Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127870
998Hon aCBR d 900RR FIRST RIDE 1 (Below) Though very s imilar in look to the model it replace s, make no mistake about the 1998 CBR900RR - it is a changed motorcycle. It's also only $100 more than last year 's bike. percent m or e so - th e result o f a new tapered-box-sect ion d esi g n and some serious bracing. At th e fron t, the fork sp a n was made 10mm wider (yes, for sti ffn ess), a nd as w eight-saving measures, the steering stern and lower triple clamp, fo r mer ly of s teel, are now a luminum. All told, th e fra me is so me 10 percent sti ffer than the '97 overa ll, thou gh not as s tiff as th e fi rs t-gene ra tion bike. The new ly .found rigidity came at the cost of weight - in both the fram e and swingarm - but careful desi gn elsewhere has nullified this inc rease, yi eld in g a machine th at . scales 6.6 p ou nd s lighter than the one it rep laces, and under the magic 4OG-pou nd ma rk. With all these new fra me d vnamics in pl ay, sus pe nsion got a t weak job as well . The 45mm fork's settings we re refined to help improve feel, bu t the big new s is the "RC45-inspired, " a lum inum cartridges, which are 5.4 ou nces ligh ter t h an th e on es th ey replace. (Remember th e carefu l en ginee ring mentioned abo ve?) At the rear, the Pro-Link rising-rate linkag e h a s a genera lly s tiffer ratio, althou gh th e rat e of in cr ease ov er the sus pension stro ke is less steep tha n on las t year's bike. Like the front end, valving and spri ngs rates have changed, with run By Mark Hoye r Photos by Kevin Wing 50 s journalistic pronouncemen ts go, "The yea r of the..." is one of the more flogged . Every year for; oh, the last 10 has been th e Year of the Woman in rock 'n' roll. We here in the motorcycle worl d ge t the Year of the Superbike, the Year of the 600, and so fo rth . Bu t it's a phrase that's ha rd to resist when you ge t seve ral substantially new, exciting motorcycles making their appearance in the same model year, and in a class that was hitherto basically populated by a sing le bike... So, here we are, friends: the Year of the Open Classers . Th e concept of st uffi ng a co m pact, Iiter-elass engi ne in a compact 600cc-size chassis was pret ty much origina ted more th an half a deca de ag o with th e first Honda CBR900RR, a benchmark bike for those who liked the eye-popping acceleration and torque of an open-class .bike me lded wit h the su pern imble handling of middleweigh t machines. The d oubl eR has been a success , forem ost in sales, but also on the track, if wi th a good measure of tweaking to do so. Lo these ma ny years la ter, this class o f o n e h a s s u d den ly becom e v e ry crowded , with serious all-new ent ries from bo th Yamaha, with its YZF-R1, and (Right) Increases in frame and swingarm rigidity, coupled with Smm more trail, has made the new double-R a much more confidence-inspiring and capable - ridethan in years past. Kawasaki, with the ZX-9R. Luckily, Honda appears ready for the ch a ll en ge, entering 1998 with a CBR900RR that is both ligh ter and more powerful than the on e it rep laces, and ai med not on ly at being "the best sportbike, with to tal control" and being "the most aerodynamic, lightweight, best handli ng" machin e going, bu t also having its sui tabilty for racing expa nded, as well. This meant some fairly significant changes took place, despite the fact that the CBR re tain s the same basic character as the models w hich preced ed it. Per hap s the mo st significant of these cha nges were to the tr ipl e-box-secti on , tw in -spar alu min um chassis . C BRs of years past, particularly the just-repl aced ge neration with its more flexible "tu ned" chassis, made for livel y handling wh en ridden near the limit. In ~ n effort to combat th is, se vera l altera tions were made. The foremost of these was to the steering geome try . Whil e th e bike retains th e 24-degree h ead a n g le used last ye a r - and the qu ick-turning 16-inch front wheel used since the model's inception - the trail has been lengthened 5mm (now 95mm) wi th diffe rent-offset trip le clamps, in an effort to add stability. To main tai n th e same effective wheelbase of 55.1 inches, the steeri ng h ead was m o ved fo rward 5.5m m to, uh, offset the change in offset. In ad dition to this, the wa ll thickness of the main chassis spars has increased, maki ng the fram e more rigid, thou gh the outside dimensions are the same as last year. The pi vot p la tes d idn't es cape, eithe r, the low er sec tio n to w hich the sw ingarm attaches give n mod ified ribbing to make it more resistant to flex. And it d oesn't end there: The swi ngarm, too , is much m or e rigid - a total of 27 the main goal at the rear to improve handling under acceleration. To illustrate the difference be tween the 1997 and ' 98 versions of the bike, Honda had both models on hand at the recent press introduction at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. While the '97's wellbroken-in engine felt a little more crisp in its response than the '98's (only 500 miles on the clock' ), the same could not be said about the chass is. Up to a certain p oint, the bikes felt understandably similar on the track, the alterati ons in ridi ng position basically impercep tible between the two mod els and the layou t of the bikes very much alike. Turn-in on both 900s was light, precise and very, ver y qu ick. But w he re you cou ld so mewha t fearlessly tread the limits of lean an gle and traction on the '98, there was a definite poi nt on the older bike where things sud denly got very iffy-feeling. It was as thou gh some-