Much has been written about Honda's venerable VFR series of motorcycles. Most of it is favorable, with a few complaints mixed in. Unfortunately, the commentators are not very forthright in disclosing their own likes and prejudices, which makes interpreting the comments somewhat difficult.
I'll put my biases up front, in hopes that they make my comments easier to understand and appreciate (or discount!) as appropriate. I got my M license in '82, on a 70cc Honda Passport. I wanted to save gas, in an energy crisis that turned out to be over. After a couple thousand miles I quit riding; it just wasn't worth the trouble in my neighborhood (south Orange County, California). I didn't think about riding for 16 years.
Fast forward to 1999. I'm working at UC Berkeley, living only about 1.5 miles away up a very steep hill. After six months of walking to work, I remember my M endorsement which has somehow become M1. Parking is free (!) for motorcycles, versus $100 per month for cars.
I decided to seek riding lessons, thinking that I'd basically forgotten how to ride and unsure if I wanted to resume. A private instructor turned up, Michael Cowan, who would rent bikes to students who passed muster. This looked like a good way to find out whether I wanted to take up two wheels again without the expense of buying a bike. Michael's apparently out of the business now, which is sad. He was a very good instructor.
Michael's instruction nicely demonstrated that I'd never learned how to ride, and was in effect starting from scratch. That explained a lot of my discomfort riding the little Honda 70. Through a mix of good luck and good will, I found a Honda tlr200, a street-legal trials bike. Everybody I talked to said it was too small, but it was inexpensive, available and seemed challenge enough. My commute to work was short and slow, the East Bay hills provided a wealth of practice roads.
After a year of commuting every day and about 4k miles of practice, it suddenly dawned that riding could be fun. It certainly wasn't fun all the time, but in an instant I understood a new reason to ride. For me, the 200 was not too small. However, it was too uncomfortable for rides over two hours and too slow for routine rides on the freeway, despite being freeway legal(>150cc).
The point is that my motives to ride are mostly practical. Motorcycles are tools used to solve transportation problems. That's my bias. They can also entertain, but it's fun to be wary of. That's my prejudice. Or, you could say I'm a coward. I'd crashed on bicycles a few times, knew how much that hurt at less than 20 mph and have no wish to repeat the experiment, especially not with power assist.
The attributes I care about are agility, comfort, weight and speed. Reading reviews it seemed that Honda's vfr800 did pretty well on comfort and from the numbers on other bikes considered comfortable it wasn't all that heavy. It got panned for speed, but I didn't really care. Nobody said much about agility. The single sided swingarm looked like a good idea, as did the centerstand. Having worked on multiple carbs, fuel injection was highly appealing.
Eventually a nice used '98 vfr800 came to hand. The weight was the first thing I noticed, as in "too much". The second thing to catch my attention was that it's slow... NOT .
After a year and about 8k miles of acclimation to the vfr, I started to appreciate its refinement. I don't particularly care for freeway riding, but the vfr dispatched miles far more easily than I did. In the backroads (Morgan Territory, Mount Diablo, Mount Hamilton) it was easy to control, comfortable and pointlessly fast. It was also heavy. Parking, riding at walking speed on rough surfaces or recovering from a tipover, gave pause.
The weight of the vfr bothered me so much that I bought an sv650s, hoping it would be a smaller, lighter, more agile version of the vfr. I added a centerstand, hard luggage, heated handgrips, cornering lights, even lowering the seat, to match the vfr's ergonomics in a lighter package. The effort failed. It was a good lesson in what makes a motorcycle "work".
For me, the vfr "works" better than the sv650s. That shouldn't be a huge surprise, for half again as much money it ought to work better.
The surprise is how the vfr works better. Until I have to dab, the vfr is easier to control. The clutch works better, the steering works better, the brakes work better. Not better in the sense of faster, but better in the sense of doing what's needed, effortlessly.
The vfr makes surprise adjustments easy, the sv demands some deliberation. With a bunch of tweaks (tires, clutch cable routing) the sv is less crude. Still, it's easier to ride a 525 pound vfr800 at walking speed through a supermarket parking lot than a 425 pound sv650s. On a dirty uphill climb it's easy to balance the vfr's clutch against the brakes for a slow, cautious crawl to the summit.
The sv's quick clutch, cable crosstalk and sensitive rear brake make the same maneuver much harder, to the point that I've had to dab on the sv. Re-routing the clutch cable has helped the sv considerably. There's no comparable issue on the vfr: The clutch is absolutely predictable, the rear brake precise and infinitely adjustable.
At higher speeds vibration and wind become big issues; tingly fingers and a feeling that the wind is trying to pry one off the bike do not contribute to a rider's endurance. The vfr scores much better in both regards. V-fours are smoother than V-twins, a fat fairing helps. Having done a few 450+ mile rides (I5 from Berkeley to south of Los Angeles) on both the vfr and the svs there's no doubt that the limitation is rider endurance, not the bike's. Any bike in the stable can withstand the run easily, but at least _this_ rider is happier on a vfr. Comfort matters.
Comfort has taken a perverse twist on my move to Davis CA. Heat is the enemy, the vfr blocks wind and is a very warm ride. Not good in these parts.At least in summer. Come wintertime and tule fogs the story will change.
In throttle response the sv bests the vfr. Contrary to a lot of reports, the fuel injected vfr does not have an unpredictable throttle. It does have a very slow engine braking recovery. For riders like me who use engine braking in preference to friction brakes that might be an issue. Off idle the vfr800 takes the throttle flawlessly, but it is harder to roll on the throttle from closed at 20 mph in first gear.
For riders who enjoy precison and are willing to deal with a measure of corpulence, the vfr will reward abundantly. The throttle response isn't easy but it's predictable. Everything else is easy, save the weight.