VOL. 51 ISSUE 1 JANUARY 7, 2014
(Above) An all digital dash, but
where's the quick-shifter?
(Above right) The Honda's
999.8cc powerplant gets a new
cylinder head with revised porting,
resulting in a power increase to 178
horsepower at 12,250 rpm.
ing that with it the SP weighs in at
463 pounds with all liquids, 439
pounds without.
While the Brembo Monobloc
front brake package does work
really well in stopping the Honda,
it does so without conveying a
great deal of feedback to the rider. You get a strangely detached
feeling when you squeeze the
lever and/or tap the pedal, and
a signal is passed to the ECU
to activate the two servo motors
that relay that hydraulic pressure
to the brake calipers themselves.
True, there's none of the pulsing
you get through the lever from a
Bosch ABS package, but on the
other hand you don't really know
it's working until you realize suddenly that your turn-in point is
looming up fast and - whoops,
you haven't slowed down enough
to make the turn. You were too
greedy about how many feet later
that you tried to stop this time
around, and since you squeezed
so hard, you've activated the ABS
and reduced the amount of braking force applicable, sending you
past your mark.
However, if Ron Haslam says
the system is absolutely foolproof
all that remains is for you to recalibrate your personal settings
and put your trust in the system,
remembering that this is linked,
so that applying the front brake
will always mean the rear is also
applied. Although it's the other
way around at the back as you
can apply small amounts of rear
brake to set the bike up for a turn,
without activating the front.
But in 40 laps of Losail aboard
the new C-ABS equipped SP I
absolutely could not get the Honda to misbehave on the brakes,
even by doing stupid – well,
under normal circumstances –
things like squeezing the brake
lever hard while still skirting the
tarmac with my knee, or grabbing
a big handful of front brake while
still cranked over.
There's little doubt that the new
P67
SP is the best CBR that Honda
has yet produced. And now it's
up against European exotica for
the first time, competing on price
and mechanical specification
with the likes of the Aprilia RSV4
ABS and MV Agusta F4R, let
alone the BMW S1000RR Sport.
But the CBR1000RR has hardcore fans, making it easy to see
why in countries like the USA,
Germany and Britain the new
model is essentially sold out before global deliveries begin in
February. Looks like Honda may
have a surprise hit on its hands –
well, a surprise to it, if not its customers - and the 5000 examples
of the SP that are planned for
manufacture in 2014 may have to
be revised upwards.. What a nice
problem to have in these recessionary times, when Superbike
sales are in steep decline. If you
were going to bet that any model
could buck the trend, it'd be the
CBR – so those who signed up
for the new SP on the basis of its
stellar looks will be glad to know
the performance matches the
looks.
CN
