CB300R (NC55)

The CB300R is Honda's Neo-Sports Café style cut down to its simplest, most honest form. A liquid-cooled 286 cc single makes 31 hp and 20 lb-ft, and it sits in a steel tube frame. Up front there's an upside-down fork, and at the back a shock with preload adjustment. It weighs 315 lb (143 kg) wet and is compact in every direction, and that low mass is the point of this bike. ABS comes standard, and so does a slipper clutch. Both are a real safety net on a machine this size. This bike wins on agility, not horsepower, and Honda built everything around that.

On the road it asks very little of you and gives back plenty. It changes direction with a nudge, and when the pace picks up it stays calmer than something this small has any right to. It's about as cheap to run as motorcycling gets, with 71 mpg (US) from a simple single. It suits new riders, city commuters and experienced hands who want a light back-road toy. Now the caveats. The fork has no adjustment and there's no traction control. This generation also has known gremlins: turn signals that act up in the wet, a fuel pump filter that can clog and make the engine run unevenly, and instrument clusters that fail early. Check all three before you buy.