit picking the biggest glitch for me is on the left side handle bar. It’s the giant sized horn button, which is now located where the indicator slide used to be.
The indicator slide button is now underneath the horn button and smaller ( which is opposite to the 6th gen set up) the bottom line is that you tend to hit the horn when you go for the indicator. So I find myself having to retrain my brain to ‘be careful’ when trying to operate the indicator. Quite frankly I rarely use the horn so why it should take priority over the indicator switch, which is used constantly, is beyond me.

I think that is a great change, no matter what their reason. Your thumb is normally wrapped below the buttons, it makes sense to have the most used (turn signals) closer to your thumb's resting position. I often hit the horn by mistake when going past it to get to the signals. I agree it's unusual that they would stray from what has been the standard layout for decades, and it will take some time to get used to it, but to me it makes sense.

[Lgn001]

Neat, and congrats! Do you do your own maintenance, such as oil changes, etc? I'm curious to see how accessible the normal sorts of things are.

[runnerhiker]

Richard,

Congratulations! That silver/gray color looks much better than the red.

Tell us about heat management and engine vibrations. Is there heat near the right foot? How smooth is it?

Ron

[Richard Thompson]

Neat, and congrats! Do you do your own maintenance, such as oil changes, etc? I'm curious to see how accessible the normal sorts of things are.

well for the next two years it will be dealer serviced to stay within the factory warranty terms and conditions. but i do intend to have an investigate to see whats up underneath.

[Richard Thompson]

Richard,

Congratulations! That silver/gray color looks much better than the red.

Tell us about heat management and engine vibrations. Is there heat near the right foot? How smooth is it?

Ron

thanks Ron, so far i've noticed heat build up on both sides and curiously particularly on the soles of my riding boots. but certainly i noticed it on the right side first.
however it is summer here and quite hot at the moment. this could play a factor, but i wont know till things cool down a bit here.

in terms of smooth, i'd say very smooth, in this respect its very reminescent of the ST1300 in the way it delivers smooth linear power all the way thru the rev range.

[Twin Turbo B5]

Great writeup, I tend to agree about the muffler design as well. I'd like to see what the dash looks like at night and ask your opinion on a couple of other things:

7th Gen vs. 6th Gen
Mirrors - besides the larger diameter, how's the view?
Windscreen - more or less protection?

[reg71]

I have to agree that the looks are better now that someone has one. I, like most of you, don't like the looks of the pipe much, but I have already seen a youtube video with an aftermarket exhaust on a VFR1200. I think it looks like a fine ride, and a possible next bike for my sportTOURing needs when I am tired of the 98 that I currently try to flog as much as possible... It looks like it may be a bit more comfortable without quite looking like an old man's bike like the FJ or BMW...

[runnerhiker]

I live in the Texas Gulf Coast and it gets very hot and humid here. For six months of the year, a bike with poor heat management is a bad thing. I knew it was the right time of the year to ask you "down under" about this issue.

I am glad to hear that it is smooth like the ST1300, I had read some things that Honda had left some vibrations in place to give it character. That seemed so unlike Honda.

Ron

thanks Ron, so far i've noticed heat build up on both sides and curiously particularly on the soles of my riding boots. but certainly i noticed it on the right side first.
however it is summer here and quite hot at the moment. this could play a factor, but i wont know till things cool down a bit here.

in terms of smooth, i'd say very smooth, in this respect its very reminescent of the ST1300 in the way it delivers smooth linear power all the way thru the rev range.

[Richard Thompson]

Great writeup, I tend to agree about the muffler design as well. I'd like to see what the dash looks like at night and ask your opinion on a couple of other things:

7th Gen vs. 6th Gen
Mirrors - besides the larger diameter, how's the view?
Windscreen - more or less protection?

i plan to do a night run this week end to test out the lights and instruments, so will post up that once its done.

the mirrors seem to work fine, perhaps marginally narrower than the 6th gen but well positioned and easy to use.
they also have the high mount indicators incorporated into them which is a great saftey feature if nothing else.

windscreen-its very similar to the 6th gen again, maybe a little more cover, but really when you sit on it it feels
alot like a 6th in terms of position. i had an excellent field of view,certainly nothing to complain about there.

[Badbilly]

Anybody got info on how the valving works on the muffler on the 1200?

[Mainerider]

Anybody got info on how the valving works on the muffler on the 1200?

I don't have it in front of me at the moment but the current issue CW full road test explains it in some detail. Something along the lines of the 2nd valve opening up above 8K (?). I do remember that in neutral, regardless of the RPMs, the 2nd valve stays closed. I will review the article again later today and post the precise info.

[Mainerider]

2nd valve opens at 6k in 1st and 2nd. 4k in all other gears. Not at all in neutral regardless of rpm.

[Badbilly]

2nd valve opens at 6k in 1st and 2nd. 4k in all other gears. Not at all in neutral regardless of rpm.

Mark Hoyer's writeup is what prompted the question. Possibly some one has a factory manual on the bike by now or one of the aftermarket suppliers has a replacement muffler that operates from the same signal matrix. Whatever that may be.

Or we could just ask Cundalini or Crustyrider if they're not busy or maybe even some poor dude that is stranded in the middle the Great Plains who has run dry and is in spiritual contact with Honda San.

[John451]

Photos look nice in Silver with an excellent write up, I'm sold on the VFR1200 as a good thing just waiting for data on its real world range to start filtering out please keep us updated with perceptions as you think them.

[Richard Thompson]

Photos look nice in Silver with an excellent write up, I'm sold on the VFR1200 as a good thing just waiting for data on its real world range to start filtering out please keep us updated with perceptions as you think them.

will do john, im planning to find the bottom of the tank this week end, as i have 2 motorcycle related events to attend.

[phobe]

Mark Hoyer's writeup is what prompted the question. Possibly some one has a factory manual on the bike by now or one of the aftermarket suppliers has a replacement muffler that operates from the same signal matrix. Whatever that may be.

Or we could just ask Cundalini or Crustyrider if they're not busy or maybe even some poor dude that is stranded in the middle the Great Plains who has run dry and is in spiritual contact with Honda San.

If you want to install an aftermarket exhaust just remove the cables but leave the servo motor there in the tail to whir around and let it think it's operating the valve.

Though mc manufacturers keep telling us these valves are for more midrange, they seem to just be there to cheat noise emissions standards... which I think are recorded at 50% of max RPM in first gear.