Is it a REAL sports bike?

. . . now that I've got your attention, I'll explain myself.When I chose the cbr250r and made the commitment to buy, I wasn't really in the market for a sport bike. I might have just bought a bigger scooter. There was other logic in play.

I had come to the conclusion that as fun as the metro was to ride around town at some point I would ride myself into a situation that I couldn't ride out of. I needed something with a higher top speed and acceleration. All the new scooters (at least the ones that are any good) are pricey. Some casual research brought me to the conclusion that if I wanted to keep riding and do it more safely and economically a motorcycle might be a better ride. Well, OK, nobody had to twist my arm to switch to riding motorcycles. Bicycles, scooters, motorcycles, I love riding them all.
Since I've ridden many motorcycles but never owned my own I had to give this some thought; this is the first that I have owned if you don't count the rusting hulk of a 400cc Suzuki dirt bike that I bought to make a chopper when I was 17 years old (another story, another time). I'm really just getting back to it so hopping on a 600cc bike is probably not a good idea. That's how I stumbled across this Honda. I was already riding Honda and like their products. They had other scooters but again, the price and the engine size (though I would have gone for a "Super"-Metro if they put this 250cc fuel-injected engine in it; that would be a great scooter). Other small motorcycle offerings were not numerous at least for street bikes. I didn't care for the looks or seat height of the dual-sport style bikes and I have nothing against cruisers (but am not their biggest fan). There are not a lot of what used to be called a 'standard' motorcycle anymore probably because they all suffer from sportbike styling and engineering.

Anyway, the thing I noticed about many of the reviews and comparisons that put CBR250r against Ninja 250 or the Hyosung was the statement a lot of the reviewers were making about CBR250R '...not being a REAL sport bike'. Hmmm, It kinda looks like one to me . . . and they do race them. I saw this often enough that I think one of them said it and the rest started parroting (No, my journalists wouldn't do that . . . they read every word of the boohk and watch every minute of the movie).

I think it's a sport bike . . a small one but still a sport bike. It suits me just fine. But I'll put it to the panel. Is CBR250R a real sport bike?