Advise for a NOOB on a type of bike please

[Vulusmaximus]

Guys, passed my DAS last week , now thinking about bikes
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Two questions for you:
1) What's your thoughts about a Honda VFR800F-2 as a first bike ?
2) Is this a bike that is hard on the wrists or the neck ?

Kind regards to all
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"What we do in life, echoes in eternity..."
VFR800 VTEC owner

[arry]

1) It'll be fine, if you mean are you going to kill yourself? Won't be an issue, as long as you have self control.
2) Harder on the wrists than something more upright but it is generally a comfortable sports tourer.

What did you learn on, and what did you like / dislike about it?

[Azoth]

Never ridden one, but others on this forum have, IIRC.

On paper, I think this is an absolutely great bike. I really like it. It seems that opinion is divided on pre- vs post-VTEC VFRs. But its reputation precedes it, and it's a true technological marvel. A smart choice.
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Safety in numbers

[stinkwheel]

f2 is the 2002/03 one. First of the vtecs yeah?

If I was getting one of around that age, I'd go for the previous year and get one of the Fi ones. Last of the gear driven cam motors, conventional valve gear but fuel injection.

The early vtecs ones had a bit of a reputation for snatchy/peaky power delivery that caught some people out and this could be your last chance to own a motorcycle with gear driven cams, noise regs have pretty much made them a no-go.

The digital dash is probably toast on most of them, check the digital display stuff is working (tricky fix). They have the famous 90's honda self-destruct reg/recs fitted (easy fix). Other than that, they're a bike that'll go round the clock. Condition is everything, don't be scared of mileage.

Remember they're getting old, springs and stuff may be past their best. Be prepared to spend a bit on boingy parts and a brake overhaul if it hasn't already been done. A left hand exit or high level aftermarket exhaust is desireable.

It's a bike you could commute on every day, do a fully luggaged, 2-up tour of Europe on then have a great time on a track day with. A real all-rounder. At 100bhp-ish enough power to be plenty fast enough for someone whos just passed their test to want to treat it with respect.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Vulusmaximus]

[Teflon-Mike]

I wold be very very suspicious of a VTEC VFR800 not being a money pit in waiting. The earlier VFR750, is legend, but at some point, Honda did actually admit, that for large portion of VFR production they were selling them at a loss!

Legacy the VFR is built on s that of the '84 VF's, launched in a whirlwind of 'hype' over the 'V' concept (that's been aout since oooh! 1892 o something!) but, in the face of the across the frame, air-cooled fours of the muscle bike era, according to Honda hype, going to a 'vee' was the 'only' way to make a water-cooled engine, that was capable of sustaining the year in power improvements the market had demanded from the air-cooled four's, and meet ever more stringent emission regulations..... without making an engine even more inordinately wide, and unwieldy, having to mount it ever higher n the frame to maintain any useful ground clearance.....

AT THE TIME! When the, "Knock, Knock; who's there?; Honda Cam-Chain Calling!" joke was made rather unfunny by the truth behind it.... Folk were somewhat skeptcal, that a engine with not just one, but two cam-chains, to drive cams over two banks of cylinders, worse, two cams over each bank, worse still open four valves per cylinder, stood much chance of being anything but a grenade looking for a place to explode...

The first batch of VF's shipped to the USA had to be recalled, when it was discovered that the cams hadn't been hardened properly.. DIDN'T really do very much to allay 'customer concerns'!!!

Fact that they actually made no more power, and were significantly more heavy and DID prove inordinately more fragile, and peculiarly awkward in the work shop, compared even to Honda's own rival air-cooled 750-four the CBX... yeah.. DIDN'T help!

Fact that Kawasaki, released the GPZ600 and 900, the same model year, that proved you COULD built an across the frame four, with water cooling, that wasn't inordinately wide, AND fit it in a frame that had, by standards of the day, incredible balance and handling... as well as make the power, and emission regulations.. SORT of left the company with a bit of egg on thier face!

A hasty reverse engineering job by Honda on the GPZ's quickly saw them offer the CBR600 ad CBR1000, in a fresy of pblcity that reminded every-one that Honda had 'invented' the accross the frame four and been the first to offer one to market with the CB750-'Four' of '69, and the smaller 400, 500 & 550 variants from '74...

