Just rode the 2014 S1000RR and S1000RR HP4 carbon today A little dissapointed with the std 2014 bike, it had Bridgeston S20 fitted and couldnt get the power down. In race mode with the traction on, the traction control cut the power in the first 4 gears at 8,000RPM. The tyres just coudnt get enough traction even thought the temperature was 20 degrees and the roads were dry. Didnt feel as smooth or as torque as the blade. The HP4 was wearing Pirelli Supercorsa SP's which enabled the bike to gain greater traction. The bike wheelied violently in 1st,2nd,3rd and 4th gear. What a bike!!! It felt smoother,torquer, more powerful and faster than the std bike and the Akrapovic exhaust with the baffler removed sounded fantastic. Steering was sharper than the blade and handling was superior. Made the blade feel slow and old in comparison (Cant belive I just said that).
Is that comparing the std S1000RR to std blade and HP4 to the SP ? Or HP4 to std Just thinking about 6000 reasons the HP4 will be better than the std blade ?
I think you could set up a blade to have handling that felt that quick... I've done it.. Racers do it.. But there comes a point that it actually slows you down. It's just the raw grunt that makes them wheely so violently after all my early R1 and zx10 did the same... Its the weight distribution and setup... I was slower because of power cut backs to stop it wheelieing and even it was wheeling rather than anti wheelie it still wouldn't be transferring power.. Its easy to bolt on loads of gizmos and power and make the steering quick... Chassis doesn't feel that we sorted as standard to me... I think their recent tt victory required both a psycho and a shed load more fettling than would usually be required.. There's no doubt it's rapid.. But....
it's nopt hard to make a bike turn in sharper/quicker,just drop the forks through the yokes,or shorten the wheel base. there are major draw backs to doing them though,the trick is finbding the right amount to drop the forks and getting the right comparise between stability,quick turn in. short wheel base will make for a very lively fronmt end under power,and less stability at speed but fast turn in,and then obviously longer wheel base will give the opposite.i know for th eblades there are optimum wheel bases to get the perfect compromise (i have them hidden away somewhere),but obvioulsy suspension,rear ride height etc will also effect it. so in summary.the beemer is best
That's the point.. I'm pretty sure as a complete bike or engineering exercise it's simply not... It wheelies far too easily... Actually the electronics seem to slow it down.. Riding my blade in the same way.. It was practically quicker... Even though the beemer has more power it's not as well sorted and is not an easy to ride quickly.
I tried it with everything turned off .. and it just pulled wheelies every time I opened it up .. with full forward lean .. couldn't deal with it .. couldn't get quick on it .. it was trying to kill me .. like an early ZX-10 / R1 ... but even worser lol
i love mine,but it is track only i also love my 05 zx10r,which is for the road tbh,when i went from my track zx10r (05) onto a full on BSB spec blade (07),i actually thought the blade was boring,bit too uninvolving and not a lot of feed back compared to the kwak,but it was quite a bit faster and easier to ride,just not as seat of your pants exciting,but times are everything on track (well not everything but a big part).
I rode the ass off a (slick mode) 2010 S1000RR and tbh found it boring, bland and flat on power even though Austin Racing dyno sheet showed 205bhp at the wheel (yeah yeah), the bike felt nice, turned well and was mega comfy for a sports bike, on track I am sure it would have an advantage over say a blade of many years up to date but on the road.....nuh....not at all. As for power mapping can make 120bhp feel like 200bhp if the curve is peaky, I had a Kwak that put down 125bhp and let me tell you 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th it would wheelie like a bastard, the mapping was lean and the power curve, well, looked like this " ^ " you would have said after mapping it was half the power but saw gains of 5bhp, made the bike feel flat and liam but super smooth, money on the table you'd say the old map was more power and faster, smoother bike is always faster but the feel can be very misleading. No doubt that the blade is ageing and lacks speed and power over some of the new bikes, tbh I don't think Honda have moved on much since 2006, chassis is improved over the old model and is slightly better in all ways but the motor does lack development imo. When you look at the blade, r1, gsxr they all seem to be slipping though lack of upgrades etc, I don't think too much time will pass before the main 4 up the game and fight off the BMW, I wonder whats been going on behind closed doors all this time for the other main brands, I know for a fact the global ecco have a big role to play in the slow progress of the main line up of Jap bikes. Question is how long before a new superbike is released to regain the title of "superbike 201X". If I was spending 15-20K now I'd have a loaded RSV4 as imo its the best bike out the box, Aprilia are the KING of racing chassis and have so much winning data to hand it can be nothing less than a pure racing bike with the backing and R&D to back it up. I also would wait and see what BMW are outing next year, they say and all new bike pushing 200+ bhp at the wheel is on the cards, that and Yamaha are poss doing the same with an all new 200+ bhp bike loaded with production based MGP TC and other electronics is also on the cards, for those of us who save the pennies and spend wisely would be crazy to buy now imo. p.s I do like the S1000RR is an amazing bike, my problem is picking one of the main line up as out and out "BEST BIKE" no bike has it all imo some come close, also I find that sometimes you can jump on an odd ball bike and realise that some superbikes are not that great or that fast from A - B, makes you scratch your head when you jump on say a 1200 multi and go faster than an S1 on a B road....lol
b roads are not thou friendly,loads of times i've been left by s/moto's etc. problem with the prilla is that fact when they break,and they will,it's hard to get parts
Agree along with reliability. Ducati ownership has certainly made me think twice about getting an Aprilia Factory
To keep the front end down, put your weight over the front and lift your ass out of the seat which loads up your weight on the pegs and keeps the front end on the ground.
