Cycle News

VOL. 51 ISSUE 36 SEPTEMBER 9, 2014 P63 and easy to change direction on, without a sense that it wants to tip into turns, as you might expect from reading those geometry numbers. It certainly didn't feel like a meaty 185 hp V-twin in the way it handled damp conditions with- out the benefit of a digital throttle that could deliver a Rain map. And in terms of physical stature it felt more like something half that capacity in the way it steered so confidently and predictably, also in the dry thanks to the dialed-in chassis setup that lets you keep up turn speed with confidence. The new EBR has a calcu- lated, confidence-inspiring turn- in, and doesn't understeer once you switch the power on exiting a turn in the dry, while there's good feedback via the Showa fork from the front Pirelli, via well-chosen suspension settings that helps it ride bumps well. Plus, the rear Showa cantilever monoshock of- fering 5.1 inches of wheel travel has been fitted with a softer-rate spring on the SX compared to the stiffer track-focused RX rear end - and this succeeds in its aim of providing enhanced ride qual- ity in real world road surfaces complete with pavement seals, bumps and ripples in the tarmac. Job well done. The 1190SX retains Erik Buell's trademark ventilated 386mm GSK single floating perimeter steel disc, gripped by the equally innovative Nissin eight-piston 'inside-out' caliper, which did its job well in slowing the SX, though you do need to squeeze pretty hard to make the eight-piston Nissin caliper grip the rim brake firmly. And there was one moment on damp roads when I locked the front wheel stopping hard for a crossroads I thought was clear, so ABS can't come soon enough. But I'm a fan of this unique brake, which is surely a key element in the bike's sweet steering - thanks to its reduced gyroscopic mass compared to a twin-disc setup, while offering comparable swept disc area per a single rotation of the wheel. But, once again, as with the RX, the star of the show is that great 72-degree V-twin engine, whose development has been carefully cosseted by EBR's en- gineers to deliver heaps of trade- mark twin-cylinder torque to the sound of a slightly higher-pitched exhaust note than, say, a 90-de- gree desmo V-twin. Thumb the starter button to fire up the motor, and get ready for it to start making stirringly mus- cular-sounding music. There's no significant vibration thanks to the triple counter-balancers, and while the engine sounds really lusty at low revs, as soon as you get it turning above 7000 rpm on the TFT dash's digital tach readout, the sound of thunder becomes a howl, and the EBR picks up engine speed very fast, yet also very smoothly. This is an extremely emotive-sounding mo- torcycle, and a potent one, as well. While it picks up smoothly from just over 2500 rpm upwards, this 106 x 67.5 mm over-square motor will do so from rest with very little clutch slip, but won't accept wide- open throttle with zero transmis- sion snatch until the revs pass the 4000 rpm mark. It's very tractable in midrange, and there's serious mumbo above 7000 rpm. That's when, aided by the high 13.4:1 compression and the clean com- bustion of EBR's controlled swirl induction system, the 1190RX really takes off, with a fierce, ad- dictive and quite uncompromis- ing pull towards the hard-action 11,500rpm rev-limiter (no RBW digital throttle, remember).

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