Meanwhile..... Honda's most powerful air-cooled accross the frame four, had been the CB1100 'homologation special' built for F1 'producton' racing, based on the CB900FII road bike, had bee out-regulated in F1 and endurace racing by a cc limit of 1000cc. SO, Honda had, co-incdent with the launch of the VF750, built a new 'limited production' homologation special, based on the VF1000. They gave it an alloy frame... whch did very very little to combat t's mac-truck mass, and in a bid for more power, found some bigger valves and a plethora of lumpy cams to open them earlier, further and faster, and get about 140bhp from the thing....

A red line only 1000rpm higher up the scale than the stock VF-thou's, had a lot of folk scratching their head at the suggestion that the complex hi-vo cam chain arrangement on the V4's was, as Honda claimed "Not something to worry about, we have every faith in our engineering".. when they used a cassette of gears instead on the 1000R proddy racer! "Its ONLY so that it can maintain accurate valve ting at higher revs!"... err... but t DOESN'T actually rev much higher! You've shoved the red line up, but peak power is actually within 500rpm!...

But Honda were deaf to such questions; the 1000 got about 3/4 of a season in F1, where it was sparklingly unscessful, and was being campaigned in endrance events where it might have shine a bit more... except for the early oil-cooled GSX-R's... and had been dropped fro the catalogues... even though you could still buy one new in the show room's from unsold stock, needed to meet homolgation quota's for half a decade! lol! Reducton of the F1 & super-bike capacity limit further, to 750cc, or two cylinders for a full litre, sort of rendered the 1000R a dodo...

And Honda, had a problem. They had helped create the 750 market in the US... and their 750 offering was bombing... I would say in the sales charts.. but lore suggests they did it every where!

They desperately needed 'something' to get their credibility back; and to win sales o the street, wining races on the track would be a good start!

Inconveniently, the CBR's that were selling reasonably well in the US didn't offer anything to make a class leading 750 from; attempts at stretching the 600 to 750 implied they would do more to add to the 'unreliablity' reputation than eradicate it, ad when they made an across the frame four 750, the CBR750 'Hurrcane' for the US market, it got a sleeved down version f the 1000 motor rather than a bored out version of the 600's!

VF750 was ALL they had.. and, so they put a bit of 'spin'on the legend, and with a bad start, set out to prove the excellence of their engineering making a silk purse out of a sows ear.... some-one at the tie said that they were swayed by the precedent of the Porsche 911, a triumph of development over good sense, when it as pretty obvious sticking an air cooled engine at the back of a car probably wasn't he best place to start.....but thirty years of tinkering could make it fairly 'useful'.... if you didn't mind dog pirouettes into the sand traps from time to time!

The VFR750 was the result. and it DID get off to a pretty rocky start! It DIDN'T over turn the reputation of the earlier chain cam 750 over night... in fact not even over season!

Trying to cash in on some 'race-bike' cudos, and answer the Honda Cam-Chain-Callng criticisms, they started out by giving t the VF1000R's gear driven cams. To answer the over weight and under-powered criticisms, they gave it a then, rather advanced alloy beam frame.. and it 'sort' of worked.

But couldn't cut it at the track, at least in Europe! Where FIM regs insisted that 'Production' bikes had to be 'production bikes', and limited how many non standard bts you could use them. In the US 'Super-Stock' regs allowed them to chuck away, pretty much everything but the crank-cases and main frame member... and they DID! But n the UK, I recall the Honda GB team manager reported as arguing with the ACU that his pistons did meet the regs... they HAD once started out as factory standard itsms, they were just heavly 'modified'... in so much as he had melted them down and re-cast them to get the compression ratio he needed, unable with the [expletive] cam gears, to skim the heads, and find enough metal on the cams to grind profiles to correct the timing!

The consequences of that, somewhat shakey start was that n 1987, Honda made a 'new' homologation special race bike, incorporating all of the teams contentious mods, to get them approved as a production bike; the legendary RC30.

A LITTLE serendipity as far as FIM regulations and rationalisation of US and European racing regs, to make 'Super-Bike' a standard class, and replace F1/Endurance 'happened' to fall lucky for Honda, and the RC0 was conveniently well placed to exploit it's 'production bike' status in this revised catagory.. for once Honda got lucky!

And the RC30 went on to dominate Super-Bike and endurance racing for almost half a decade, before its successor the RC45 took over from where it left off.....

AND sales of the VFR750 picked up, especially in the states, ironically on the back of the implied 'reliability' it had! And Honda lost money, allegedly on each and every one of them, until around 1995!

