Have we all become biking gods?

[Esceptico]

A friend is negotiating the purchase of an original GSXR 750. By today's standards it is heavy and not that powerful and I get the feeling that many people would dismiss it as "slow" - certainly current 600s that are much lighter and more powerful are belittled as "suitable for learners" and lacking grunt. Yet if you go back and read reviews of the GSXR 750 when it was new I expect the road testers then were creaming their pants about how amazing the bike was with unbelievable performance. Were they just deluded? Or have we all become biking gods without knowing it so anything less than 200 BHP is a bit dull?

[Esceptico]

WaferThinHam said:

Esceptico said:

Yet if you go back and read reviews of the GSXR 750 when it was new I expect the road testers then were creaming their pants about how amazing the bike was with unbelievable performance. Were they just deluded? Or have we all become biking gods without knowing it so anything less than 200 BHP is a bit dull?

That's the key point. Compared to other bikes of the time, it was amazing. How were journo's of the time meant to know that we would commute to work on something with 200bhp, a wet weight of 200kg, yet still had 4k miles service intervals?

But does that mean in 30 years when bikes weigh 150kg and have 300 bhp that today's 200 BHP superbikes will be viewed as tame?