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/128199
chassis never snapped out of line. The Dunlop D208GP Star race tires that we used after lunch gave me the needed confidence to hammer the bike across the paint stripes without any problems. LVMS has a lot of tricky corners that require that you hit the correct line. If you don't, you lose a ton of time trying to get back to where you're supposed to be in the first place. The Honda is the perfect bike for a track like this because it's so forgiving - allowing you to haul the bike back over onto the correct line in places that would seem impossible otherwise. One of the biggest changes to the CBR for 2003 is the new Unit ProLink suspension on the rear of the bike (see the chassis sidebar). LVMS isn't really that bumpy other than the hard transitions going on and off of the tri-oval banking, but the suspension seemed very plush and compliant. I only made one very minor change on the bike all day, and that was a rebound change to the front fork to cure a wobble that I was getting after we changed over to the D208GP Star race tires. Other than the time the tires were warm, I was already comfortable with the bike; now I just had to refamiliarize myself with the track so I wouldn't bore the bike too much. As I said earlier, I was having a hard time picking out any of the bike's characteristics, because the bike is designed to perform, and therefore there weren't exactly any deficiencies rising to the surface. Handling on the new RR is amazing. The new Unit ProLink rear suspension helps drive the bike forward on the exit of the corner without upsetting the front. Once I got accustomed to how the bike's chassis reacted, I was able to grab more and more throttle while leaned over, all without upsetting the chassis. The front end of the bike felt planted, and yet it still has such a light feel that making midcorner corrections is a snap. The beefy 45mm front forks help keep the front planted while under hard braking - if there is any flex at all, it's barely perceptible. Side-toside transitions are amazingly easy, as the bike responds immediately to input. The cool thing is that this doesn't come at the expense of stability. The bike felt really planted and stable in all of the fast sweepers at LVMS (Las Vegas Motor Speedway). If you have ever done a Freddie Spencer High Performance Riding School at the venue, you know that those same sweepers require that you cross back and forth across multiple paint stripes. The CBR600RR would give a quick wiggle from the rear tire but would quickly correct itself and go about the business of corning. I did have a couple of decent slides early in the day on the street-compound Dunlop D208 ZR tires, but they were already used up at that point, and the bike didn't really get out of shape too much. The slides were always really smooth, and the that, the suspension seemed perfect all day. When I was trying to figure out what I thought of the bike's power, I wasn't at first sure because stock 600s always feel kind of slow on the racetrack in terms of acceleration. However, there were a couple of places on the track where I was starting to realize that the motor was picking up revs at an impressive rate. After coming through the chicane off (Left) Honda has fitted a center-up exhaust on the new CBR600RR, clearance will no longer be an Issue. cue I ... n e _ s • FEBRUARY 5.2003 15