Fighting from behind, the VFR, had to prove itself reliable, and NOT being an RC30, had to justify itself as an all round useful, versatile, comfortable street-bike, something 'sporty' but at the same time long distance tourable, and so hited at and propogated the new 'sports tourer' market segment, a niche, it sort of found, burrowed into, opened up and told the world THEY should be looking at.

Practically it was a fantastic bike, but it WAS horrendously over complicated, and it's performance was rather blunt compared to a lot else. A CBR600 was just about as quick, pretty much as reliable, almost as all-round useful, and an awful lot cheaper in the show room.

The Vtecs, and the short lived non vtec800' then were Honda's chance to 'cash in' a bit, after a decade or more of the VFR correcting history and making this new market. And in the make over, whilst its far from a 'budget' motorcycle, they effected an awful lot of cost-cutting measures to be able to add the complexity of fuel injection and V-Tec valve timing, as well as turn around the tables and turn it from a loss-leader into a profit maker for the company.

The VFR, by the ed of its run as a 750, had acquired a reputation for being tough as old boot, and a very refined, if not particularly exiting motorcycle. Early examples, OTMH only 'just' managed to make more power than the old air-cooled CBX, about 95bhp; Later examples, I think managed to get up to about 110ish, at least the US, before Honda 'standardised' on a Euro-Freindly German Market complient 100 DIN model, that probably isn't actally any more powerful than the original chain cam VF's, it was a bit of a wet lettuce.....

But that was to miss the Mr Sensble virtes of the VFR... which see sig line.. I was a VF-Thou rider in the VFR hey day.. virtues somewhat 'lost' on me!

I will admit, plenty tried to convert me, and I did try ad appreciate the VFR 'virtues'... and I have been swayed at various low moments ever since... but... nah! sorry!

VFR was, is and as far as am concerned, forever remain...... a washing machine! It is a fantastic bit of engineering, It is an incredibly capable bit of motorcycle.... but it is about as inspiring as a Zanussi to ride!

ANSWERING YOUR QUESTION!!! (ebventually!) For a wet behnd the ears DAS Newby? ell, that domestic appliance like 'user friendliness' , does make it an incredibly easy bike to get along with. It's very easy to ride, its very nicely balanced. It's handling is competent and predictable, and relatively 'sharp' whilst remaining comfortable, and forgiving. Engine, very much of the same character, extra cc's over a 600, that probably have more 'peak' in many cases, gve it a chunk of useful mid-range and flexibility which soft tuning for mid-range probably enhance.

It's a pretty 'friendly' motorcycle, that is easy to get along with, and unlike more raucous 600's a friend who wont so readily egg you on into trouble making antics!

It's a pretty good all-round package, that will let you do an awful lot, ad experience a awful lot of what biking might, without any great effort.

That SN'T any slouch, this IS a genuine 150mph out the box motorcycle! Just doesn't really feel like it is!

Which is why I always preferred my old dinosaur 'thou'! Utterly over weight, uttlerly ill balanced, on horrendously inadequate suspension and older narrower 'evil' cross-ply tyres, it had something of a raucous 'edge' to it.. felt more like was riding a motor-bike, than using a washing machine! But I'm no newby!

So many VFR owners are committed to the model, the virtues have endeared themselves to them so much over the years they couldn't conceive of riding anything else.... except perhaps a Super-Back-Bird CBR1100RR.... which is another story! It IS a bit like a VFR on steroids, and that extra 'beef' coupled to VFR 'vanilla' has, on a couple of occasions tempted me, far enough to take a wallet full of fresh £20's into a show room.. but... err''' nah! I MIGHT, get round to handing them over at some pot... but I cant 'quite' find anything to give me that nudge!

VFR.. bit like an Labrador dog, does keep running up to my shins expecting a petting, every time I have the inkling I could do with a new bike, and making a very strong case for itself, that s very very had to refute..

BUT, I have a VF engine the shed, in a tangle of cam-chains, (A victim of my divorce!) and have been offered far too many 'just needs'.. (usually carbs cleaned!) VFR's over the years, to be convinced that their reputation for reliability can really be stretched to 'indestructible', let alone even that a nicely working example will prove so easy to live with long term! Or that a newer 800, with potential in that even more complicated cam-train, would prove any 'better'!

