2004 Honda CBR1000RR Overview [Track Tested]

To learn the 2024 Honda CBR1000RR spec sheet is to be intimidated. The mere reality {that a} road-going motorbike produces simply north of 170 horsepower appears extreme at finest—and harmful at worst—however don’t choose a motorbike solely on its dynamometer figures.

Using the 2024 Honda CBR1000RR at its Arizona Motorsports Park launch, it rapidly grew to become obvious that Honda used its appreciable monitor expertise to supply a potent motorbike in a well mannered package deal. As easy and complicated a chunk of technical artistry as you will see, it permits the expert rider to calm down and deal with the street as a substitute of forcing him to compensate for its quirks.

Coming from Honda, that must be no shock. Soichiro Honda’s obsession with technical sophistication, mixed with a burning aggressive spirit, led his firm down some fascinating improvement paths that always went in opposition to the dominant fashions of the time. Some concepts gained races; some didn’t. Nevertheless, all had been profitable from a technical standpoint.

From the distinctive six-cylinder race bikes within the Nineteen Sixties by means of the championship-dominating NS500s of the ’80s to the legendary oval-piston NR500 of the ’90s, Honda has discovered its classes nicely. The most recent instance of its creativity appeared within the type of the all-conquering RC211V MotoGP bike. The excellent news for the patron is that Honda’s hard-won expertise normally finds its means onto the corporate’s road-going machines. Living proof: the 2004 Honda CBR1000RR.

This overview was initially printed within the Summer season 2004 challenge of Robb Report MotorCycling. It has been edited for the web site.

As soon as astride this superbike, you notice how compact but comfy it’s. Whereas it’s not fairly as diminutive because the CBR600RR, they’re clearly siblings. Contact the starter, and the motor comes instantly to life, responding to blips of the throttle with a crisp, albeit muted, exhaust be aware from the brand new under-seat silencer.

In a single day rain had left Arizona Motorsports Park with a moist monitor and puddles. Nonetheless, I might inform instantly that I’d get pleasure from using it. The tarmac is vast and twisted into a number of attention-grabbing turns—some hairpin, others unwinding double apex corners that may clearly be taken quicker. Using gingerly initially to familiarize myself with the circuit earlier than exploring the superbike energy, I used to be happy to find that the CBR1000RR has a really brief studying curve. So intuitive is that this motorbike that you may overlook concerning the machine itself and focus on using approach as a substitute.

Undoubtedly, the 2004 Honda CBR1000RR is extremely highly effective and instructions respect, however its stability and lightweight really feel additionally encourage confidence. The fuel-injection mapping is constant, and there aren’t any sudden steps within the energy supply, proper as much as the inline-4’s 12,500 rpm restrict. The management with which that energy is delivered to the asphalt is exceptional. Even when accelerating exhausting out of the second-gear hairpin, the rear tire gripped and didn’t spin. Credit score for holding the horsepower should clearly go to the exemplary Bridgestone tires. Nevertheless, the shortage of wheelie or wheelspin is as a result of Honda’s longest-in-class swingarm and linkage-assisted shock—each developments from the MotoGP bike.

The swingarm accounts for greater than 41 % of the CBR1000RR’s wheelbase, and that leverage helps maintain the entrance wheel on the bottom. The rear suspension is contained completely inside the swingarm. As a result of there is no such thing as a direct connection to the body, street bumps are remoted from the chassis, protecting the tire on the tarmac.

Naturally, the entrance wheel could be lifted at will on a machine this highly effective. Luckily, the 2004 Honda CBR1000RR has a propensity to grip and speed up exhausting slightly than spin the tire or flip over backward ought to the pilot lack the throttle management of a Freddie Spencer or Valentino Rossi.

Equally adept at aiding the rider, the RR’s entrance finish carries Honda’s newest innovation—an digital steering damper. Rising damper drive as pace will increase works precisely because it ought to—unobtrusively. The adjustable Showa suspension items maintain the bike secure in corners. Even just a little Ben Bostrom-style weaving underneath abusive braking was simply corrected by dialing in a quarter-turn extra rebound damping on the rear.

General, the dealing with was reassuringly impartial. The 2004 Honda CBR1000RR tipped into corners exactly, neither diving in too rapidly nor understeering. Honda attributes this attribute to mass centralization, which, merely put, means putting as a lot of the bike’s weight as near the longitudinal roll axis as attainable. The speculation works. Once I missed an apex, and even turned in too early, it was easy to alter line or lean angle as vital with out upsetting the chassis. Permitting the rider to maintain his choices open makes the superbike safer to journey on the road.

Braking from the radially mounted Tokico calipers was beautifully highly effective, with wonderful suggestions and no trace of snatch or fade. Actually, on the finish of the again straightaway, coming into quick proper/left turns, the CBR1000RR’s exemplary dealing with and braking functionality enabled me to path brake by means of the primary half, then arrange completely for the transition into the left.

A bunch of different design components and minor refinements have helped to make the brand new CBR1000RR friendlier, lighter, and faster dealing with. The ultimate result’s a package deal put collectively so capably that it finally ends up feeling understated. Please don’t take that to imply boring. This motorbike lets you problem your using expertise with out distraction.

In case you are available in the market for a superbike that can aid you consider the street and all its uncertainties, this is a superb selection. In case you ever enterprise onto the racetrack, you’ll recognize the 2004 Honda CBR1000RR as a bike that can extra readily forgive your private limits than others in its class. Nonetheless, warning is so as. Refined or not, the RR superbike continues to be a rocketship.