Upfront OPLANET FAST BIKES – NEW METAL, NEWS & REVIEWS
It's the most wonderful time of the year! No, not Christmas (though you'll be glad we put that earworm in your head now, eh?), but the hot metal smorgasbord that is the EICMA Milan show. 2024 bikes have been popping out all over the place for a couple of months now, but it's that saucy bike-trade jamboree in northern Italy that really brings the big fun. It looks set to be a good year for fast bikes, too: Honda's updated its Fireblade and brought back the CBR600RR, while the CBR500 and CBR650s get tweaked as well. Suzuki's GSX-8R, a new KTM Duke 990, and the retro Yamaha XSR900 GP all look great, while that Ducati 916 30th anniversary edition Panigale V4 SP2 is going straight onto our list for Santa… Is it really four years since we first saw the current beast-mode Fireblade? It surely is (that Covid shizzle really messed with our perceptions of time). Anyway, Honda's given the mighty CBR1000RR R a healthy update for 2024, with the aim of cementing its place up at the top of the litre bike class. There's no more peak power (boooh), so we'll have to remain content with just the 214.5bhp. But the firm's had the HRC gnomes in to do a number on the motor and give better drive throughout the rev range, all the better to catapult it out of the bends.
HONDA CBR1000 RR R SP FIREBLADE
Internally, there's more compression, up to 13.6:1 from 13.4:1, lighter valves, new three-stage elliptical valve springs, and the head's had a new porting job. Down below, the crank is skinnier by about a pound (450g), while new conrods and cap bolts save another 20g each. Lashings of DLC and beryllium copper on the big and small-end bearings, plus DLC-coated cam profiles all help cut friction and wear, and there's a new starter drive through the clutch, allowing a more compact crank. It's a fairly hefty set of mods, and you have to assume that they'll make a big difference to the Blade – despite the lack of a simple on-paper peak performance uplift.
Away from the engine hardware, a
