Faults:

I purchased it for $900 and added another $200 of parts, tires and fluids to make it ready. Since completing my refurb, nothing has gone wrong with the bike. It is still early in my use of the bike.

General Comments:

A great, nostalgic in town commuter or weekend ride to the beach (on back roads) bike. This bike is about enjoying the scenery and feeling light and comfortable. Maintenance is so easy any motivated beginner can enjoy. Great gas mileage and low insurance. Plus, you’re a friend of the environment when you recycle a 45 year old bike in place of purchasing a brand new model. If you're ready to take care of a bike (without a lot of effort) and want to enjoy the back roads, this bike is hard to beat.

Faults:

One cylinder sputters mildly, needs a tune up.

Original seat, little splits are starting to appear, foam is still good.

General Comments:

This little motorcycle is seriously not quick and handles just OK. Even so, this is a very fun little motorcycle. It's a little slow off the line unless you rev it up some to get her going. It has a 9,000rpm red line.

The brakes work well in traffic even in today’s world of great bikes (2009). The credit goes to the manual disc brake on the front wheel. Electrics are OK, not great. The electric starter works, but you need to turn off the headlight first. That's back when you could still do that. Luckily it still has the old kicker on the side too. I sure do miss them, good in emergencies. Blinkers are a little slow to activate & flash. Maybe a different flasher would help, I don't know.

What drew me to it were its looks. I started out looking for a 60's Honda or other Japanese Twin. When I ran across these I had to check into them. I really liked the style of the tank & how they looked as a cafe bike. The bike looked basically the same over the 74, 75, 76 year era. The paint schemes gave it a different look from year to year though.

I've had about 16 bikes, the biggest was a Honda CB900 Custom, & I've ridden an 1100cc Gold Wing on trips. These bikes had endless power & were very comfortable cruisers with air shocks & forks etc.

The last bike I owned & rode around was a Yamaha XS650 Twin. That was a nice bike for an in between size bike, a little tall for my legs, only 5'7". Balanced very well, good torque, not rev happy, good power though.

The CB200 is in no way a match for the bigger bikes, but that is not what it is all about. I'm only 150 lbs and was about 130 when I owned the CB900. My point is that when riding a smaller bike, you’re not carrying around all that extra weight. The effortless feeling of maneuvering it around the streets or off the kick stand is awesome. It doesn't need a big engine to move it along, but your weight, a passenger, steep hill or the wind can affect the speed in which you will travel along the highways & the byways.