VOL. 51 ISSUE 1 JANUARY 7, 2014
The SP is still devoid of all
electronic rider aids – so
still no TC, ride-by-wire
throttle and no quickshifter on the CBR1000RR.
lights on the dash – red, green
or blue would be much easier
to spot – which start lighting up
from 12,000 onwards, and rev
the motor right out to somewhere
near the 13,400 rpm revlimiter.
However, it's best to be sure
to shift up just over 13,000 because the limiter's pretty abrupt if
you do end up hitting it, since the
CBR still has what is now a pretty
old-fashioned cable throttle, rather than the digital RBW/ride-bywire system that it was widely expected to adopt this time around.
Is this a genuine issue? Does
the lack of any of the electronic
rider aids on the Honda that all
its rivals have with the exception of the equally bereft (for different reasons)
Suzuki GSX-R1000 impact on its appeal? Well,
yes – and no.
On the street, probably not, though anyone
who's ever ridden a 170
hp plus motorcycle on
wet roads will attest to
the value of an engine
rain map, and traction
control. For this reason
alone – to make a motorcycle employing the Total
Control mantra live up to
that - I think that Honda
should have fitted TC to
the CBR, although just
four or even three settings would
suffice. Sorry, but nobody needs
21 different clicks for TC.
Ditto a choice of at least two
and preferably three engine
maps obtainable via RBW would
have been good to have. I'm not
at all sure I'd have much liked riding the SP on a damp track with
zero rider aids, especially no
TC. And there are plenty of good
reasons associated with emissions and noise tests to employ
a digital throttle on the street, let
alone on the racetrack where
tricks like the differential throttle
strategy that helped Tom Sykes
P63
win the World Superbike title on
Kawasaki's ZX-10R, that are only
obtainable via RBW.
The Honda SP works brilliantly
well within the limits that Honda
has arbitrarily decided to apply to
it, but it's hard to adjust to riding
a Superbike without traction control these days - especially on the
racetrack. Give me that, RBW
and a quick-shifter, and forget
about launch control, anti-wheelie control and especially engine
braking control.
We had two half-hour sessions on the Pirelli Supercorsa
SP tires that come as standard
on the SP – the Italian brand's
track day rubber – followed by
two more on softer compound
Pirelli Supercorsa SC2s, which
are essentially the stickier FIM
Superstock series spec tire, and
called for slightly firmer settings
front and rear on the Öhlins suspension.
The difference was immediately noticeable – whereas on the
harder tires I had the rear start
to walk on me a few times if I accelerated too hard while leaned
over too far, the SC2 had much
better edge grip. And the front
was definitely more planted with
a bigger contact patch that gave
loads more confidence in keeping up cornering speed. There
really was a dramatic difference
between the two.
This made me start to appreciate the feedback from the ultra
compliant Öhlins fork, though to
be fair there are so few bumps at
Losail that the Swedish suspen-
