Question about exploiting sportsbike performance

Question about exploiting sportsbike performance

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Prof Prolapse

Original Poster:

16,160 posts

189 months

Friday 16th August 2019
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We all know that Superbikes are no fun because "you can't exploit the performance" sufficiently. It's sad but it's true because the internet has repeatedly told us this.

You can sit on your beautiful sounding,Ducati V4 Panigale all you want, and pretend you're having fun, but unless you've MotoGP rider level of skills with access to your own personal racetrack, you're just kidding yourself, and you'd have much more fun on an adventure bike, or Honda MSX125, or a Royal Enfield, or Harley, regardless of those things being synonymous with you having both a beard, and an enlarged prostate.

We all know it's absolutely nothing to do with underlying insecurities about rider ability (or the ageing process) and subsequent excuse making. It's just the way it is. Obviously. The internet said so. Dogs can't look up.

So my question.

If I have a really st sportsbike, it's therefore easier to get it's performance limits, will I enjoy it more?


WarnieV6GT

1,135 posts

198 months

Friday 16th August 2019
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This is the reason why I wanted to try a litre sports bike with no riding aids before I went and pcp'd a new one.

My 954 fireblade has only 154bhp but I cannot get anywhere near exploiting that on the roads.

I imagine the early fireblade with 123bhp would be the sweet spot as they were light as well.


SAS Tom

3,397 posts

173 months

Friday 16th August 2019
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As you say it’s just about people’s insecurities. Personally I’m all for bikes that people enjoy riding whether they are crap or amazing at riding. I’m not a big fan of modern litre sports bikes on the road but I can see why people are.

Walter Sobchak

5,723 posts

223 months

Friday 16th August 2019
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I really take issue with this OP, beautiful sounding?, honestly have you heard one start up from cold tongue out .
As an owner of one, to be honest I see where you're coming from, it's incredibly compromised as a road bike but at the same time it's still incredibly enjoyable at times too, it really comes into its own on a trackday though.

Fastdruid

8,623 posts

151 months

Friday 16th August 2019
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Prof Prolapse said:
If I have a really st sportsbike, it's therefore easier to get it's performance limits, will I enjoy it more?
No. A st bike is a st bike.

It's not so much having a *st* superbike for me but more about not wanting a bike you cannot ever legally use all the power.

The cycle parts however are awesome and because the actual build costs between a 600 and a 1000 are near as dammit exactly the same...the 600 has poorer cycle parts to keep the costs down otherwise it would be the same price (or have a much lower profit margin).

If you offer two (new) bikes for the same price but one is a 400 with 70hp and the other a litre bike with 175hp everyone will go for the litre bike.

So while smaller bikes are better they don't sell. So everyone buys litre bikes they can't use.








Mr Dendrite

2,301 posts

209 months

Friday 16th August 2019
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No, you must have the latest, most powerful, Superbike available. If you don’t you won’t have any fun in your latest Dainese made to measure D-air, lurid schemed, race humped suit with a £1000 of carbon fibre helmet in full race colours. I mean come on it’s obvious.... wink


trickywoo

11,700 posts

229 months

Friday 16th August 2019
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Prof Prolapse said:
If I have a really st sportsbike, it's therefore easier to get it's performance limits, will I enjoy it more?
CBR600F?

Its all about the road you are on. I've got a SV650 which feels slow on fast roads but I mainly ride for fun on smaller roads (still with a center line).

I'm no riding god but I was out yesterday on the SV feeling like I was on the limit likely below 50mph having a great time compared to the GSXR 750 and Triumph Street RS with near enough double the power.



black-k1

11,886 posts

228 months

Friday 16th August 2019
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I suggest that your basic assumption that bikes are only fun if you are riding at the limits of the bike is incorrect.

tvrolet

4,251 posts

281 months

Friday 16th August 2019
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Problem is the rewards you get from biking work on a number of levels, and the perception or relative merits of these reward change with age,

Certainly in a straight(ish) line I don't subscribe to the 'you can never open it up' mantra. There's always somewhere you can gun it, and I'd say pretty much without exception the quicker the bike accelerates the bigger the thrill So on this one alone the newest fastest sportsbike = biggest thrill..

