2017 HONDA CBR1000RR AND CBR1000RR SP
FIRST TEST
P70
use-by date. Thank god.
The base model CBR runs
Tokico four-piston Monobloc cali-
pers, which are perfectly fine for
90 percent of the riding you'll do.
There's good feel at the lever and
plenty of power to haul you up,
but the ABS system cut in far too
early when braking hard into turn
one and the downhill entry of turn
four—it was an electronic problem
I would experience later on the
SP with its badly pulsing Brembo
Monoblocs, and I'll explain the
situation further in the article.
Switching to the SP version,
the big cheese here is the fitment
of the latest version of the Ohlins
electronic suspension system fit-
ted to the NIX 40 fork and TTX36
shock.
Ohlins has decided to repro-
gram how we view and adjust
suspension. Dubbed Ohlins
S-EC Suspension, it has six avail-
able modes—three auto and three
manual—for your riding pleasure.
In auto mode, the system moni-
tors suspension action 100 times
per second and adjusts the ride
depending on the riding condition
present. Within the three auto
modes there are preset param-
eters for Track (Mode 1—race-
track), Winding (Mode 2—canyon
roads) and Street (Mode 3—com-
fort).
Switching to manual mode,
you also get three parameters,
but you can save your settings for
the ride condition you encoun-
ter and change on the fly. Want
a stiffer setting in Mode 2? No
problem. Just dial it up using the
dash to whatever level (+/-5) you
like. But here's the crux: Honda
isn't giving you front and rear pre-
load, compression and rebound
to play with. Instead, they have
broken the system down into
Braking, Cornering and Accelera-
tion, with a General map being al-
most like a middle ground, if you
will. Whatever change you make
