2019 HONDA CBR1000RR SP
R I D E R E V I E W
P66
have that little flick of the switch
that makes touring (stuff some
people actually do on a CBR) that
much more enjoyable. The bike
has wheel-speed sensors and a
ride-by-wire throttle, so there's no
reason cruise control should be
omitted from the package.
The second is the rubber
brake lines, which faded after
about three hard laps on track. A
premium product like this should
not have such penny-saving mea-
sures in place, especially when
you've got stuff like electronic Oh-
lins suspension at your disposal.
On the street, brake perfor-
mance was fine, but it was always
in the back of my mind that I had
to be extra careful on the brakes
at the hard-braking venue of But-
tonwillow in California. Having
such great Brembo monoblocs
matched to those brake lines
should be illegal.
One of the most annoy-
ing things at the track was the
wheelie control. When I tested
the first version of the SP in 2017
at Portimao, the single biggest
gripe I had with the bike was that
the traction and wheelie control
algorithms were linked, mean-
ing if you did a power wheelie,
the ECU would chop the power
drastically. It was awfully annoy-
Three laps in at Buttonwillow and Rennie already wishes he had some steel brake lines.