Then we come to corners, and in this case you are going to be limited by the bike's capabilities, riders capabilities and safety on the road. So long as the rider isn't hitting the bike's actual or perceived limits on handling I'd say it doesn't really matter what sort of bike it is at all. If you're going as fast as you can go (or are happy to go) I don't think it matters if you've got 10% or 70% of the bike's capabilities untapped - the reward will be the same.

But then we come to perhaps the most difficult of all to quantity and that's the satisfaction of 'getting it right' or 'doing it well'. This never occured to me as a hell-for-leather kid, but it's really important to me now. Not that I'm a golfist, but if the idea is to get a ball in a hole then the easiest way is to drop it in. The satisfaction comes from doing it with a stick. So then getting a series of bends 'right' where the limitation is the bike is, to me, vastly more satisfying than hacking round the same bends when the bike could do it twice as fast without breaking sweat. So here an older/slower/less sporty bike can be and often is more rewarding. Taken to the extreme if I'm out plodding along on the '47 and get it through a series of bends 'just right' it might be 50 mph. A modern bike might hustle through at 100+ limited only be visibility for example...but I 'got it right' so feel more rewarded. Or I got it wrong and have to work on it. Either way, I that the 'satisfaction' part of riding is every bit as rewarding, and indeed even more so, on older and/or slower and/or less suitable stuff. But I guess for most 'thrills' outweighs 'satisfaction'.

Just my take on it. I don't own a sportsbike any more and have absolutely no interest in owning a sportsbike again, and while on one hand I'm not getting the thrill of scaring myself silly anymore I'm actually having more enjoyment out of motorcycling than I've ever had. That's not to say I don't want to ride at a decent pace, but I want challenge and satisfaction more than outright thrills now. Which all comes as a bit of a surprise to me as in my younger days I thought outright speed and performance was everything...

moanthebairns

17,917 posts

197 months

Friday 16th August 2019
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I can see why that biker chick chucked you.

Birky_41

4,276 posts

183 months

Friday 16th August 2019
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I'm just here for the comments

trickywoo

11,700 posts

229 months

Friday 16th August 2019
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black-k1 said:
I suggest that your basic assumption that bikes are only fun if you are riding at the limits of the bike is incorrect.
Unless you only like going fast in a straight line for a few seconds.

Prof Prolapse

Original Poster:

16,160 posts

189 months

Friday 16th August 2019
quotequote all
Walter Sobchak said:
I really take issue with this OP, beautiful sounding?, honestly have you heard one start up from cold tongue out .
My mate sent me a clip of it starting up with his ridiculous "super-dooper-Ducati-~£4500-to-you-mate", exhaust but in all honesty I haven't heard one start up in the flesh. It does surprise me you think that though. I mean, Italian V4... What could possibly go wrong? ...I mean everything eventually obviously, but surprises me you're not a fan of the sound.



Fastdruid

8,623 posts

151 months

Friday 16th August 2019
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Prof Prolapse said:
My mate sent me a clip of it starting up with his ridiculous "super-dooper-Ducati-~£4500-to-you-mate", exhaust but in all honesty I haven't heard one start up in the flesh. It does surprise me you think that though. I mean, Italian V4... What could possibly go wrong? ...I mean everything eventually obviously, but surprises me you're not a fan of the sound.
I've not heard one in the flesh but while it's not the usual "bag of spanners in a washing machine" of the dry clutch Ducati's it doesn't sound particularly brilliant on YouTube either.

trickywoo

11,700 posts

229 months

Friday 16th August 2019
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Fastdruid said:
I've not heard one in the flesh but while it's not the usual "bag of spanners in a washing machine" of the dry clutch Ducati's it doesn't sound particularly brilliant on YouTube either.
Agree with that.

Dog Star

16,079 posts

167 months

Friday 16th August 2019
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SAS Tom said:
As you say it’s just about people’s insecurities. Personally I’m all for bikes that people enjoy riding whether they are crap or amazing at riding. I’m not a big fan of modern litre sports bikes on the road but I can see why people are.
Nothing whatsoever to do with being “insecure”; I’ve got a new shape R1 and I got it because it looks and sounds awesome. I don’t ride it fast because I need a driving licence. I’ll never get rid of it, ever, because I love it.

