Honda CB1000 Hornet & SP (2025) – Technical Review

"Better late than never" as the saying goes and it couldn’t be truer for Honda’s delayed CB1000 Hornet which finally hits dealers in January at a price that looks like the bargain of the decade.

Originally shown a year ago, and at first intended to be launched halfway through 2024 as a late-24 model bike, the CB1000 Hornet has been slightly delayed in its path from the show stand to the showroom but the result looks to be more than worth the wait.

Packing a Fireblade derived engine with 150hp the CB1000 Hornet is accompanied by an even fierier ‘SP’ version making 155hp and sporting Öhlins and Brembo parts while still sliding under the £10k mark, creating a duo that look hard to beat when it comes to bang for your buck. In a world where it’s increasingly hard to find a high-performance bike with a four-figure price, the litre Hornets seem to have wound back the clock to eliminate years of inflation.

Pros & Cons

2025 Honda CB1000 Hornet & SP - Price

At £8999 the CB1000 Hornet represents remarkable value for money in anyone’s book, undercutting far less powerful rivals with seemingly little in terms of compromise to account for the low cost. It’s the same technique Honda adopted for the twin-cylinder CB750 Hornet – a move that paid off in terms of sales so it’s hard to imagine the CB1000 Hornet being any less successful.

While it’s £1000 more expensive, the CB1000 Hornet SP might represent an even stronger deal, gaining an Öhlins rear shock, Brembo Stylema brakes, an extra 5hp and a quickshifter.

Both models are due in dealers in January next year, with the standard CB1000 Hornet coming in a choice of three colours – red, grey or white – and the CB1000 Hornet SP available only in matte metallic black with gold wheels and forks.

2025 Honda CB1000 Hornet & SP - Engine & Performance

The engine in the CB1000 Hornet requires little introduction. It’s derived from the litre four that powered the 2017-on CBR1000RR Fireblade and continues the age-old tradition of filtering last-generation superbike engines into much more affordable naked streetfighters. Honda was among the pioneers of the practice with the original Hornet 900 nearly a quarter of a century ago, which used a variation of the original Blade’s engine, and it’s a tactic that remains as effective as ever.

As usual there’s a big of detuning involved, in part to suit the Hornet’s naked bike character but also to meet the ever-tightening requirements of emissions rules, but since that 2017 Blade had nearly 190hp to play with, losing a small corral of horses doesn’t decrease the overall size the herd by too much.

The CB1000 Hornet version of the engine carries over the same 76mm bore and 55.1mm stroke as the old Blade, but the compression ratio is slashed from 13:1 to a more modest and emissions-friendly 11.7:1 and the available performance is slid down the rev band to be within easier reach thanks to new camshafts and different valve timing. The result is 150hp at 11,000rpm and 76.7lbft of torque at 9000rpm, where the old Blade version made 189hp at 13,000rpm and 85.6lbft at 11,000rpm. Step up to the ‘SP’ version and gap narrows a fraction, with peaks of 155hp at 11,000rpm and 78.9lb-ft at 9000rpm thanks to a different exhaust that includes a servo-operated valve in the muffler that opens at 5700rpm to free up the gas flow. It results in slightly higher noise levels for the SP – it’s just under a decibel lounder at both city speeds and wide-open throttle – but no change to economy or emissions.

The six-speed transmission is again borrowed from the previous-gen Fireblade, but with Hornet-specific gear ratios. It’s driven through an assist/slipper clutch and, standard on the SP but optionally on the base model, there’s a quickshifter with three levels of adjustment and an auto-blipper for downshifts.

Both models get three levels of engine power and engine braking, plus four levels of traction control, split across five riding modes – Rain, Standard, Sport and two user-configurable presets. There’s standard wheelie control, too.

2025 Honda CB1000 Hornet & SP - Handling & Suspension (inc. Weight)

The main chassis of the CB1000 Hornet is a twin-spar steel frame, and while that might not sound as exotic as the aluminium designs on some rivals, Honda says it has a full 70% more torsional rigidity than the previous Blade-derived naked bike, the CB1000R.

