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/128206
2003 Middleweight Shootout: Honda CBR600RR (636) VS. VS. Kawasaki ZX-6R Suzuki GSX-R600 vs. Yamaha YZF-R6 pirelli Diablo This year we decided to fit a single set of tires to each of the bikes for both the street and the track portions of the test. Actually, we were just being lazy and didn't want to change the tires on all six bikes overnight. Can you blame us? Over the past couple of years, a new market segment has popped up: hybrid tires. These are tires that are designed as high-performance street tires but are also capable of everything on the track except fulltilt racing conditions. We chose PirelJi's awesome new Diablo tires, and they didn't disappoint. Even racer boy Montano was extremely impressed with their performance, saying that he was riding as fast as he felt comfortable that day and that they heid up awesome and offered more than enough grip. The cool thing is that they performed equally well the next day on the street in the canyons above Malibu. If you want to read more about these tires, see Cycle News issue #8, February 5, 2003. If handling is what you want, the R8 is your bike. So. after a month of riding these bikes in all of the aforementioned environments and liv- • The Ora str. As we mentioned in the story, we enlisted the help of professional drag racer Larry Laye to help out when it came time to head to Los Angles County Raceway in Palmdale, Califomia, for our dragstrip testing. The reason that we got help from Larry was that he can easily shave those few extra tenths of a second off of the times that we joumalist types can't quite touch. All of the bikes were bone stock for the quarter-mile portion of the test and were topped off with a fuji tank of fuel. The tires on the bikes were the Pirelli Diablo tires from the street and track portions of the test (except for the ZX-6RR, which was on its stock tires). They were all set to the same tire pressures that we used on the street (36 psi rear and 32 front). The suspension was run stock, without compressing and tying down the front ends. We corrected the times for the near 3000foot elevation at LACR. We have also run the uncorrected times just for reference. 26 MARCH 26, 2003' cue • e neVIl's ing with them on a day-to-day basis, the victor finally rose to the surface. Actually, it rose to the surface quite early in the shootout, and then we spent a month confirming our decision. All of these bikes are excellent - let's just get that clear right now. As was mentioned above, a lot of this shootout came down to nitpicking because of how close they really are to each other. Another thing of note, it would have been nice to include the Ducati and the ZX-6RR beyond their sidebar status, because they would have been contenders. It really came down to three bikes, as I'm sure you've guessed by now, the Honda, Kawasaki 636 and Yamaha R6. In the third spot is the Honda CBR600RR, which is maybe just a little too overbuilt to be competitive on the street. We don't feel sorry for them, however, because it is our opinion that they will dominate the AMA Supersport Championship this year. Second is the excellent Yamaha YZF-R6, which has all the attributes to win this shootout except a little more power and maybe some little details here and there. So that leaves us with the Kawasaki ZX-6R (636), a bike that really impressed everyone who rode it and made our final decision easy. The excellent fuel injection, heaps of torque and power in all the right places, the best brakes, and an excellent chassis make the 636 a slam dunk as the 2003 Cycle News Middieweight Shootout winner. And the winner is, the 2003 Kawasaki ZX-6R 18381!