Honda CB Unicorn 160 review, test ride

The tank maintains a similar profile, but now sports angular shrouds on either side. Moving on to the bike flanks, the CB Unicorn 160 has a nice play of different textures and a balanced mix of lines and curves which lead to the seat, rear cowl and swingarm. This gives the new Honda motorcycle a nice, flowing yet strong and purposeful stance. What stands out in contrast is an all-black engine, with smart bright red 'Honda' engraving. Honda has made several important updates to this powerplant. Although the CB Unicorn 160 felt just as high quality and well finished a motorcycle as expected from Honda, we did face one issue with the new bike, in that one of its bar end weights on the handlebars actually fell right off while parking.

The engine with increased capacity has some design changes visible on its exterior. Within, you get longer stroke, better heat dissipation and all this with no compromise on that dash of Honda refinement. Bits such as ridges on the crankcase are to aid thermal properties and help maintain good operating temperature. Crank the CB Unicorn’s 162.71cc, four-stroke, carbureted motor, and you're greeted with a familiar Unicorn engine sound, now with a little more grunt in the exhaust note, that’s apparent even at idle, thanks to a redesigned exhaust system. The new air-cooled engine feels even less vibey than the previous one, which was already gossamer smooth, and that would be thanks to the CB Unicorn 160 including a counter-balancer to one end of the crankshaft, that irons out all vibrations. Slot the single-cylinder motorcycle into first gear via its heel-and-toe shift lever, and all you hear and feel is a congenial, positive click. Let out the clutch, and the CB Unicorn 160 moves forward with more assertion than its older iterations.

The engine feels so much more torquey than earlier, and it pulls harder too, although do please hang on for all the details as we are yet to conduct a complete performance test. Honda claims the motorcycle will take you up to 106kph, however we achieved much higher figures when pushing the CB Unicorn 160 hard. It does take time to build speed further once you're in the higher 90kph range. Reaching there though is no problem at all for this peppy motorcycle. The revs climb up the counter quick enough, though you start to feel limited once the engine hits the electronic limiter at a little over 11,000rpm. You won't need to go there often though, because this engine stops making any significant progress above 8,000 rpm.