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/128151
2002 Open Bike Shootout Honda CBRB54RR VS. Kawasaki ZX-BR Suzuki GSX-R1 000 vs. Yamaha YZF-R1 VS. PAINT IT BLACK name of the game, and the bike that can do it all is a shoe-in for the title. Last year, the Suzuki GSX-Rl000 narrowly defeated the Yamaha YZFR1 for top honors in the Cycle News Open Bike Shootout, primarily because we were so enamored with the Suzuki's sheer horsepower. Was the GSX-R1000 really the best bike? Just barely. The Suzuki just squeezed by with its near-lethargic handling (mainly due to the steering damper) and suspension, and its so-so brakes. But that motor, it messes with your head, in the same way any vice does. It's intoxicating, and it makes you ignore everything else going on around you and act irrational just to get that fix of power. However, the competition didn't sit around for the past year waiting for that bully Suzuki to kick the stuffing out of them again. Both Honda and Yamaha redesigned their bikes from the tarmac up 'for '02 with the new CBR954RR and YZF-R1, respectively. STORY AND PHOTOS BY BLAKE CONNER e were holding our guts laughing as we idled along in fuJI reconnaissance mode, inspecting the sites on which we had just wreaked havoc. The gray tarmac had signs of a series of sorties in which the objective was to paint as many black, full-stick, smoking layers of rubber on the track as possible, and it looked as if not only was the mission successful, but we had brought the right hardware. Of all of the tests we do each year, the Cycle News Open Bike Shootout was once again the streetbike shootout that we were looking forward to the most. There just isn't another class that packs as much of a pure-performance punch as this one. Sure, there are stock bikes with more power, but if you are looking for sportbike nirvana, you needn't look any further than the total performance these bikes offer. Acceleration, braking, and corner speed is the W 34 APRIL 24, 2002ยท ... U ... I e n e _ s We approached this shootout without a clue as to who would be the victor, primarily due to the fact that the bikes involved all have such different design philosophies and feature different strengths. One thing that we did know was that, as far as brute power is concerned, nothing can touch the Suzuki - not yet anyway not with that monster motor pounding out 147.5 rear-wheel horsepower. What we didn't know was how everything else was going to stack up brakes, suspension, handling, throttle response, etc. - but that's why we do these shootouts. We wanted to try a new track this year and ended up at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway's outside road course - meaning the one over the fence from the speedway. The eightturn layout looked like a lot of fun and has many different characteristics that proved to be good for testing. The track has a nice combination of fast and slow corners, with some hard-braking zones and some nice bumps to give the suspension a workout in the turn-one braking area. One thing that we didn't count on was that windy weather in the area had blown a thin layer of dust over the track that even the track sweeper wasn't able to remove. It took us a while to wear a groove into the dust and get down to the tarmac underneath. Our other concern was that we were riding on Michelin race tires, which are notorious for coming up to temperature slowly. But the new Pilot Race H2 tires proved our concerns to be unwarranted, as they were perfect the entire day (see sidebar) and offered amazing grip despite the track's condition. The H2s have shed their slow-to-warm-up reputation as far as we're concerned. We have split the shootout up into categories for engine/transmission, handling/suspension, brakes, fit and finish/ergonomics/and miscellaneous features. eN