The Cheapest 675cc Sport Bike Way More Than You Expect
The motorcycle world is changing, and it’s not what you might expect. For years, the big names have dominated the middleweight motorcycle market, offering performance and personality for a price. But while the old guard has been refining its formula, adding technology and cost simultaneously, one brand released a bike that offers all the benefits for an astonishingly low price. And it could be the new benchmark.
The Middleweight Sportbike Was Once America’s Sweet Spot
The 600-700cc sportbike has long held a special place in the American motorcycle market. It offers a mixture of performance, accessibility, and affordability that you don’t get with their liter-sized cousins, while being that little bit more exciting than a typical 500cc. Bikes like the Honda CBR600RR, Yamaha YZF-R6, Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R, and the Suzuki GSX-R600 have all proved that riders don’t need to leap up to 1,000cc to have fun and get a genuine sportbike experience.
The key is that their comparative lack of power isn’t seen as a bug, but a feature. The smaller engine means a more compact bike, less weight, and more manageable power that you can exploit on the roads. A liter-bike can feel cumbersome and like you never have the chance to truly unleash it anywhere on public roads, only really stretching its legs on the track. A middleweight, meanwhile, can be just as much fun on either.
More important than power is their cost. Middleweights used to be more attainable compared to brands’ flagship bikes, and they typically carried lower insurance costs and running expenses, too. They brought performance to the masses. Brands liked making them, riders loved riding them, it was a perfect relationship. But costs started to rise, and performance comes at a premium.
More Performance For Less Money Is Hard To Find
In today’s American market, getting more for less is hard. It usually means that there’s a compromise on the way — whether that’s price, power, performance, electronics, styling, components. Somewhere along the assembly line, there’s been a corner cut. If not, you’re paying for it.
This approach helped the Japanese market to grow as quickly as it did. The big four Japanese manufacturers, Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, and Kawasaki, had decades of experience not just in creating bikes, but mass-producing them. They were reliable, they were strong, and they were proven, allowing people to not have to make a difficult decision over what they wanted but couldn’t justify.
Japan wasn’t alone in creating these bikes, of course, as a growing number of manufacturers from further afield have long been challenging the established hierarchy. Britain, for example, has the Triumph Daytona 660, Italy has the Aprilia RS 660, and Austria’s KTM RC 660. But competition breeds innovation, and innovation costs money. Consumers are the ones who have to keep up with that. Or so you’d think. As one brand released a bike that offers so much more for so much less.
The CFMOTO 675SS Is The 650-Class Sportbike That Punches Above Its Weight
Take a look at the bike above and tell me who you think made it. Admittedly it does say the brand name in the header immediately above it, but pretend you didn’t see that and play along for a moment.
The 675cc triple, pointed nose, narrow headlights, and full fairing give it a look of a Triumph Daytona 675R. The front also looks somewhat MV Agusta F3 675-esque, as does the overall supersport shape. You might think of the Ducati Panigale V2, owing to those front winglets and compact tail, or the Yamaha R1 at the back. All good guesses, but no. These classic European brands might have all “influenced” the design you see, but it came from none of them. It didn’t even come from Europe. This is the CFMOTO 675SS, and it comes all the way from China.
So we already know that the 675SS is a striking bike, but its beauty isn’t just skin deep. It’s also surprisingly sophisticated underneath. On the component front, there’s adjustable suspension, a slipper clutch to help prevent the rear wheel from locking under heavy downshifting, and an up-only quickshifter to make increasing speed just as easy. The engine is a 675cc inline-three four-stroke, making a claimed 95 HP and 51.6 lb-ft of torque. On the electronics front, you get ABS, adjustable traction control, a five-inch TFT bluetooth display, tire pressure monitoring, LED lights, and a steering damper. Crikey.
So, how much does all this cost? It’s got to be five figures, surely? You’d think so, but no. The bike starts at just $7,499. That’s a fairly astonishing price, especially considering the similarly-powered Triumph Daytona 660 starts at $9,395, the Aprilia RS 660 starts at $11,849, and base ABS-equipped Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R starts at $12,599. But this does raise an important question: how does CFMOTO keep a bike this good so cheap? If you said because it’s made in China, you’d be correct.
A significant part of the 675SS’s components are made domestically, some even within the same region. This integrated Chinese supply chain means CFMOTO can source parts domestically far quicker and easier, avoiding the import/export fees that would usually necessitate a higher price and longer construction times.
For buyers, it presents a compelling proposition. The 675SS isn’t simply a cheaper Chinese alternative to established sportbikes, but a genuine option that would cost more money if it wore the name of a brand with more prestige. That matters to some people, but others might be willing to look past it and focus on the numbers. And those numbers are interesting.
The Numbers Explain Why This Bike Is Such A Big Deal
Starting at $7,499, the 675SS is already an incredibly cheap option for what you get. But you don’t buy a bike solely based on price, so how do the other numbers stack up against contemporaries? Surprisingly well, actually.
The Kawasaki ZX-6R makes around 127 HP, which is a sizable bump over the 95 HP you get with the 675SS’ (though it will cost you some $5,100 more). The weight difference between the ZX-6R and the 675SS is negligible, as both come in around the 430-lb mark, while if you really care about engine size, the CFMOTO has 675cc compared to the 636cc you get with the ZX-6R. It’s clearly the more track-focused bike, too, as the ZX-6R has an aluminum frame to the steel of the CFMOTO but, if they both weigh the same anyway, it might be hard to feel.
When you put the two bikes’ specs together, it’s a clear win for the green machine over its Chinese counterpart in terms of performance. But the 675SS is a more disruptive bike. It’s also a cheaper bike, and gets you remarkably close to the ZX-6R for a fraction of the price. Could there be a time when the 675SS is seen as the baby ZX-6R more than the Ninja 650 is? We’ll have to wait and see.
Could The 675SR-R Become CFMOTO’s Breakthrough Sportbike?
There’s almost always been a stigma around Chinese-made anything. It’s had a long and, at times, well-deserved reputation for making low-quality knockoffs of much better products. That might not be the case anymore, as brands like DJI, Huawei, Lenovo, BYD, and others are all Chinese and globally-respected, but that’s arguably the biggest thing standing in the way of CFMOTO and the US motorcycle market at large. Which brings us back to our first point.
If you saw the spec sheet of the CFMOTO 675SS, and saw the bike without any branding, would you be interested? If you saw the exact same bike, same specs, but with a Ducati or a Honda badge, would that tip the scales? Finally, does the large amount of bike for the comparatively low amount of money make it worth a “risk”? CFMOTO is hoping that you say yes. If enough people do, this bike could be the turning point where people decide what sort of quality their money should be able to buy.
The bike’s heavily-Chinese construction could be another pressure point. With so much of the bike being constructed from Chinese parts in China, it asks the question of whether parts availability outside of the country will be difficult. If the bike suffers from patchy reliability and replacement parts face international shipping delays, it could be enough to turn potential riders away.
Sources: Cyclenews, Bike, Motorcycle
Related posts
Latest Post
No Comments