RubberSideDown

Rubbersidedown, have you considered the naked S1000R which will be out in a few months? MCN just reviewed it on youtube and were raving about it!

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I've known it was coming for a while, but I'm passing on it- I read the reviews and it looks nice, but I always wanted a liter-sized sportbike as a second motorcycle. Now if I could afford three bikes...

Really, I feel like I'm at the point where I don't have too many years left to contort myself to ride a serious torture-rack of a sportbike- my shoulder has issues, and my knee is running low on cartilage- if I don't buy one in the next year or two, I probably never will. I'm moving to a new area in the next few months, so I'm putting down a deposit on the HP4 to reserve it, and I'll hopefully take delivery in March or April.

I meant the 899.

Did you make it to the show and get a look at the bike? Regardless of what the numbers state I got a really good view of it (though it was impossible to sit on it)- it certainly looked quite a bit smaller than the 899 and 1199 S models sitting a few feet away from it- honestly, I thought it might be a miniature model just for display purposes until I got closer to it. It was lower and shorter (to my eye), though the specs I read only support it being about 0.5" shorter with a similar wheelbase (though, again, it looked like a much bigger difference). Maybe it's not as small as I thought, but it sure looked it.

27lbs (compared to the R) is a lot of weight, especially considering that the R was already heavily breathed upon to reach 417lbs wet- I doubt I'll ever encounter one on the street, but it would be nice to see one run in person.

This was my view:

I was amazed at how small the Superleggera is- if I was given one with the condition that I couldn't sell it and could only ride it, I don't think I'd be on it very often- it's the size of a scooter.

Italians are not the tallest however perfect size for me iam volunteering!

Also we know/judge things by comparison to what we have or are use to.

It's smaller than the 999 Panigale, which I was able to sit on at the show- I'm not a giant at 6'2", but people were laughing at how tiny it looked with me on it- I looked down over the front tire- there's no way I could fit on it with a decent riding posture, and the Superleggera would be worse- some bikes are just made for shorter arms and inseams.

I went and checked out the HP4 (which I'm planning on buying) after the show, and I could just manage to get comfortable on it (and the rearsets still had a bit of adjustment left), and it's not a big bike, yet it's quite a bit bigger than the Superleggera (30lbs wet)- Ducati had to make some serious compromises to drop the weight from their flagship.

I was amazed at how small the Superleggera is- if I was given one with the condition that I couldn't sell it and could only ride it, I don't think I'd be on it very often- it's the size of a scooter.

People who can't afford a Harley will always complain about them. Freudian soure grapes. They may not be the greatest performers but they are the coolest bikes on the road.

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Is that comedy time already? Beside the fact that Hardleys are not even bikes but a chromeworks show, even my wife that could not care less about bikes.was able to observe that they are THE choice of aged or aging guys.

Now, there's nothing wrong getting old but I'll get myself a jap or euro sport tourer instead, and a jap sports car cor the raining days.

And you dont age on a sport bike easily. It keeps your brain and body fluid and fast too!

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Few things look worse than a geriatric on plastic performance perambulalator.

Not cool at all.

Jerry

I know a rider in San Diego who could still embarrass a lot of literbike pilots on his first-gen Hayabusa when he was 70- rather than looking bad or uncool, he was the bad-ass MF'er we all wanted to when we reached his age, and he had as much respect as anybody in the sportbike community. He'd pass guys on Palomar Mountain, and when they'd finally catch up to him at the top, they'd be amazed when he took his helmet off and they saw how old he was- great guy- he's now on a Monster and has slowed down a bit, but he sure ain't slow.

You're already on the moon, Eddy.

30lbs? Cool- it will be possible to see the explosion from space.

20lbs of boost on a 500cc Honda? BOOM!!!

Yea sonic boom pass you.

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Hehe- I'll take that bet- you'll need to turbo something with a little more meat on the bone if you're gonna pass me.

20lbs of boost on a 500cc Honda? BOOM!!!

I only go to Bangkok once a year in mid-December.

