superbike test

[99 900ss duc]

The Fastest Superbike
German magazine Motorrad took all the top superbikes to Nardo, in Sardinia, Italy, for a crazy flat out test.

This was not your usual test at all - Nardo is not a racetrack, but rather a HUGE, wide ring banked just enough to make it the ideal place to test vehicles flat out for as long as you wish. This is where a lot of cars/bike/tire companies come to test the absolute limits of their products. To give you an idea how big it is:





This is what they tested for:

1) true top-speed
2) acceleration 0 - 250 km/h
3) roll-on 150 - 250 km/h
4) 250 km/h - 0 braking distance

Results:

Fastest in all tests was the S1000RR:
305km/h - 10,6s - 8,3s - 235m

Second fastest was the 2010 MV Agusta F4:
297km/h - 12,0s - 10,5s - 254m

Fastest Japanese was the Kawasaki ZX10R (which also had the shortest braking distance):
295km/h - 11,7s - 10,4s - 233m

Slowest Japanese the Honda CBR1000RR (amazingly, this was the ABS bike - not a good showing):
289km/h - 12,3s - 9,1s - 261m

Followed by the Aprilia RSVR:
285km/h - 13,1s - 9,4s - 242m

Fastest twin the Ducati 1198S:
284km/h - 14,3s - 10,9s - 248m

Slowest bike overall the KTM RC8R:
282km/h - 13,5s - 11,0s - 260m

You will notice a few missing players, that's because the most important/interesting thing is the carnage that resulted from the test:

The Aprilia RSV4R destroyed a crankshaft after just 4 laps (this was a post-recall bike - the editors got really upset about this, they notified Aprilia and now they are doing an extended 50K km test to see if the problem is as common as they fear).

The GSXR 1000 put a hole in its crank-case by blowing a rod.

The R1 blew a head-gasket.

The MV F4 blew the transmission.

The KTM burned a valve.

Only BMW, Honda, Kawasaki and Ducati had no problems running full throttle on the Nardo ring.

More interesting facts: Pirelli provided a specially formulated tire just for this test, one that would not blow up (like some of the engines did).

On the braking results, the editors claimed that when braking at such extremes (well beyond what regular people do even at a track day) ABS loses a lot of its edge because the rear is going to come up no matter what. At the very end of the spectrum strong brakes and a gifted hand are going to outperform even the best ABS (but not by much, in the case of the BMW).

Highest HP number for I4s: S1000RR 187, lowest the R1 at 159. Absolute lowest the Ducati with 158 - amazingly, the KTM RC8R made 162, beating not only the Duc but even the I4s of the Honda and Yamaha!

[ChrisM]

awesome.  all those numbers and yet i still lap quicker on my sv then i do my cbr 1krr.  must be nice to be good. also that bmw is a well engineered bike.

[oldBolt]

J Rea
Put the Jap killer down last week 2- 0.