Litre-class sportbike now tighter handling Lighter weight helps for 296 km/h on track
Jan. 21, 2006. 01:00 AM

LAS VEGAS—Honda's theory with sportbikes has been to provide a competent platform for a racebike but, at the same time, to always maintain a degree of street friendliness and competency.

The fly in this philosophical ointment is that while the CBR600RR is competitive in any organization it competes in, the 1000RR has been conspicuous by its absence on victory podiums around the world.

The main reason I went to Vegas was to ride the heavily revised 2006 CBR100RR at the Freddie Spencer High Performance Riding School. The original RR hit the streets two years ago — in sportbike life-cycle terms, it was ready for the elephant graveyard.

Honda says almost 60 per cent of the components were redesigned, which saved kg — fairly substantial in a state-of-the-art motorcycle.

As an example, the brake rotors were increased from 310 to 320mm for better braking, but were shaved from 5 to 4.5 mm thickness, saving 300 grams of unsprung weight.

Simply getting the weight down wasn't the main goal with the 1000RR redesign, although that alone will result in such major benefits as improved stopping, better handling and fiercer acceleration.

Not only did Honda's engineers shed kilos, they made modifications that sharpened the chassis as well. A tweak here that pulled the steering head in a quarter of a degree, a shortening there of the wheelbase — all these minor changes made a significant improvement in the way the motorcycle behaves.

For comparison, we had a 2005 1000RR as well as a couple of '06 models and the difference was remarkable. The '05 wasn't exactly a bus but the '06 was much easier to initiate the turn-in, as well as very quick and requiring far less muscle in side-to-side transitions.

Riding around the Las Vegas motor speedway (including the NASCAR banking) really showcased the improvements in the new model — it's much easier to get into a corner and seems to hold its line better.

Increasing horsepower in a litre-class motorcycle is like bringing a six pack to an open bar. Honda not only pumped up the jam, it made it more user-friendly at the same time. The powerband is wider and there's no big "hit" at any point. The off-idle throttle response was also refined — very important when dealing with 150-plus ponies just itching to be unleashed.

The riding position seems identical between the two models (not a bad thing), the only change being that the seat foam is softer on the new bike.

I was feeling a little too beat up to really put the motorcycle through its paces (Ed. note: Don't crash next time), but I managed a few sessions — enough seat time so the differences between the two models were readily apparent.

Spencer and his instructors (eminently more qualified to pass comment than I, even when healthy) thought the '06 bike was a huge improvement.

In fact, at the end of the second day, Nick Ienatsch went out with Spencer to see what kind of top speeds they could generate just by white-knuckling around the banking. Ienatsch reported an indicated 296 km/h on one particular lap (not too shabby), and that it was rock solid all the way.

Whether these changes will be enough to get the 1000RR into the winner's circle is a question that can't be answered until racing season, but I'm betting Big Red will be visiting the podium a lot more frequently.

Steve Bond, a freelance journalist