#cbr1000rr

Honda pulled out all the stops for its fresh, ground-up redesign of the CBR1000RR. And it’s about time, too. However, instead of searching for power like most of its competition, Team Red’s mission was to make the new CBR as light as possible. All in an effort to give the rider Total Control – the same design ethos given to the original CBR900RR 25 years earlier. To that end, Honda lightened everything it could; using magnesium engine covers, a titanium exhaust, and titanium fuel tank (for the SP model, anyway). It even made the frame walls – and fairings – thinner!

Cresting the top of the steep incline leading onto Portimao’s main straight, I’m committed to keeping the throttle on the new 2017 Honda CBR1000RR to the stop. With fifth gear clicked, the front wheel starts to reach for the sky. Unfazed, the throttle stays pinned, ready for the wheel to eventually come back to earth. The wait feels like forever, and my view is increasingly filled with sky instead of tarmac. I can’t wait for the Honda’s wheelie control any longer, so a click to sixth gently brings the front Bridgestone back to the ground. The Fireblade flexes its muscles, tickling 180 mph down the straight. Then it’s time to scrub speed down the hill before hitting the dip signaling the apex of turn 1. The short chute to reach turn 2 is quickly gobbled up before a moderate amount of brakes are applied to navigate through the hairpin. From there, it’s another flick to the left, and we’re driving uphill towards the crest of turn 3, knee on the ground, rear tire spinning ever so slightly.

Fan favorite Guy Martin is returning to the Isle of Man TT, signing on to join longtime Honda factory rider John McGuinness to ride the new CBR1000RR SP2. The two will ride the Fireblade in the Superbike class in both the Isle of Man TT and the North West 200.

With the announcement of the new Honda CBR1000RR SP and SP2 at Intermot, as well as the standard CBR1000RR at EICMA 2016, we haven’t been this excited about Honda’s flagship literbike since, well, 2008, when the now outgoing model was first introduced to the world. So, for this Church of MO installment, we’re going back in time to October 2007, when we got our first look at the then all-new 2008 Honda CBR1000RR; a sportbike we’d grow very fond of over the years. For more pictures, be sure to check out the photo gallery. 

After showing us Fireblade SP and SP2 versions last month at Intermot, today the all-new base Honda CBR1000RR made its debut in Italy. The high-end Öhlins and Brembo components from the SPs are swapped for less-spendy Showa and Tokico pieces.

We already wrote about Honda’s new CBR1000RR SP and SP2 when they were first announced a little while ago and now Tom Roderick offers his impressions after seeing Honda’s new special production CBR1000RR SP and SP2 in the flesh at AIMExpo.

Just as we suspected, Honda today unveiled its much anticipated 2017 CBR1000RR at Intermot in Germany. We first reported on the new CBR last month as spy photos started to come out, but Honda still had a few surprises in store with this announcement. Two, actually. First, Honda decided to release its up-spec model, the CBR1000RR SP, ahead of the standard edition (Honda says to expect an announcement on that one come November). And second, there would be a second, limited-edition model, the CBR1000RR SP2, homologated strictly for racing purposes (more on that later).

Honda released a video teasing a new sportbike which we expect to be the 2017 CBR1000RR recently spotted by spy photographer.

Honda’s CBR1000RR/Fireblade has stood patiently by the wayside all these years while its contemporaries in the fiercely competitive liter-class sportbike category have bulked themselves up, delivering levels of performance and technology not seen anywhere but the MotoGP and World Superbike paddocks.

It was all the way back in 2008 when the CBR1000RR got its last full overhaul, but new photographs from the Grobnik racetrack in Croatia reveal a heavily revised CBR apparently ready to launch at this fall’s motorcycle shows.

Nicky Hayden is a busy guy. As if the rigors of competing full-time in World Superbike on board a Ten Kate Honda CBR1000RR wasn’t enough, the less glamorous portion of his job includes all his sponsor obligations and chatting with media hacks like Yours Truly. But there’s a reason why The Kentucky Kid is such a well-loved figure in racing paddocks worldwide – he always gives whatever time he has to those secondary obligations, and he does it with a smile. Motojournalists like the guy because he’ll always give you honest answers to the best of his ability and not canned one-liners other racers sometimes snort out reluctantly, as if talking to the media is beneath them.

Dear MOby,

Do you get the feeling that the financial crisis and its aftermath signaled nap time for  the supersport division of Honda’s CBR engineering department? Since the last two major revamps – 2008 for the 1000RR, and 2009 for the 600RR – things have been pretty quiet other than mild massaging to the existing CBR supersport models (there was the SP model, but…). On the other hand, maybe it was the redirection of Honda brass to broaden the CBR spectrum by introducing the less performance but more affordable CBR300R, CBR500R and CBR650F.

This is a difficult position to be in for both me and Honda. We’ve a superbike shootout pitting the CBR1000RR SP against the likes of newer, technological-laden weapons from Aprilia, BMW, Ducati, Kawasaki and Yamaha, where the CBR is predisposed not to win that competition. But yet I’m about to give the bike a fairly glowing review with an individual score that may be higher than its shootout score.