My review of the Honda CBF125 motorbike...

My lovely lady purchased her Honda CBF 125 this summer because she liked being on the back of my lovely BMW F800S, but felt slightly out of control at times. Before we got our Cardo Q2 headsets, we had a wonderful tap-on-the-helmet system which consisted of:

1 tap = warning
2 taps = in trouble
3 taps = “I want to get off”

Luckily for me, I never got to three taps because in such situations her hands were so firmly clasped around the grab rails that tapping became essentially impossible.

So a bike of her own was considered the solution and she decided on the Honda CBF125 because:

1) it was cheap at just over £2,000.00

2) it came with a 3 year warranty which puts BMW to shame (1 year = joke!).

Probably the only alternative bike on the market she was tempted by was the much sportier Honda CBR125. But this bike is massively more expensive and would have had to be purchased second hand, potentially from some 17 year old who had thrashed the pants of it. The reviews of the Honda CBR125 noted that the bike is sporty thus making it quite taxing to drive for someone who had just completed 1 days CBT training.

So, about 6 months ago we went to pick it up from Dobles Motorcycles in Coulsdon, London. The first time I saw this bike, I really liked the look and feel of it. It came with a side-stand, centre stand, fuel gauge - and apart from the colour, had zero options which I really appreciate compared to the many thousands of pounds of extras you have to fork out on when buying a BMW.

Getting the bike from London to Brighton avoiding the M23 due to learner restrictions, provided an interesting challenge for the bikes new owner who had literally only had a couple of hours of road experience. It didn’t help also that it was raining, so the bike must have been easy to get to grips for a learner on such a marathon maiden voyage. All kudos to my lady – that was a job well done.

A few bike-trips later and the Honda CBF125 left mirror went all loose and wouldn’t tighten up, so I took the bike over to Honda Worthing to take a look at it. This was my first trip on the bike, so could give it a test ride.

My first thoughts of the bike were very good. It was quite nice to step down from the big BMW to something a lot more basic and fundamentally simple. The seat was comfortable, very cushioned and I also thought the lightness of the bike meant going over pot-holls and bumps didn’t matter too much.

Obviously, the power of the bike wasn’t amazing, but I think that’s because I’m no longer the 19 year old boy that did his test on a bike of this class. The lack of perceived acceleration must be because I’m comparing it to the big bikes I’ve played with including the Honda CBR400, BMW F800S, BMW 1200GS and the amazing but too quick for me BMW K1300S. That said, I had good fun pulling away from traffic lights before any of the car-clad-boy-racers I encountered on the trip home.

In the end, I found it a lot of fun but a tad disappointing to accelerate away from stop-starts and think I was flying along, to discover I was only going 24MPH! I guess the sense of speed is greater than the real speed because this is a smaller bike, with less protection, less power when overtaking and you haven’t got that ‘presence’ you have with bigger bikes.

One point that can’t be denied is the frugality of this bike. 350 miles on a tank, is up there with the legendary BMW 1200GS Adventure. In fact, my lady has only filled up the tank once in 6 months – and that only probably cost her £15.00.

So – will I be swapping in my BMW F800S for this bike? Definitely not, because I think a 50 mile round trip to work is a step too far to do comfortably every day.

Would I recommend the Honda CBF125 to someone getting into biking, wants to get some practice in for their big-bike test or wants a nimble commute round towns and cities - definitely! The Honda CBF125 is well made, has a fuel gauge, fun to ride, comes with a massive warranty, frugal, fast to 30MPH, light, nimble and is in a low insurance bracket.

This bike is perfect for a massive segment of the community – just doesn’t fit my needs.



Alex Kent
November 2009

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