Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Honda CBR 1000RR By PAUL CARRUTHERS PHOTOS BY DAVID DEWHURST ore often than not while riding a sportbike at a racetrack, there's a certain point, midcomer, when everything is settled beneath you, and time sort of stands still. You sit and wait as your brain bickers with your wrist about exactly when would be an appropriate time to start picking up the throttle. The longer the argument takes, the more time you lose, and suddenly you're stuck with that helpless feeling that comes with watching the maniac in front of you disappear into the horizon, his internal argu ment apparently over a lot quicker than yours. There are a lot of things that factor into making you a bit slow to pull the trigger, but the biggest one is uncertainty - the uncertainty of exactly how the motorcycle will react when the throttle is opened at that part icular lean angle. Ifeven just a little bit of doubt creeps into your mindset , then you M can chuck any hope of keeping up, much less gaining an advantage, out the window. With the all-new CBRIOOORR, the latest and greatest creation from Honda, that mistrust is all but gone. You tip the bike into the corner, it settles quickly, and you start to pick up the throttle - earlier than you've ever done be fore. And nothing bad happens. In fact, you're already thinking about what you're going to do next. Damn, what happened to the fear? "Hey, guys, is this really a IOOO?" After spending a day on the CBRIOOORR ripping around the nearly new Arizona Motorsports Park on the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona , I'll admit to being a tad confused . There were three possibilities I had to sort through : I) The CBRIOOORR works so well that it makes it easy to ride and ride fast; 2) The CBRIOOORR is slow; 3) I was suddenly the second coming of Mike Hailwood. 42 JANUARY 14,2004 • CYCLE NEWS Since numbe r two and three are about as likely as Ben Bostrom opting to ride the RCSI V-twin in the 2004 AMA Superbike Championsh ip, I'll have to go with number one . At least unt il I'm proven wrong . And that proof will come when the bike goes up against the competition in what should be the fier cest Open Bike Shootout of all time . That's late r, but this is now. The Honda CBRIOOORR is, in a word, predictable. It does exactly what you want it to do, precise ly w hen you want it to do it. In turn , it makes you a better rider because you're able to concentrate fully on your riding. You can think about two corners ahead because you're not scared out of your mind about the corner you've yet to complete. In fact, riding the bike reminded me of the conversation I had with Colin Edwards just a day or so after his first ride on the Honda RC21 IV MotoGP racer. "It felt really good, really comfortab le," 40th Anniversary the former World Superbike Champion said. "It actually felt slower than the Aprilia [RS Cube 1 because the Aprilia always wanted to loop out . This thing [the 2 11V] would barely wheelie . It was a lot like going from the RC4S to the twin [RCSI]. Same thing - you can just concentrate on where you're going." Using Edwards' comparison between the Honda and the Aprilia, it's interesting to note that I found the C BRIOOORR to feel slower than the benchmark GSX-RI000. Not that t he Suzuki always wants to "loo p out ," but it does give you that intense feeling of going fast. And that 's not the main feed back you get from the new Honda . Again, we'll have to wait for that shootout to find out which fee ling translates into bet ter lap times... feeling fast or going fast? If Honda is correct, the reason that the bike doesn't necessarily feel as quick as the competition is that it was designed that way - in much the same fashion that Edwards '

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