I also have a 1999 R1 and no question about it - it’s a miles better bike to ride on public roads. It was, I think, the high point of tractability, handling, comfort and range. I’ll probably keep that forever too.

Sebastian Tombs

2,044 posts

191 months

Friday 16th August 2019
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Well, I have never been one to claim I have any talent for riding (or driving) fast, so it's probably mostly my lack of ability, and I have never owned a sports bike (unless you count a Mk1 CBR125R, which once shod with Bridgestones was an absolute hoot to ride as you could be on the ragged edge all the time) but the most fun bike I have ever had is my Vespa 125 Primavera, and the least fun, and most scary one was my Triumph Thruxton.

I also rather liked my Honda VRX 400, which while a bit of a tractor was also surprisingly flickable if you used a bit of brute force to make it lean right over in corners.

Bikes are more fun when they are light and flickable. The Triumph could wheelspin in 3 gears, more if wet, but weighed a bloody ton. I never saw this mentioned in any reviews so I must conclude that all litre bikes weigh a ton.

Jazoli

9,086 posts

249 months

Friday 16th August 2019
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You might not legally be able to use all the performance of a modern sportsbike on the road but you can certainly exploit it, I do think they are crushingly competent on the road though and one of the reasons I haven't got one, I have more fun thrashing (honestly) the arse off my Z1000SX trying to keep up with or ahead of friends on new sportsbikes, I can safely say I use all of its 140bhp some of the time, whereas there is no way they are able to use all 200bhp for anything more than a few seconds, on a normal A or B road the amount of power available is not the limiting factor though, not everyone exploits all the power but just to be able to open the throttle and dispense 200bhp to the rear tyre is exhilarating and enough for most.

But to answer your question PP, in my experience you'll find the bikes limits and they will frustrate after a while.

Sebastian Tombs said:
Bikes are more fun when they are light and flickable. The Triumph could wheelspin in 3 gears, more if wet, but weighed a bloody ton. I never saw this mentioned in any reviews so I must conclude that all litre bikes weigh a ton.
Litre sportsbikes weigh fk all, around 200kgs, and similar to most other sportsbikes.

Edited by Jazoli on Friday 16th August 17:56

Hungrymc

6,642 posts

136 months

Friday 16th August 2019
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I sold my s1000rr because of too many friends accidents, stories on here, and one near miss. Combination of the risk to health and the risk to Licence. I’d also been really enjoying riding off road where there is plenty of risk for relatively minor injury but much less so the biggies.

After a couple of months I decided I missed road riding too much and bought a cheap CB1000R as something to use much more sedately (a much less accomplished bike, loads less power and naked).

It’s a lovely bike for traveling on, much more inclined to ride a bit slower and take in the world. I use it much more as a jeans bike and not just for fast rides. I like it, but now I’ve had it for a couple of months and used it for many different types of ride, I have to say it’s ste compared to the BMW. It’s frustrating to ride really quick as it’s simply isn’t as well resolved as the BMW was. It’s twitchy, back end feels harsh and choppy, the motor is smooth but not exciting, brakes are miles off the BMW, and it just doesn’t feel as composed when over on its side.

It’s been effective at slowing me down (I don’t go into 3 figures often), but the general feeling is it’s working against me and not with me. That can be fun, but it’s ultimately still pretty quick so all the working against you is still happening at speeds where the consequences can be terrible.

So I don’t know if I regret getting s poorer sports bike or not. It’s certainly not as fun to push hard. I think generally it has got me on a bike more and so was probably a good move, but it’s also made me realize how wonderful the S1000RR really was... next spring maybe ?

Lindun

1,965 posts

61 months

Friday 16th August 2019
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If this follows the norm on Facebook and elsewhere it will go something like this

1. I can ride faster on my 300 year old / tank sized adventure bike
2. Sportsbike riders can only ride fast in a straight line
3. No skill in going fast in a straight line
4. I don’t suffer depreciation on my bike, so I’m cleverer than those of you who can afford the newer bike and I’m not at all bitter or jealous
5. All modern bikes are crap because all rider aids are on full chat all the time
6. I bought a naked bike and I’m now better than all of you
7. Bloody DAS killed bike riding. Unless you first rode a bike in 1963 without a helmet and started a 3cc monkey bike then you’re not a real biker.