Cycle News Staff | November 10, 2016
Masatoshi Sato is the man charged by the world’s largest motorcycle company in bringing it back to superbike greatness. Let’s ask him the hard ones…
By Jon Urry
Nine years in the making, the brand new Honda CBR1000RR sent tongues wagging at the Intermot Show in Cologne, Germany, last month. Loaded with electronics, more power, less weight, and sharper, meaner styling, the CBR1000RR SP (and the race-orientated SP2 spin-off) promises to bring the Big H right back into the superbike game it once totally dominated.
We caught up with the 2017 Honda CBR1000RR SP’s Project Leader, Masatoshi Sato, to get the low-down on his new baby.
How long have you been involved with the CBR1000RR project?
I started working on the Fireblade in 2008, so a very long time!
Why is now the right time to totally overhaul the CBR1000RR?
From 2008 we have been making steady progress through a series of regular upgrades. However, after its last update in 2014, we needed to think how to bring it up to the next level and what we actually wanted to do with the next generation of CBR1000RR. On the racetrack our results weren’t where we wanted them to be and so we knew we needed a radical evolution to bring it up to the next stage of performance.
Traditionally, the CBR has avoided electronics such as traction control or variable fuel modes. This new model has cutting edge electronics, why the change of thinking?
A large part of taking the CBR to the next stage meant making it a lot lighter, but also an equally important part was to bring the electronics in. When we thought about how to make the bike even more enjoyable to ride and allow riders to get even more both from themselves and the bike we thought the time was right to bring in electronics in such a way they support the rider without interfering too much in the riding experience.
Is there a danger with electronics that you will take the enjoyment and traditional feel out of a CBR?
We are very sure there is no danger of losing the feeling of fun! The bike has always been about being fun to ride, and that ability to develop electronics that don’t interfere with the fun and feel of the bike was key to the project. I am not a pro rider, but during testing I never felt the electronics had a negative effect on the riding experience, they only enhanced it.”
How has the CBR SP’s weight loss been achieved?
We have taken 33 pounds off the bike in total. Some was lost through changes to the ABS, but also the titanium silencer, titanium gas tank and battery. But that is only half; the other half is about redesigning and lightening virtually every single part of the bike. Fasteners, nuts, bolts, even the drive chain is now lighter. We went through and redesigned almost every component.”
So how much of the CBR is actually new and not carried over?
Over 90 percent of this CBR is new; if you touch any part of the bike it will be a new part.
What was the hardest part of the project?
From a technical aspect, working with titanium to make the silencer and gas tank was very hard, but overall the hardest part was getting over the effects of the earthquake in Japan. In April this year the factory and R&D area was hit, and to overcome the huge amount of damage and to get the CBR project back on track and in Germany for the Cologne Show on time was a massive achievement by the whole team.”
You claim 189 bhp for the CBR, but rivals claim 199 bhp. Why is the CBR not matching them in terms of power?
If we decided to make a bike with 300 bhp we could. If we wanted to make one with 200 bhp we could. But to be honest, you couldn’t use a 300 bhp bike and people can’t use all of 200 bhp! What do you feel first on a bike? The first time you lean it over, its agility. A 33-pound weight reduction makes a bike that is far more fun than a bike with 300 bhp. We are convinced this new CBR, which is 33 pounds lighter than the outgoing bike, will be far more fun than if we had just been fixated on a power number in order to simply match rivals.”
How does the new engine’s characteristic compare to your rivals’. Does it keep the CBR’s traditionally smooth power delivery?
It has become even smoother due to the new electronic controls that are taken from the RC213V-S. This feeling is accentuated even further by the bike’s reduction in weight. CN
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