Imagine the soft rays of the sun filling your windows as you wake up to realize the sheer beauty of tall, green trees swaying to a soft breeze, and charming white clouds in the sky that look like heaps of cotton, which you simply want to jump onto – a perfectly gorgeous day, in short. And the perfect way to spend it would be to take a really long ride on an all-consuming highway with mountain stretches to boot. Sounds absolutely brilliant, doesn’t it? Well, this was, in reality, the brief given to a 5-member team of designers (an American, a European, and three Japanese blokes) who were responsible for shaping the Honda VFR1200F.

The Honda VFR1200F is a sports-tourer, and I could never really understand that term properly. I’ve always been confused when it comes to this segment of motorcycles. I mean, how can a motorcycle be sporty and a tourer at the same time? It either has to be a cruiser like any of the Harley Davidson’s, or an outright super/sports-bike like the Yamaha R6. Imagine a bike being a cross between a Fatboy and the R6 – it’s just wrong! Get my point?

You see, it’s one thing to know the definitions exist on paper, but you need to experience the products firsthand to understand what makes them fall in their respective segments. As luck would have it, I always either got the chance to sample out-and-out super/sport-bikes, or some naked beauties of the two-wheeled mechanical kind. I never really got my bottom settled on a comfy, but quite serious, long-distances-made-easy sort of a bike like the Falco Peregrinus – oh, Suzuki calls it the Hayabusa for some strange reason.

Thus, in essence, what you have here is a recipe for disaster – an already confused chap, driven to near madness riding a bike that aims at revolutionizing the very segment he’s confused about! So, as we’re about to get on with it, may God be with me!



For bikers, some parameters are simply necessary – I repeat, necessary – not just important. And the most interesting aspect is that there is no ranking system here based on preference. Bikers want their bikes to be three things – sexy to behold, dynamically sorted, and right up there in performance. And they won’t accept any compromise. Honda, it seems, tried to play it safe. Apparently, so safe that it went a bit wrong – if I dare to point out.

What we have in the form of the VFR1200F is, according to me, a striking, but strange looking, motorcycle that’s going to take its sweet time growing on you. It’s much like beer – at first you loathe it, but then it grows on you. You have to acquire a taste for it, and when you do, nothing else matters.

The 5-member design team went to Italy, settled into a remote hotel just outside Rome, and soaked in that gorgeous brief from Honda. They then sat down to sketch the motorcycle out on paper – after which they got back to Tokyo with some rough drawings, and sat down together to finally make it into one eloquent piece. I’m not entirely sure they could relate to the emotions behind the brief.

I don’t know how else to explain this design, but ‘angry’ is the word that instantly popped up in my head the moment I saw the VFR1200F in the flesh – mainly because of the bike’s headlamp unit. This big red bike appears to be staring down into the eye of its meek victim, frowning, and feeling arrogantly proud at the same time. Yes, I’m satisfied upon introspection – angry is indeed the right word for it. And, in my mind, ‘angry’ and ‘tourer’ don’t quite go well together. It’s not a bad looking bike by any measure, but it isn’t quite right. It also looks imbalanced when viewed in profile because of the heavy-looking bodywork up front, and that Sumo of an exhaust at the rear. The fuel tank and fairings, though, fuse together to create a unified surface. This arrangement manages to help it fight the force of air very well, but it’s so bland in appearance that the VFR loses points while walking the ramp. It is – if I had to put it in favourable terms – a unique design. But then again, had the fairing been given a knife-job or two, things could have looked a lot more promising.



There is, however, one thing that stands out in the most interesting way. And yes, it is about the design – again. This will require you to exercise your leg muscles, but, trust me, it’ll be energy well spent. Park the VFR, climb up a couple of stories of your building, and then view this red-and-black brute from the top. Ignore the fairing, handlebars, and the grab rails, and what you’ll see taking form in your mind is the shapely body of a woman. You’ll argue that almost every other bike has a similar architecture, and you’d be correct – but Honda has done it so tastefully on this bike that it’s purely eff-ing brilliant! Simply put, it’s just oh-so-sensuous.

But, that said, ride the VFR and she instantly shatters that soft, curvaceous image you’ve drawn in your mind. She tears open her svelte gown, and reveals the sinister tight leathers. She reveals her evil side. You will fall in love with her all over again, because my God she goes! Since Honda decided to bring the automatic, I guessed it would be quite a tame motorcycle. Frankly, I wasn’t expecting much in terms of outright performance at all. Needless to say, I’ve stopped expecting things from that day on.

1,237cc, 170bhp, 129Nm – those are the crucial numbers. Historically, the VFRs have had 90° V4 engines, but with the VFR1200F, Honda decided to bring down the size of the engine and decreased the cylinder angle to 76°. The crankshaft has a 28-degree offset between the front and rear crankpins, and that helps in negating engine vibration – thus saving the need to have a counter balance shaft. Another factor influencing reduction in engine size is the incorporation of Unicam valvetrain into the cylinder heads. The Unicam system on the VFR1200F uses a single-cam-per-cylinder-head configuration wherein intake valves are activated by the cam while the exhaust valves get operated by roller rockers.

