Honda’s Redesigned CBR600RR: Faster, Lighter, Smarter

[advrider]

This year’s EICMA proves the motorcycle industry is as alive as ever. There are so many fantastic new machines and new manufacturers. The big ones still have a few tricks up their sleeves, though. 

Honda has just surprised and delighted fans of its middleweight supersport by reintroducing the CBR600RR. Eleven years after the last redesign, and six years since there was a new model year of the bike in the EU, they’ve unveiled the newest CBR600RR for the 2024 model year.

All About the New CBR

Before you get too excited: yes, this bike has been on the roads in Japan for a couple of years already. No, we don’t know when (or if) it will make it to North America.

While you’re puzzling all that out, a clarification: Honda has been selling the last-generation CBR600RR in North America while simultaneously selling the updated one in Japan (and Thailand, and Australia, apparently), and zero in Europe. Why this makes any sense is left to the reader. Perhaps a decade-old design was cheap enough to produce for the Americas, while definitely not up to Euro 5 emissions standards.

At any rate, Honda’s news at EICMA has a bunch of middleweight supersport enthusiasts very excited.

And why not? It just got a whole lot smarter.

Redesigned Outside

This new CBR is much more than Bold New Graphics. To be fair, it has those too, in tasty red-white-blue Honda Racing livery, on a fully redesigned sport fairing. It has dual LED headlights at the front and retains the single undertail exhaust. Let’s look at what’s between all that.

Photo: Honda UK

Redesigned Inside

The liquid-cooled, inline-four, DOHC engine still displaces 599 cc just like the last iteration, but is now Euro 5 compliant with updated valve timing. It puts out 119 hp (gaining 6 hp over the previous generation) at a screaming 14,250 rpm, and 46.5 ft-lb of torque at 11,500. That power is delivered via chain final drive and an assist/slipper clutch and quick-shifter, standard.

Bigger Brains

Honda has fit this middleweight with the same electronics package as the CBR1000RR. That includes a 6-axis IMU-based brain (roll / yaw / pitch) so it always “knows” where it is in relation to the road. Also, it has a nine-level traction control system with slip rate control, five power levels, engine braking management, five ride modes (three preset, two customizable), cornering ABS, and wheelie control. And if that isn’t enough, it also has an electronic steering damper under ECU control, automatically adjusting to the bike’s speed.

You’re going to want to turn the sound on for this one.

Suspension and Brakes

A set of Showa 41mm Big Piston inverted forks and Honda’s Pro-Link system with a fully adjustable rear shock, with 4.7 and 5 inches of travel, respectively, all help keep the Dunlop Roadsports2 on the road. A pair of radial-mount four-piston calipers on 310 mm discs up front, and a single-piston caliper on a 220 mm disc out back, haul the bike to a stop.

Stopping the bike isn’t a difficult job, though, because all that totals a claimed wet weight of just under 426lbs.

Do we need to mention the full-color TFT dash? Will anyone really be looking at it while riding?

Availability?

The bike will be available in Europe in the aforementioned HRC livery and, of course, black. European pricing is yet to be published.

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