A decade or so ago, the number 675 pointed to one brand and one brand alone in the world of motorcycles. It’s hard to imagine that the very first Triumph Daytona 675 first hit the road nearly two decades ago. Back then—and even today—you could argue that the Hinckley company still makes the smoothest, best-performing triples.
But that never stopped other companies from trying their hand at the good old triple.
Indeed, there’s a new player in the three-cylinder sportbike game, and it comes from CFMoto, a Chinese manufacturer that’s been flexing its muscles quite a bit in recent years. Now, we’ve tried quite a lot of this brand’s products, and honestly, we’re very impressed with what the company has to offer. It seems that CFMoto is focusing on building bikes that enthusiasts really want. Case in point: the Ibex 450 adventure bike.
As for the new three-cylinder sportbike, it’s dubbed the 675 SR, and it was teased in a special edition Aspar livery meant to pay homage to Jorge “Aspar” Martinez, who is currently the manager of the Aspar Racing Team in the Moto2 and Moto3 classes of the MotoGP. And so you could definitely say that the 675 SR Aspar edition is CFMoto’s sportiest, most race-inspired model to date, both in terms of form and function.
Its engine is a 675cc, liquid-cooled, fuel-injected, three-cylinder engine. Now, it remains to be seen if it’s a copycat of Triumph’s—or MV Agusta’s, for that matter—675cc triple, but we do know it pumps out fewer ponies with just 98 horsepower versus Triumph’s 125-ish ponies. Torque is a respectable 50 pound-feet at the upper reaches of the engine’s rev range.
The bike follows the rest of CFMoto’s SR lineup and sports a full-fairing, low clip-ons, and high rearsets. It even gets a bunch of modern aero touches like front winglets and cutouts on the tail.
Beneath the surface, the 675 SR is underpinned by a steel trellis frame, and gets fully adjustable suspension both front and back. Like most sportbikes in its weight class, it comes to a stop with dual front disc brakes and a single rear disc, presumably with switchable ABS as standard.
CFMoto’s been teasing its 675cc sportbike for nearly a year now, and it’s clear to see that we’re inching closer to a production-ready model. It is, however, important to note that the 675 SR Aspar Special Edition is still just a concept, but it certainly looks like one that’s ready to hit the road and track any moment now.
It seems that the future of the middleweight sportbike segment has quite a lot of potential, as we're seeing a bunch of new models from both new and established players in the game.
And while the big brands seem to be focusing on parallel-twin platforms, up-and-coming players from China seem to be more daring when it comes to stuffing inline-three and inline-four engines in their sportbikes.
