I have had the cbr for almost 6 months now. around 7 thousand kilometers has been done on it. Which is not much but i think which is enough to realize some of the major follies with this thingmajig.

I think Honda has been a major kanjoos about some things. Take the front windscreen for instance. Ideally the supports around it should extend till the top of the screen, but it doesn't which makes it buzz at high speeds or high revs. Not to mention it is too filmsy to touch. Like the poor extras in a rambo movie.

But all that is ok.

My biggest bug bear has been the suspension.

It in plain simple terms is crap.

I have by now used it on all the settings from 2-5.

2 is the setting that is out of the box. It is soft and good for in city driving at normal speeds. But go attack a corner and the first thing you will feel is rear tyre doing an anna and entering a maun vrat. Actually it is worse, it just feels there is not much grip in the rear tyre.

It was so bad that initially i thought the tyres are crap. Honestly they are not much better than crap, but they are not as bad i thought them to be.

So after having enough of doing city rides on normal speeds i decided it is time to get the suspension harder.

So i turned it to 4.

This has good effect on the rear grip.

But i got an unruly bull in return.

You see there are two types of bounce.

One where ass gets spanked at every undulation on the road because the suspension is too hard.

second and the worse of the lot it where you just bounce, like you are on one of those tame the bull events where you just bounce without going anywhere. Which is a sign the suspension is not sorted. Either that or the bike is trying to throw you off.


And the cbr is a bull trying to throw you off.

Which is a shame because the last bike, zmr was cheap yet never made me feel it ever wanted to throw me off. Instead on the worst of the roads i have gone mental on it without it ever showing me attitude. And it didn't even have a monoshock.


In fact the tyres on the cbr look like crap because of the suspension. They are quite bad on wet surfaces but are good in the sun if you get the suspension on hard settings.

Which just leaves two settings 4 and 5. Anything below that is just plain irritating.

I don't frankly know how the stuff behaves if you are riding two up. Maybe on factory settings the bike behaves better if you are two up. But i haven't found a girl comfortable sitting behind and anyways riding two up spoils a corner. So what's the point of a bike.


So, here come the question, thanks for enduring with me for so long, can i get a different rear shock for cbr? From abroad, or here, a showa, WP or Ohlins? Something that makes the bike better? Anyone has any ideas?


Also is there any less wide tyre that will fit in the cbr? like ninja's IRC? Will it make corners better?

Any help will be replied to and thanked for.

anyone?