Watching a programme today on world superbike racing, it dawned on me that the term is a loose one. Back in 1990 a ZXR750 was a superbike (in racing terms) despite the ZZR1100 bring quite a lot faster in a straight line. Now, a superbike is a 1000cc missile. What do you consider a superbike? For me, I consider a superbike one which was raced at top international level in it's day, therefore the Ducati 900ss is a sports bike, as is the CBR600 but the Benelli would be considered a superbike as it was raced in world superbikes for a couple of seasons around '02 - '03 What would you classify as a superbike?
I guess it's different in different Era's - the Z1 Kawasaki was clearly a Superbike in it's day, some say the first (others say the Honda CB750 was :Hilarious The Brough Superior and Vincent will be mentioned I'm sure, but the phrase itself was from 1970's.
For me a superbike is a 1000cc bike that was designed for racing, be it a mid 90's CBR or a 2015 CBR. A sports bike is the same example but as a 600cc. Could you class the Streetfighter as a superbike as it's basically a naked 1098?
I suspected this would be the case - the term has no completely set boundaries and there are no right or wrong answers. How would you classify the injected 900 SS? For me I put them as sports bikes rather than superbikes, but as the term isn't clear cut would you slip them into the superbike category? Although on paper the CBR600 is just about as quick, the SS feels a world away on the road as it's grunt and torque combined with it's light weight make it feel way more ballsy than the numbers suggest.
Superbike is the type and cc of a bike ridden as BSB and WSB, supersports the same, everything else is different
Growing up in the late 70's and 80's with my first bike 1981 at 12, and bikes and football being what I did for years, I cant recall the phrase to describe a type of bike, rather thana bike being super, used until wsbk and bsb used them.
Superbike racing is a category of motorcycle racing that employs highly modified production motorcycles, as opposed to MotoGPin which purpose-built motorcycles are used. The Superbike World Championship is the official world championship series, though national Superbike championships are held in many countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, Australia and Canada. Superbike racing is generally popular with manufacturers, since it helps promote and sell their product, as captured by the slogan "Win on Sunday; Sell on Monday". So it's a highly modified stock machine for racing? I class my 848 as a superbike
What (for You) Constitutes A Superbike... Discussion in 'Lounge' started by philoldsmobile, Today at 3:15 PM. For me as I described
A bike made to corner, accelerate, brake and perform and function in a race type fashion that is of a high racing capacity class. Bikes classed as superbikes would be those used in the transatlantic series through to current WSB/BSB ie a production (based) motorcycle. This does not include those bloated 1100/1200/1400cc things the japs keep on making for straight line speed dim wits. Nor the diavel monstrosity
