Rennie Scaysbrook | July 25, 2016

It looks like the international little bike market just got a bit sharper overnight, with the release of the highly anticipated Honda CBR250RR in Indonesia.

Originally unveiled as a concept at the Tokyo Motor Show last year, the response has been such that Honda has fast-tracked production in a move that will eventually see the machine push out the single-cylinder CBR300R from the line-up.

The new Honda will come with a Throttle by Wire (TbW) system with three separate maps, a first for the category. The CBR250RR is graced with some serious bad ass styling and that could hint at the future direction of Honda sportbikes (including as yet unseen, all-new 2017 CBR1000RR), with twin LED headlights sitting in a sharp race-style fairing, a twin outlet right side-mounted muffler, inverted forks and ABS with petal-style discs.

The CBR250RR harks back to the original four-cylinder CBR250RR model of the late 1980s in its pure race-derived dimensions.

Powered by a 250cc four-stroke, eight-valve parallel twin, Honda is claiming “class leading performance” from the Honda Indonesia website but this is against bikes like the Yamaha R25 and KTM RC250, two machines that don’t make it to the USA. Visordown.com has noted that should the CBR make it to Europe and the U.S., it is expected the capacity will be increased to at least 300cc to be on equal footing with the twin-cylinder Yamaha YZF-R3 and single-cylinder KTM RC 390.

But it doesn’t look like the CBR250RR will be making the trip from Indonesia to the U.S. any time soon.

“The CBR250RR was developed primarily for the Indonesia market,” says American Honda’s Motorcycle Media Coordinator, Tony DeFranze. “It will be manufactured there and begin sales by the end of 2016. Honda is planning to release the CBR250RR in Japan at a later date but there are no plans at this time to sell the CBR250RR in the US.”

So for now, the closest you’ll get in the U.S. to a CBR250RR will be these pictures. Bummer.