2008 Honda CBR1000RR review
10-10-09 by Marko Alat
Pub lore is like a zombie plague. Irrational, unthinking – and unstoppable. Twins have more torque than inline fours. Supermotos are quicker than sportsbikes up a twisty road. Fireblades are too nice… each statement more wildly inaccurate than the last, and, regardless of how many counter-arguments you put through their heads at point-blank range, they – cla-clack – just – BLAM – won’t – cla-clack – stay – BLAM – down. They just – cla-clack – keep coming – BLAM.
Honda’s 2008 CBR1000RR Fireblade is “nice” in only the same way as a precision-manufactured firearm might be. It’s exquisite in the way it goes about what it does, but what it does is brutal. BLAM! Wait for the dust and smoke to clear, survey the size of the hole, then look down at the sophisticated piece of hardware which made it; “Nice,” that’s the new Fireblade.
Excepting the last of the carbed ‘Blades, the 1998 model, which didn’t care too much how it was ridden, and the first injected bike of 2000, which had too much chassis for its 125 rear-wheel-hp motor, there was always a brutality about Honda’s sportsbike-for-the-people (for most of the ‘Blade’s life, there was a pricier, fancier – though slower in street trim – WSB-homologation model in the lineup to serve as the flagship). For most of the ‘90’s, until dethroned by the R1, the Fireblade was the rowdy streetbike option. The 954cc-engined 2002 bike kept a lump of torque hiding just off a closed throttle at any revs and a loft-happy front wheel. Its successor, the totally-redesigned first CBR1000RR or 2004, had a bulging bottom-end in a year when litre sportsbikes lunged for peak power. It also had a racebike-like quick-action throttle, firmly-damped suspension and an uncanny ability to stay level whether on the brakes or the gas. It was composed, fast, it won races and championships, and it sold big… even though it was too nice, apparently.
Tech
The old bike had done so well for itself, Honda could’ve been expected to leave most of it alone. At first glance, the one accompanied by the initial “Blimey; that’s different” reaction to the new bike’s snub nose and wispy tail, those confronting looks appeared to be stretched on around mostly-unchanged metal. Look closer, though, and about the only thing that’s stayed the same is the number of spokes on the wheels; three.
Honda’s obsessive-compulsive engineering is evident everywhere. What weight could be lost has been ditched, and the rest has been scrunched up into the centre of the bike. Even the styling has been co-opted by the mass-centralisation bug. The nose and the tail barely protrude past the wheel spindles, and the ducktail is minimal in the extreme. A band of exposed subframe traces the outline of the back of the rider’s seat before the plastic starts; it’s one of the ‘Blade’s neatest touches, and it must keep a whole 20 grams off the back of the bike.
“…It’s been a couple of years since a litre four’s come out with an engine which is so overwhelming everywhere…”
Where emissions regs have seen sportsbike exhausts bulge outwards again, Honda have crammed the ‘Blade’s into the space under the suspension linkage; if you dropped a Rizla paper into the gap between the muffler and the swingarm, it’d get stuck. Pity, then, that it’s been made of mild steel and painted high-temperature black. It’d look better in stainless, especially when it turns golden with repeated heat cycles.
The engine has lost its cassette gearbox and a kilo from the crankcases in the process. The front brake callipers are a new, much shrunken four-piston radial-mount design from Tokico, and the front discs have lost almost half of their mounting bushes, down from ten to just six.
At just under 200kg wet (Honda have taken to quoting weight with a full tank of fuel), the new ‘Blade is six kilos lighter than its predecessor and the lightest litre sportsbike on the market – first time Honda have held the title this century.
