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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128137
Colin Edwards' Castrol Honda RC51/SP-2 and more centralized mass, and even with Edwards' preference for quite conservative chassis geometry in search of faster turn speeds and extra front-wheel grip. Yet, in spite of that, handling is very neutral: the Honda doesn't run wide exiting a turn hard on the gas, like on that crucial fast right leading onto the Jerez back straight on the 50 percent of laps I could pick the right line - there's no understeer, and it doesn't push the front wheel even when you crack the throttle hard open leaned right over. Though this is still a superlative piece of machinery which will provide the basis for a very competitive privateer racer in the hands of the Rumi team and other satellite efforts next season, it does seem likely that HRC's inevitable concentration - in terms of both budget and manpower on developing the V-five MotoGP contender has had an inevitable ruboff on their RCS1 Superbike project. Ducati and Aprilia have both worked very hard to improve their machinery - in If the bike's moving the back wheel around in the air as you're laying into the apex, this doesn't exactly inspire confidence, and I couldn't be sure every lap I had the right line. Maybe there's a way around this, or you just get used to it and put up with it. I tried preloading the back suspension by using the rear brake first before I braked hard with the front, and this helped a bit, even if Edwards apparently never uses the rear Nissin - but the Honda just doesn't feel as well-balanced chassiswise as the two Italian V-twins, and especially not as well as the excellent Aprilia. Where it does score well is on the fantastic feedback from the Showa suspension - as last year, you can feel the rear Michelin's level of grip almost as well as jf you were sitting on the tire, there's such a direct feedback via the Showa rear shock. This is a bike whose chassis talks to you in a way few others will do, and once you lay it into the tum it's very confidence-inspiring. However, you not only need to be ready for that front wheel to get light when you switch the power on to drive out of the apex - and that was in spite of a stiff 20pound spring on the Showa shock, which should be more than enough to cope with my extra weight compared to Colin - you also have to be prepared for the Honda's more abrupt pickup from a closed throttle than either of the Italian bikes. It's not as noticeable as it was a year ago in the rain at Motegi, but it's not ideal and you need to try to preload the throttle a bit to try to com- 16 JANUARY 16, 2002' eye pensate for the snatchy response from the large-diameter (62mm) dual-injector throttle bodies - I'd have preferred a higher idle speed to try to overcome this, and this might also have helped stabilize the bike a bit stopping hard for a turn, with enhanced engine braking via the slipper clutch. As it is now, the trick is to preload the throttle just a crack as you let off the brakes, which allows you to open up on the gas again progressively without a jerk while still leaned over, before getting hard back on it again for the drive out of the turn. When that happens, be prepared for the front wheel to pick up a little in the bottom three gears as all that torque makes its way to the back wheel - but only a little, with nothing like as aggressive an engine response or as rearward a weight bias as the Ducati, which makes the sight of Bayliss and Ruben Xaus with the front wheel a foot in the air and the bike going one way while their bodies go the other so commonplace. Even above the trademark whine from its gear-driven cams, there's quite a distinctive exhaust note from the RCS1's twin Siovenian-made silencers, because the Honda .engine sounds slightly higher-pitched than its gO-degree desmoquattro rival, though not so much as the 60degree Aprilia, which also vibrates a little more than the so-smooth RCS1. Changing direction on the Honda is its strong suit, doubtless thanks to a combination of its compact build, lower center of gravity, • e n e _ s (Top) In the Battle of the Twins that World Superbike racIng has become, the author feels that the RCS1 may be third best of the three. (Left) The Honda stops brilliantly, thanks to the slxpIston Nlssln brakes. (Below) The analog tach Is the way to go, according to Cathcart. The Ducati racer uses a digital unIt that Isn't as easy to read.