Honda's '17 CBR1000RR made it to the podium coming in 3rd place in Motorcycle.com's '17 Superbike Street Shootout and beat out all its Japanese rivals. The way they talked about the Honda at the beginning of the vid made me think it was gonna win the whole thing although they did mention the false neutral issue in the written article. While it was still underpowered compared to the others in terms of peak hp they raved about its low weight and its excellent midrange power and that it also had the best weight to torque ratio of any bike in the test. Alas, the Aprilia RSV4 RR took first place with the S1000RR taking 2nd just barely ahead of the Honda. Everyone gushed about how great the Aprilia's V4 sounds. I'd like to think the success of Aprilia's V4 will help convince Honda to build their own reasonably priced (under $184,000 preferably ) V4 supersport which has been rumored for how long? The article seems to suggest that Ducati is also set to unleash their own V4 powered supersport at this year's EICMA show and that this might explain why Ducati did not make a Panigale available for their test. This doesn't make much sense though because they did provide a Panigale for MCN's '17 Superbike Shootout (see vid below) in which it got 2nd place behind the CBR - very strange they wouldn't provide one to Motorcycle.com as well. I thought the matte black base model CBR looked fantastic (much better than the Aprilia IMO) and the LED headlights looked awesome. I hadn't noticed this before but it looks like the LED position lights in the CBR's mirrors were strobing/flashing - I wonder if we could get the LED position lights in the 8th gen's mirrors to do the same? Would certainly help with our visibility to cagers. These reviews are making me want to take the new CBR for a test ride! Link to Motorcycle.com's 2017 Superbike Street Shootout article: http://www.motorcycle.com/shoot-outs/2017-superbike-street-shootout Motorcycle.com 2017 Superbike Street Shootout: MCN 2017 Superbike Shootout:
I don't care for the looks of any of them. For a guy of my height 6'3" they feel like 3/4 size. Unless you live in an area with twistyroads they are pretty much a waste of time. If they made them the size of my 95 vfr, then I could see the point. With today's technology there is no reason they can't make them light but bigger.
I do like the looks of the new CBR and BMW. I agree that all those bikes in the supersport test seem kind of small compared to the Interceptor. The Interceptor is obviously in a different class of bike (sporty sports-tourer) which places more of an emphasis on comfort and long distance riding compared to the SuperSport class. One nice thing about the Interceptor is it kind of looks like a supersport and kind of sounds like one too (at least with a slip-on) but is not treated like one by the insurance companies. And as Smoke proved in his track day vid (see below) an Interceptor in the hands of a skilled rider can embarrass some SuperSport riders. To me the VFR is the perfect blend of sporty and comfort. Have you ridden the S1000RR? I'm 6'2" and test rode one and even though you are very leaned forward on it I found that once I got up to speed it was actually a pretty comfortable ride because the wind blast seems to perfectly counter the forward lean such that there was no strain on my back or wrists at all. Still not as comfy as my Interceptor of course but at the end of my ride (albeit only 25 minutes) I didn't want to get off it - just an absolute blast to ride - I think you would fit on it just fine even at 6'3". I've sat on the '17 CBR 1000RR at a bike show and it did seem very small but I haven't had an opportunity to ride one yet.
Good video. A good rider with obviously decent tires. You can do a track day on anything that has 2 wheels and have fun. Cannot disagree. The vfr is an excellent bike. Have always liked inline fours, but love the v4 on my 1995. Rode an 8th gen. and wasn't impressed with the engine feel. But I do know if I owned one I would grow to love it.
