REVIEW RIDE: Honda CB250R

Welcome to the review of the Year 2022 Honda CB250R, which is officially the 3^rdgeneration of this Neo Sports Café Racer, since its inception in 2018. As is common with first generation units, certain features are “missing” with successor models having them, and the Honda is no exception in this segment.

What’s new in the latest variant of the CB250R is basically subtle yet making a whole lot of differences in daily commuting – that's what the Neo Sports Racer line-up is being designed for. The first two generations of the CB250R are no different than one another save for cosmetic updates such as color options including a Golden tone for the inverted front forks, which used to be in Black. Both variants already came fitted with ABS as standard feature.

What’s basically NEW on the 3^rd generation Honda CB250R is the inclusion of the gear indicator on its LCD speedometer panel, which has been asked by many owners and media reviewers alike. The previous generation units do not possess a gear indicator, only a shift indicator built-in, which hints on the maximum revving (recommended) range to switch to the next gear during acceleration.

Of course, the shift indicator is still intact on the latest variant, and it goes hand-in-hand with the new gear indicator feature. Oh yes, the gear indicator isn’t the only feature gained on the Year 2022 variant. There’s also the new exhaust muffler, which looks better and stylish than those available in the predecessor models. And the new CB250R now possess the Euro5 emission standard too.

Now we have listed the new features available on the CB250R, the next question a prospective buyer/owner will be asking is: “What benefits do I get from choosing the CB250R?”

Well, the world has gone four-stroke now, with 2-strokers limited to off-road segment in some markets, and everyone knows 4-strokers are somewhat slower in performance against their 2-stroke counterparts, on the same engine capacity. And this is why we have modern Cub series motorcycles available with engine capacities ranging from 125cc to185cc nowadays to go against those 80cc to 100cc 2-strokers, to boost the performance of the former to similar levels.

As mentioned above, for daily commuting, the Honda CB250R is superb to ride, and gives an extra edge over those 125-150cc Cub-series mopeds, in standard, non-modification performance level. The CB250R is petite, slim and agile – are what’s required to navigate the traffic during daily commuting. The extra performance comes with fuel consumption like high end mopeds but still lower than any 250cc parallel twin machine.

During this review, the CB250R was subjected to a short travel inside a mini ferry ride across a river that connects the state of Selangor to its neighboring state, Negeri Sembilan. Of course, That ferry could accept bigger capacity motorcycles too but size-wise, there’s less hassles doing that via the Honda CB250R, or any other brand of Cub-series moped. It’s easier to reverse the CB250R and ride out from the mini ferry when it’s time to disembark.

The somewhat petite size of the CB250R allows it to perform reasonably well during off-road riding on gravel-filled roads. Such off-road performances could be maximised by fitting trail tyres to the machine. The CB250R comes factory-fitted with Dunlop GPR300 street tyres, with 110/70-17 front and 150/60-17 rear.

What about the CB250R’s top speed performance?

This is subjective to how the bike is utilised. Top speed can vary from time to time, in this review ride, we achieved levels of 147, 151, 157 at full throttle on 6^th gear! It tops out at a respectable top speed of 167km/h several times when the surrounding circumstances are positive.

The Honda CB250R has a tank capacity of just 10 litres of fuel but this amount could last some 300km distance on average riding during daily commuting.