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/128145
season as a whole, against six for Yamaha - and none for anyone else; but it was the consistent Curtain on his apparently less speedy but more reliable BKM bike who ended up top Honda points scorer, in fifth place in the final points table, one place ahead of Riba, with Foret eighth. Honda had fallen into the same trap as Yamaha in '99, when too many different riders all won races on the then-new R6, handing the title to Suzuki. SPIN TIME WITH BKM The chance to test-ride all three race-winning Hondas in the 2001 World Supersport series came at the HRC test day at Jerez in November, as an appropriate wrap-up to my sampling of all of the top 600 Supersport contenders in the season just ended. Starting off with Kevin Curtain's BKM bike with its Mike D'Hollander-tuned Dholda motor immediately provided a contrast with the last CBR600 Supersport I tested, Muggeridge's carbureted Brands Hatchwinning Ten Kate bike, which I tried out a year ago at Valencia. The 2001 fuel-injected bike is more precise and even crisper on pickup than the old carbureted job was, but the BKM bike also felt quite peaky, with a noticeable surge of topend power above 12,500 rpm, up to the 15,800 rpm rev limiter, which the relatively narrow powerband invites you to aim for in every gear. It still pulled okay from lower down, but there was a noticeable power threshold around 10,500 rpm - let it run any lower than that out of any of Jerez's tighter turns, and you don't go anywhere fast. So it was definitely best to use the one-up race-pattern gearshift and the HRC kit gearbox fitted to the bike, to keep it spinning higher, accompanied by the glorious howl of the Gianelli exhaust. The last time I rode a D'Hollander CBR600 engine was in Riba's '99 Castrol bike, and there you felt that the then-new ultra-short-stroke 67 x 42.5mm engine really wanted to rev, but for Honda's insistence on engine reliability that saw it limited to just 14,500 rpm. Three years later, it's finally doing just that - and the rewards of the fat powerband between 12,500 rpm and 15 grand, with some overrev ability beyond that if you want to save a couple of gearshifts or really max out acceleration, make it all the more worthwhile. Using those extra revs made a noticeable difference to the BKM bike's handling, where zapping through a turn at high rpm on partthrottle made the Honda tighten its line and steer better, like after the tight turn-two right-hander at Jerez, where revving it out for the next double left and again into third for the next, faster left stopped the front end from washing out and made it hold its line better than shortshifting at 14,000 rpm and driving through. Same thing on the two fast right-handers behind the paddock leading back to the pit straight: Use a gear higher, and the Curtain bike held its line bet· ter than if you drove hard through them, which pushed the front wheel. But hard acceleration in a straight line, like out of the last turn, wasn't as good as I expected; nor was the BKM Honda as forgiving and flexible in its power delivery as the Pitt Kawasaki I'd been riding a few weeks earlier. It also didn't feel quite as poised and balanced chassiswise as the Kawasaki, either, even if the WP suspension felt pretty responsive and controlled, without excessive weight transfer lightening the front wheel when I did get on the gas banked over. It wasn't as nimble as Casoli's R6 . Yamaha, though, in spite of having the forks dropped through the yokes a good 30mm or more to speed up the steering, and with the Braking e.thcat't at speed on the ex-Kevin Cumin BKM CBR600 at the Jerez Circuit In Spain. 'Margherita' petal brake discs at the front, which I know from experience comparo-testing the two Corona Suzukis, one with and one without, really do make a difference to lightening up the steering. The BKM Honda did excel under heavy braking, though, like at the end of the back straight at Jerez, or into turn one - balanced, responsive and controllable, with the pull-out from World Supersport racing for this coming season. It's a different story in the wet, though . and the excellence of his Michelin rain tires would have been one reason Curtain's superlative wetweather talents came to the fore last season and made him top Honda points finisher with two race wins and a lot of consistent points-scoring finishes, with only one nonfinish, at Misano. Braking discs and stock Nissin four-pot calipers doing a great job. Though the Michelin tires were pretty worn by the time I got to ride the bike (and the Michelin truck there to service Valentino Rossi and his Vfive didn't have any Supersport tires aboard!), these gave okay grip without feeling you could really push them hard, a factor which presumably reflects the fact that Michelin fell off the race pace in the treaded-tire business last year, heralding their cue I e TEN KATE EYE·OPENER Switching to the Ten Kate bike of Fabien Foret proved a big eye-opener The Ten Kate team bike uses Pirelll tires. The bike was clocked at 181 mph through the speed traps at Monza. n e _ S • MARCH 13, 2002 41