Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

I' Riding the Cas tro l Hond as of both World Champion Kocinski an d tea mmat e Aaro n Slight at Sentul revea led one crucia l fact: To win the World title this yea r, Hon da reinvented the RC45 (see sidebar for how and wh y). Previous version s that I've ridden felt at once like the p o w e r-u p p ro g en y of the yearbefore' s bike, eve n down to bei ng recognizably d escended from the RC30 of a decade ago, thanks to an u ltra flat torque cu rve and sm ooth power d eliv ery, but with the instant res pon se and cris p thro ttl e action of the RC45' s PGM-Fl fuel-injection package. But the '97 World Champion Hond a has a character all its ow n. Kocin ski's b ik e und erlined this be caus e to make this bike mo tor, you have to rid e it like the four-stroke GP race r th a t it ha s now undoub tedly become. May be that' s w hy Li' I Jo h n too k to it so qu ickly . As the on ly rider to wi n World titles in GP and Superbi ke ra ci ng , th e r ei n ven te d RC4 5 m ust have reminded him of the twos tro kes he used to race in GPs. However, it still drives as cleanly as a road bike ou t of slow turns from as low as 600 rpm , and there's a clea n, strong pu ll into five-figure rev mode. accompa nied by that trad emar k drone fro m the twin -silen cer exhaust. Hond a is the only fou r-cylinder Superbike contender to employ it. From 10,000 rpm on, however, things start to happen faster, even on an engine that at any point in the powerba nd feels hu ngry for revs, it spins up so quickly. Tw istin g th e light-action th rottle p roduces instant engine response, almost as if by magic inertia and friction have o b viously been reduced to the minim u m. And as the engine picks up ever more strongly over 10 gra nd, as soon as the tacho need le hits 13,000 rp m, it' s like the leopard changes its spots, Dr. Jekyll becomes Mr. Hyde - o r any o ther ch a m el eon cliche yo u can thi nk of. Ab ruptly, the wo rld goes int o fast forward, a nd the Ho nd a takes off. Th is four-s tro ke Superbike takes on the mantle of a two-stroke GP racer - vou have to pinch yourself to make sure yo u're not riding Mid Doohan's NSR. The increase in eng ine speed, and th u s acce lerat ion , is literally awesome. No thing I have ever ridden before wit h valves tha t go up and down - an d especially not anot her Superbike - picks up speed like this on a race track. And in spite of the World Superbike class's 70pound weig ht penalt y, 1 reckon there a re a few 500cc GP bikes that wo u ld s tr u g g le to stay on terms with th is Honda four-stroke coming out ofa tum. It even sounds d ifferent, that flat drone becoming more of a whine as the revs pick up so quickly, and all of a sudde n yo u' re making friends with the 14,750rpm rev-limiter. becaus e you w eren 't paying attention and were unprepared for that ru sh of revs. Okay, a qu ick tap on the fabulously s m ooth power-s hifter - hold the gas wid e open as you do so - and there's a s li g h t cha ng e in oc ta ve le vel as the motor d rops a few hund red revs before rus hi ng to s hake hand s with the revlimiter again. The fact that the gea r clu ster isn ' t ext ractable for quick internal ratio changes cou ld be a handicap in ma king the most out of this motorcycle, because gearing it to take full ad vantage of th e relatively narrow su per-powerband could be quite critical. Perhaps this is w hy their rivals sa y the Honda duo spe nd quite a lot of time fluttering the rev-limiter for as long as two or three seconds ra the r than waste a gea r change. (Len) The name on the fairing s peaks volumes, but KocinskI's Wo rld Champ io nsh ip tit le was actually the culm ination of five years of const ant development to • and practically a reinvention of • the RC45. (Below) In contrast to Kocinsk i's bike, Slight's mach ine feels longer, lower and more stable, Slight also prefers to utilize Honda's CBS Iinked-brake system, whereas Koc inski does not. w Make no mist ake ; Though the Honda has increa sed midrange gru nt as well, a nd th e old d ip in th e p ower cu r ve around 12,000 rpm is now just a memory, the RC45's substantial extra top -end power makes it important to rev th e bike hard exiting a tum if you want to ma x ou t your d rive down th e nex t straight. You d on't need to be a superstar to get it on out of Senru l's last turn, thou gh, where a s lo w r ight- hand er lea d s th rough a faster kin k o n to the long fro nt s tra ig ht. Once .you get the line right, jus t pr ess the trigger a nd feel the Honda rocket out of the bend, tapping th e power-shifter each time you see th e ta cho n eedl e s hoo ting past 14,500 re vs. With a bit of luck, you will avoid the 14,750 r e v-limiter, even though I once - ahem - tried to change up into a no nexistent se venth gear at those revs. MmIJ' - w hat was that about fluttering the rev-limiter ? Well, that was also the lap I dis covered the truth abo ut how well the Honda reall y brakes. In the r igh t-h a n d e r at the end of the s tra ig h t, pani c se t in , a n d I had to squeeze extra- ha rd to stop because I'd missed my brake marker . Fortunately, this wasn' t the lap on which the dog ran o u t in front of me the re. (That ca me laterl) Ho pping aboard Kocinski' s bike, I'd imm ediately discovered the sa me GP s ty le stance as on his works Ducati which I rod e a year ago, with jacked -up re ar rid e h ei ght , low-set handlebars qu ite wide-spread for added levera ge, a thick pad on the back of the scat to keep your bod y weight in the middle of the w heelbase - but still a surprisingly spacious riding position that gives lots of room to mo ve about the bike , because John sits farther back on the bike than Aaron, who loads up the fron t end with his body we ight. On the Kocinski bike, this allows you to luck well down in a A a ~ ~ r-, 0\ 0\ .... rr) ... Q) .0 E Q) u Q) c 19

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