The 1455mm wheelbase is identical to the CB1000R’s, as is the 25-degree rake, and Honda says that the weight has been biased towards the front, 51.2%/48.8% (50.9%/49.1% on the SP), by shifting the engine forward along with components like the rear shock and battery. The airbox is sited above the engine’s cylinder head rather than behind it to help.

Both versions of the bike share the same forks, 41mm Showa SFF-BP upside-downers with adjustable compression, rebound and preload, but they differ at the rear. The standard CB1000 Hornet gets a Showa monoshock, operated via a Pro-Link system and offering preload and rebound adjustment, while the SP version gets an Öhlins TTX36 shock that’s fully adjustable for preload, rebound and compression. Both modes use the same aluminium swingarm – a two-sided design rather than the single-sider that’s a signature of the old, more expensive CB1000R.

While both variants use radial-mounted, four-pot front calipers on 310mm discs, the base Hornet’s kit is from Nissin while the SP uses Brembo Stylema parts. The rear Nissin single-pot caliper and 240mm disc are shared by both versions, and while there’s 2-channel ABS it’s not the sort of advanced, lean-sensitive kit that’s becoming increasingly widespread even among relatively affordable bikes.

2025 Honda CB1000 Hornet & SP - Comfort & Economy

A relatively upright, streetfighter riding position coupled to wide, 790mm bars and sensibly-positioned footrests bodes well for the Hornet’s comfort, and even the pillion pad looks quite useable, but the final judgement will have to wait until we’ve ridden the bike. It’s here that the Ohlins rear shock of the SP might well come to the fore, of course.

Riders wanting to add a bit more comfort and usability will be able to opt for a ‘Comfort Pack’ including heated grips, and there’s an optional Alcantara seat as part of the ‘Style Pack’. You can add a flyscreen, too, as well as a bellypan and seat cowl, with the ‘Sport Pack’.

In terms of economy, both the standard CB1000 Hornet and the SP version claim identical figures of 47.7mpg, and with a 17-litre tank that equates, in theory, to a range of 178.5 miles.

2025 Honda CB1000 Hornet & SP - Equipment

A 5-inch colour TFT display with phone connectivity has become the modern equivalent to a ‘standard’ set of clocks – and it’s precisely what the CB1000 Hornet has to offer.

It’s a setup shared with other Honda models, and accompanied by Honda’s RoadSync app and a smartphone gives all the usual connectivity that we’ve become accustomed to, including the all-important on-screen turn-by-turn navigation. A bar-mounted, backlit, four-way toggle switch controls the screen, and when paired to a Bluetooth headset you also get control over calls and music.

Other specs include all-LED lighting with dual projector-style headlamps and an Emergency Stop Signal (ESS) function that flashes the hazard lights automatically during hard braking.

2025 Honda CB1000 Hornet & SP- Rivals

While most of Honda’s main competitors offer something based on the same recipe of a superbike engine screwed to a naked bike chassis it becomes much harder to find viable competitors when the CB1000 Hornet’s price is added to the equation. It’s simply a lot cheaper than most of the competition. Look at Suzuki’s range, for example. While the GSX-S1000 comes closest to the CB1000 Hornet in terms of spec and performance, the price is closer to the twin-cylinder GSX-8S, which is a whole class lower.

However, the Hornet’s competitive pricing will also be a useful haggling tool if you’re in the market for one of rivals, which include:

Kawasaki Z900 | Price: £9699

Read more

Power/Torque

123.6bhp / 72.7lb-ft

Weight

212kg

Yamaha MT-09 | Price: £10,106

Read more

Power/Torque

117.3bhp / 68.6lb-ft

Weight

193kg

Suzuki GSX-S1000 | Price: £11,999

Read more

Power/Torque

150bhp / 78.2lb-ft

Weight

214kg

2025 Honda CB1000 Hornet & SP - Verdict

We’ll give a verdict when we’ve ridden it

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2025 Honda CB1000 Hornet & SP - Technical Specification

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