You won't make a special trip to disparage Kawasakis (and their owners) in person? Come on, that would be the highlight of your year.

I blocked off my PAIR valve and it helped a bit with the decel pop- I'm also running a PC-V which didn't do much to decrease it, but flashing my ECU reduced it by about 80%.

I won't be able to confirm until a week or so before, but I'll try to make it on Saturday.

I also have a friend who owns a kerosene-fueled turbine-engined Y2K bike in San Diego- it's another tuning nightmare, and- while it has a top-speed so high it's actually not known what it tops out at- a 250cc bike can crush it off the line.

12.5 second quarter mile, huh? There are 600cc bikes that are running 10's bone-stock.

Good luck with your homemade turbo, Eddy- best laugh I've had all day.

Waste the money I reckon you know how easy it is to turbo charge a bike a 500cc turbo bike would leave the 1000cc cbr for dead and the engine wont need that much work heck you could richen the fuel mix with a carby in the plenum all for qauter the total of your bikes mentioned.

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Really? Please tell me how easy it would be. I know at least ten guys that have put turbos on their Hayabusas, and- even with a kit made especially for their bikes- it's a huge PITA and needs frequent tuning and TLC, and certainly can't be treated like a normal streetbike- even if you go the 'cheap' route, doing it right costs at least $5,000 (including other components that need to be upgraded- really, 5K is too low), and that's not including man-hours, and that's the price in the US.

There's one turbo ZX-12R in LOS that I know of, and it was built before being imported, and the guy who owns it knows bikes and still had a huge struggle to get it running right because there's no local support- it spends most of its time in pieces.

Nobody makes a kit for a 500cc Honda (the idea is silly as the platform isn't built to support the power- it would be unrideable, and would break immediately), so how will you adapt one to fit?

When it comes to motorcycles, if you want to big power, you need to increase your displacement- power-adders (turbo, nitrous, etc) are more trouble than they're worth.

There was already a pretty good crowd 30 minutes before the show opened on Monday- I was actually surprised at the number of people who were there in the afternoon.

The lack of BMW bikes (seeing them was a big reason I went there) along with almost no gear and accessories stalls was a big letdown.

There was a bike at the Honda display at the Motor Expo that was hidden in the back with a large paper bag covering it- maybe that was CTX1300...

Not really, but man, that's not an attractive motorcycle, and this is coming from a guy that once bought a first-generation Hayabusa.

^^

Maybe.

He did say to me that they were giving a free exhaust with the Super Duke- I asked if it was worth 300K, and he just laughed.

If you mean a deposit to order one, Honda wants 10K, BMW wants 50K (note there are no BMW bikes at the show due to their late arrival- they have no stock for a display)- I believe Ducati also wants 50K, but I'm not sure.

There wasn't much in the way of gear on display- I expected a lot more.

Try 1.38mil- it should be 1mil, maybe 1.1mil, if you use the 'double US price' factor (which will be the equivalent of 500K-550K).

I talked to the KTM guy (he was Thai- it was early and the foreign staff probably were due later)- he said he had actually spoken to the big guys about the price discrepancy, and he agreed that they'd sell more bikes with more realistic prices, but it didn't seem like anything was going to be done anytime soon.

He did say they had already sold about 15 Super Dukes, which was surprising- they probably went to guys that had been drooling over the pics for months and would have bought one at any price- I have to agree it's a cool bike:

Couple Benellis from the show- they didn't look bad:

The CBR1000RR is off everybody's list- I talked to the 'big boss' today and he said all their show specials (in all three colors) were sold out over the weekend and he wouldn't even take a deposit at the current price- one the the other staff told me they'll be getting full-power versions from May, which is probably the reason for the current price- note the 'big boss' did NOT confirm this, but it would seem likely.

Some pics from the show:

The 1290 is a great bike, but anything over a mil is really a joke (even a mil is a joke, but this is Thailand...) If they find 40 buyers considering the other options for 1.4mil (like the HP4 and Panigale, both of which are comparatively better deals, more desirable in LOS, and better bikes in general) I'll be very surprised.