Honda has also developed its first fly-by-wire throttle system (TBW) for the VFR1200F. There is no mechanical linkage between the throttle grip and the injector unit. Instead, there’s a position sensor located under the tank that senses the throttle position, and adjusts fuel injection after reading through crank speed, manifold pressure, and other really boring things like that.



But this technology overdose is only foreplay. The full act is delivered by a dual-clutch transmission. For the uninformed, a dual-clutch system makes use of two clutches – one operates the even numbered gears, and the other takes care of the odd numbered gears. While you’re riding along in a particular gear, the ECU anticipates the next gear to be slotted in and pre-selects it – this eliminates the time it takes in a manual to engage the clutch and select the next gear, resulting in a faster gearshift. In the VFR1200F, both clutches are on the same shaft, and share a common clutch basket. Now, I have tried out dual-clutch transmissions on quite a few cars, and have never really been overly impressed. I’ve found the dual-clutch system to be slow and having a mind of their own while shifting through the cogs. I have always enjoyed proper manual gearboxes, so you can only imagine my discomfort when I saw no clutch lever on the VFR.

I feared it would take a lifetime getting used to clutch-less left grip, but it actually didn’t take me too long to get accustomed to it. And after riding the bike for a few minutes, I was all smiles. I’m not kidding, I really like this transmission – but still, there were issues that kept me at bay from enjoying the motorcycle thoroughly. Stick it in the D mode, and the bike will do everything very calmly – perfect, if the nature of your travel is limited to cruising. But be warned, if you decide to go all sporty, remember to shift into the S, or get into the Manual mode.

I tried all three settings on the track, and trust me – the D mode just does not cut it for sporty riding. Imagine a situation wherein you’re slowing down for a flowing corner – wouldn’t you want maximum traction from your steed? The VFR1200F, it seems, is a naughty motorcycle. I was doing a steady speed in 4th gear in D mode, and slowed down to enter a corner. The gearbox went down into 3rd and I sensed that the bike would complete the corner in 3rd gear itself, without a need to shift down further. But I was wrong. Mid corner, the transmission suddenly decided to laugh out loud at me and shifted down into second. God dammit. I was leaning a 17-lakh bike and the bloody transmission was playing games with me! The rear jiggled a bit and then carried on – but by then I’d already managed a big lump in my throat. Phew! After that, I tried both the S mode and the manual, and boy did it make a difference. I dismissed her misbehaviour as a way to tell me that she wasn’t too comfortable in D around a bend. In the S and manual modes, I could hold onto the revs and execute the corners without fearing about the rear giggling away like a flippant teenager. The linear torque curve makes exiting a corner in the selected gear a cakewalk. But, heck, this bike feels heavy.

While cruising along, however, the bulk isn’t felt at all and the VFR1200F is supremely steady and beautifully balanced. But the moment you try to change direction in a hurry, it becomes apparent that this big red thing is really very big and really very heavy (so that’s sportiness cancelled). The stretch to the handlebar is a tad too long and laboured, which makes it difficult to manage the bulk. The upside is amazing ride quality – though I was riding on a smooth track, the VFR soaked up whatever little that came in its way with immense ease, and even when I gathered enough guts to ride over the kerbs, the bike was at her unperturbed best.



What else? Ah, yes – you’ll love the acoustics from the engine. But, as the revs rise, the vibrations filter down to your sensitive areas. And, as sensations between your legs go, this is not one that ranks high on the list. The engine otherwise is potent enough to throw the bike into the horizon. On the pit-straight, I saw 160 go past before my eyes popped out, and muscles applied all their pressure on the twin 6-piston calipers up front, which did their best to bring me back to manageable speeds via the massive 320mm dual floating hydraulic discs. I was scared beyond my wits to sense the ABS kick in, but I’m sure the anti-lock system did its job well – else I would have had a 267 kilo sliding Honda, and you would have had a scraped leather suit, Rupees 17-lakh lying in a trash-box, and a broken human figure remotely resembling yours truly.

I’m sure that merely half-an-hour on track isn’t sufficient enough to arrive at a verdict. But what I could gain from the ride is that the Honda VFR1200F is chiefly about stability and composure. The aerodynamic work done on the bike manages to impress – even the screen is designed in a way to deflect maximum air around the bike, making it as slippery as possible. But as hard as Honda may have tried, what they have essentially given us in the form of the VFR1200F is a definitive showcase of their technological prowess. But the very essence of motorcycling – that’s missing. This mechanical example ranks right up there with the NSR500 in terms of technological brilliance, but it just doesn’t have the soul. It just wouldn’t connect on an emotional level with the purists.

Perhaps a properly long ride will settle things for good, but till we get to test the VFR over a long distance, it will remain etched in my memory as a ‘well-tired’ effort from Honda. I was really looking forward to this motorcycle. I desperately wanted it to be immeasurably good. I was even thinking of ways to start my review, boasting about every aspect of the bike, even before I’d sat on it. However, it was not to be. The Honda VFR1200F is too heavy to be a sporty bike, and just a bit too uncomfortable at being a tourer. Frankly, I was aiming at understanding the true meaning of a sports-tourer with the VFR1200F – it seems my search is going to push on for some more time.