Honda's smaller and lighter Staffie
honda's middleweight sports machines have always been a tad more user-friendly than those of the opposition -- more comfortable, more forgiving, milder-mannered and slightly paunchy compared with the offerings from yamaha, suzuki, kawasaki and Triumph.
Where the rest have evolved over the past decade or so into race machines that you can ride on the road, honda chose to churn out CBR600s that were road bikes you could ride on the track.
That's all changed for 2007, though, with the new CBR600RR, a machine that is significantly smaller and lighter than any of its predecessors, and a fair bit livelier.
After riding the bike for about 150km on the road, and doing a dozen laps of Killarney racetrack in Cape Town, I have to say that what impressed me the most was the tractability of the engine.
Any 600cc mill that produces peak power at 13 500rpm and hits the rev limiter somewhere north of 15 500rpm could be expected to be less than a barrel of laughs at anything below 8 000rpm or so, but the little honda's very usable in top gear at anything above 3 000rpm. The grin factor just becomes much more noticeable from 8 000rpm up.
Clean sheet
When it decided to shift focus more towards track use for the 2007 model, honda started with a clean sheet of paper. The bike uses an all-new, inline, four-cylinder engine that's 2kg lighter than the previous generation's motor and, according to the factory, physically smaller than anything else in its class -- honda claims that it is smaller even than any of the four-cylinder 250cc engines available.
Although the manufacturers quote power output at standstill as being 118 horsepower (88kW), just 3bhp more than the outgoing model, improved ram-air ducting and a redesigned airbox should lead to the gap between the two models widening as speed climbs and the new engine gets extra oxygen forced down its throat.
The reduced size of the engine allowed honda to make the entire motorcycle considerably smaller and lighter than its predecessor. Wheelbase has been reduced from 1 395mm to 1 375mm, while a longer swing arm and revised steering geometry make the bike remarkably stable, with quicker turn-in than was possible on the old. All in all, the bike has shed 8kg, which is quite an achievement when you only had 163kg to start with.
From the saddle the new honda feels tiny -- more like a 250cc than a 600cc machine. Despite this, I found it remarkably comfortable to ride on the road. And, of course, brisk. Rev it to ten thou or so, and, if you're not used to these modern high-revving engines, you feel an urgent need to hook the next gear before something pops.
Keep an eye on the rev counter and spin the crank to 15 800rpm, though, and you will experience what this motorcycle is really about. Gearing is tall, with first cog getting you to 120km/h and second to 170km/h, while sixth is good for a theoretical 280km/h. I saw 248km/h on the speedometer on a relatively short straight, and a top speed of 260km/h or so should be easily reached.
On the racetrack
Around the racetrack is where the honda really excels. Professional racers might yearn for more steam when doing battle, but I reckon that I'd circulate any track quicker on a 600cc machine with handling like this than a one-litre superbike, because the bigger bikes are much harder to ride on the limit.
For most street riders, the little honda is capable of far better lap times than they would ever be able to squeeze out of it, and I reached my own limits long before the honda exhibited any signs of bad behaviour.
The bike comes standard with an electronic steering damper poached from the 1 000cc Fireblade, meaning that tank slappers are unlikely to plague this machine, but the absence of a slipper clutch is likely to worry track-day aficionados and racers.
Most of the opposition now offer slipper clutches as standard these days, to combat rear-wheel chatter, hop and traction loss during hard deceleration, and I found the honda's tail end moving around a fair bit under heavy braking at Killarney. Still, I suppose honda's left themselves some room for improvement in 2008.
So, is the new honda CBR600RR the finest of the new wave of 600cc sports machines? I really couldn't say, because I haven't ridden any of the others yet. What I can tell you, though, is that the bike's a brilliant track tool, and that lovely engine with its handy torque curve makes it one of the most street-friendly machines of its ilk I've ever ridden, because you don't have to rev the socks off the thing to feel like you're getting anywhere.
The honda sells for R87 950 -- exactly the same price as the 2006 model -- and it's really worth every cent.
Source: http://www.mg.co.za/article...
issued: Tuesday, February 27, 2007
updated: Tuesday, February 27, 2007
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