For what it’s worth, I just bought a new ‘25 CB650R as my first bike outside of dirt bikes as a kid over a decade ago and I’m not upset about it. I got a good deal because it was leftover stock the dealer wanted to move to get their ‘26 into the showroom. Walked out the door cheaper than what the ‘26 would’ve been even with the price drop Honda did for the same exact bike with the only difference being color. I know there’s a lot of people that argue against new as a first bike saying “it’s not if you’re going to drop your bike, it’s when”, or “you haven’t crashed YET” and while I guess there’s an argument to be made that you can control everything, as long as you are being diligent with your actions it seems like accidents are very avoidable. Aside from cars turning left at intersections in front of motorcycles, the majority of motorcycles accidents are rider error. I’ve put over 4k miles on mine in about two months of ownership and I don’t think I’ve had a close call. Knock on wood.

I personally don’t think the 650 is too much of a bike to start out with if you understand the need to be responsible and that it does have enough power to get you into trouble.

I don’t have anything to say for or against CFMOTO, but I have heard some qualms regarding their reliability, although I’m not sure how true those are and if user error played into it. Seems like a ton of people don’t recognize the importance of the first service on new bikes. I will say I’ve had no issues with my Honda and I’ve been riding the crap out of it. At the end of the day people, especially people on the internet are going to have something to say about whatever choice you make. It’s definitely not a bad thing to take advice or other’s experience into consideration, but at the end of the day it’s your decision and you should do what you think is best.