Road Warriors

ROAD WARRIORS

Daily life with the MasterBunch

In concept, the idea sounded simple: send Canet packing to Spain for track impressions at MasterBike on the Jerez Circuit, then gather an identical set of bikes stateside for street evaluation and the normal battery of dyno, dragstrip and top-speed testing by the CW staff.

Nothing is ever that easy, however.

But at least some decisions were straightforward. While the MV Agusta excelled on the track and took the MasterBike title, it is also the most compromised when it comes to street riding, with pretzel-maker ergos, an aggressive engine and a demanding chassis. Yes, what works on the track often doesn’t work very well on the street.

The Aprilia, despite its upset MasterBike win last year, was consistently slowest of the Italians. It is an excellent streetbike, but didn’t stand out in our stateside testing, either. Especially not when pitted against the Ducati 1098S, which makes 32.5 more horsepower, steers more easily and offers similar comfort. More impressive, the (admittedly factory-kitted) 1098S turned in our quickest-ever streetbike quarter-mile time and was the lightest 10OOcc machine of the test.

In the middleweight category, the obvious bike to beat was the Triumph. Last year, it won just about every magazine test there was, topped its class at MasterBike 2006 and took Best Middleweight Streetbike in our Ten Best balloting. It excelled again at MasterBike ’07 but faced stiff competition from Honda’s excellent new CBR600RR, which finished a close second in Spain. After the

Honda posted near-equal stateside performance numbers, it came down to refinement, comfort and ease of use on the road. It was there that the Honda’s 1.1 -inch-lower seat height and incredibly polished manners allowed it to shine. Its aggressive steering geometry tempered by an electronic steering damper gave it ultra-light, quick-steering low-speed agility coupled with better stability at high speeds than the Triumph, giving the RR a slight edge in daily life.

When Canet returned from Spain singing the praises of the Yamaha YZF-R1, which had turned the fastest outright lap of the test, we all anticipated a chart-topping performance in street testing. Unfortunately, sub-6000-rpm fuel-injection issues on the road ultimately forced us to eliminate this potential winner from consideration.

A surprise on the track was the Honda CBR1000RR. The big RR was second in average lap time behind the R1 in the Japanese Superbike class and laid down some impressive stateside acceleration numbers-betterthan last year’s testbike, though Honda claims no alterations. But it makes the least power of the 10OOcc Fours and also suffered subjectively at the track for not offering the same top-end power. On the street, it had a general overall polish, but a minor low-end FI stumble of its own, a hard seat, wide tank and slower-steering feel eliminated it from the running.

It then boiled down to two bikes: the ’06 Cl/l/-shootout-winning Kawasaki ZX-10R and the brand-new Suzuki GSX-R1000. Despite the Gixxer gaining significant weight this year, its girth goes virtually unnoticed. The bike not only turns quicker than the 10R, it flicks from side-to-side easier and offers better communication from the front tire. It also offers class-leading power, solid performance numbers, the third-fastest overall lap at MasterBike—despite its problems in fast sweepers-and a level of refinement unmatched by the other Japanese bikes.

When the dust from the intra-class struggles settled, we had three of the best sportbikes in memory going head-to-head-to-head: The CBR600RR, GSX-R1000 and 1098S. It wasn’t lost on us that

not a single one of these bikes actually made the MasterBike final, although two out of three were class runners-up (Honda and Ducati).

But man does not live by stopwatch alone. The Ducati, despite all the accolades and improvements, is still a few steps behind when compared directly to the near-perfect refinement and higher comfort level of the other two bikes-not to mention the as-tested S’s elevated price tag. The 600RR could well have won this test and may be the perfect bike for a larger cross section of riders due to its less-intimidating power but, hey, when it’s time to burn asphalt, there’s no replacement for displacement.

Which left the GSX-R1000. It has an amazing 163-horsepower engine, handling that defies the spec sheet and on-road manners that we couldn’t fault. This missile’s do-no-wrong performance on the street more than made up for its single racetrack flaw and was enough to make it our choice for the ultimate Road Warrior.

Blake Conner