As a home mechanic, shown a carbed 750 model, with a genuinely 'full-stainless', including headers, exhaust system, I MIGHT be a tad more easily swayed and 'forget' I need a Honda special tool and a special single sided swing arm padlock stand to adjust the chain tension, and convince myself that the chances I would have to burry down and get at the carbs to clean them, ARE pretty slm.. but a fuel injected model? And one with V-Tec? That has a notoriously expensive shim adjust issue at something like 40K miles, that see's so many sold on when it's due? I would probably, NOT need to have a peek at the sorry state the thou' motor is in, to walk away, and listen to some-one tryng to convince me that a rock-shock ZXR750 was an aprecating classic, great every day commuter, and all-round road bike!

For the Newb.. yup... BIG question mark in the air, whether what you were being asked to hand over money for, was likely to be just the start of a LT of very big blls.

If you haven't owned a road bike before, of if you have only ever owned lghtweights, running costs on a big bike, can prove rather eye watering. Bkes need a lot more and more frequent attention than cars, and it's often quite expensive. Tyres on a 750, are likely £250-300 a pair and eben n a touring compound and i the lighter use you are likely to put them as a newb, they would be doing pretty well to last much beyond 3000 miles or so.. even without any major maledy that needs adressing, these can still be pretty expensive bikes to run on a regular basis.

IF you are prepared for that, AND you are prepared for the potential money pit effect IF you pick a bit of a lemon.. then yeah, there's likely an awful lot of biking in a VFR to be had, a lot of very non-newbs consider them the 'only' bike they will ever need, AND such a well balanced easy to get along with with all-round 'package', there's not too much to say it is a 'bad' choice for a newb... OTHER than the fact that it just IS so much, that it IS so friendly, that that there are SO few rough edges, it doesn't offer very much rider experience, it sanitizes so much, makes so much so easy, it doesn't delver anywhere near the 'sensation' of riding, and if you ever no there is anything else, for all a VFR can do, it wont take you very far out of the comfort zone and give you cause to think "Ah, it WONT do this!" or 'Oh! THAT'S what they mean!" and give you much reason to actually appreciate JUST how all-round competent it is! You will start to think that all bikes are 'as good' at stuff as the VFR can be!

In that, something like an ER6 or even an XJ600 with saggy shocks! Can offer you a lot more post DAS 'learning'.. and possibly not be carrying such money-pit risk with it.

It's far from the worst newby choice out there, and has an awful lot to commend it, to any-one, that's good for a newby.. BUT... conclusion is you CAN have too much of a good thing, and for a Newb, VFR's are likely to be too much of a good thing, for them to appreciate what they got too much of, and stifle rider progress a bit; whilst the money pit risks, hang over them.

Like I said, VFR's have their fan base, who couldn't think of riding much else, to whom they are fantastic, and in many ways they are, and they are close to a one size fits all universal motorcycle, but they AREN'T for every one, and they aren't indestructible, they have NEVER been a particularly 'cheap' let alone hugely economical motorcycle to run; and in the swings and round-a-bouts, for a newb there are plenty of alternates, which depending on situation, circumstance and ambition, could be 'better' in a lot of ways, and a year on one would likely let you actually appreciate a VFR a lot better, than jumping straight in on one.

I would not, be too eager to start handing over cash for one, & I'd take a long hard look at the alternatives before I did, and suggest you apply similar pause for thought.
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My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?'

[mrmistoffelee...]

My VFR experience has not been the best... and has taken another turn for the worse yesterday. Got a call from the dealer who i bought the bike from not only did the reg/rec go kaput taking it out the battery, but it's also appears to have done some damage to the generator. I'm now without the bike for an additional 2-3 weeks while this gets replaced.

In the 4 weeks i've had the bike i've ridden it once, for thirty minutes

Still it's all under warranty, and fuck it, I'm off to Mexico in just under two weeks for an all expenses paid company jaunt

[arry]

[Rogerborg]

Sounds like a VRF is out based on all those VRFs that Tef has owned which caused him problems. You should probably avoid modern supersports 600s too, he's had no end of trouble with them.
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Biking is 1/20th as dangerous as horse riding.
GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike

[stinkwheel]

[mrmistoffelee...]

[stinkwheel]

[Monkeywrenche...]

[trevor saxe-coburg-gotha]

[Aceslock]

I'm thinking of selling my Thundercat if your interested??
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Previous Bike: Skyjet SJ27
Sold: Yamaha YZF 600 R Thundercat. Sold: ZX636R
Current bike: R1 14B (Beast)