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Desired Hypercruiser

There's a genre of motorcycles known more or less as hypersports. Cyberpunk authors would love them. Hypersports was, I think originally defined in the mid 90s by the Honda CBR1100XX Blackbird, and later by the Suzuki Hayabusa and Kawasaki ZX12-R (my current ride). The defining characteristic is an enormous top speed (around 300km/h) and power output (178ps or 130kW). They're rather heavier than your typical sports bike, and a bit more unwieldy in tight corners or around town because of it. For a modest AUD $20,000 you get a vehicle with speed and acceleration comparable to a $400,000 supercar.

The catch is that I think very few of the owners ride them that way. Quite aside from legality, approaching that kind of speed requires a road more clear and flat than I've ever heard of in Australia at least. And even then: I'm sure going faster than a bullet train is fun, but I don't know if I'd want to do it every day.

These bikes have all kinds of qualities aside from outright speed: the engine is so overwhelmingly capable that at any reasonable speed you're knee-deep in smooth torque. At 100km/h any of the six gears on a ZX12-R are available, depending on whether you want a gentle wafting forward in 6th, or a near-instant jump in first. The extra weight makes them very comfortable and smooth on a highway, and on a smooth surface they corner on rails. The large size and big engine make them great for carrying a pillion.

So what I'd like to see is manufacturers skewing towards this market just a little more: put in some kind of larger screen to make highway travel a bit better, even if it takes a few ks off the top speed. Set them up to be a bit more tolerant of choppy roads. Put the big, jet-turbine engines into something a little more like a sports tourer.

posted Sun 7 Dec 2003 in /motorbikes | link

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