As someone said that mag has a cut off of bikes under 15 years old . I can't see the argument of speed , my 600 SRAD would loose all of them , if you wanted fast you would look else where for allot less money . I think the older bikes have character . Opinion of a newbie
Do you reckon you could lose a Supersport on a track with an SRAD 600 then? I am not so sure. I reckon I might have a chance against one of those. I would bet a tenner that, if judging my own time on both bikes, I would be quicker on my Supersport. My bike is an 1100 so 100 more than the DS in this video. All decent riders. He comes in third out of four, just behind an RSV. He might have beaten the Aprilia on my bike. And the 1098 took a couple of laps to lose him. I took mine on the Nurburgring in May and my mates on 2014 Fireblades took a few corners before they got past me and they are better riders than me. So, in summary, let's not underestimate the old dogs. Why not look at getting as much pace out of these old air cooled motors as possible. They are competitive and have the character you mention. Double win.
My point is that if you were looking for a fast bike you can get allot more elsewhere pound for pound against a 900ss be it an early or late one . I am personally looking to replace my SRAD with a carb model ss because i want to slow things down a bit and keep my licence safe ( a jap 4 screaming round to 13k RPM is too addictive ! ) But i'm under no allusion i'd be trading performance and handling for character .
Ah well we are all different in what see a bike as and what we should do with it. I see the Supersport as quite deceptive. I always feel the bike is at a canter, never a gallop. But still as fast. And screwing every last bhp out of an old 2 valve air cooled bike is still worth doing. I have a screaming v4 too but only a 400. I think the issue is that the big four cylinder bikes are only fun after the speed limit has been broken.
My personal view is that the answer wouldn't be clear cut. A good friend has an RF600, not quite as quick as an SRAD but still 100bhp. Having ridden with him many times there is absolutely nothing in it for acceleration, but the Ducati is significantly better on the brakes, and drastically out handles the Suzuki. Would the SRAD close the gap? Undoubtedly, would it be enough to be quicker? If it would, which is possible, it wouldn't be by much. The biggest difference was mid corner - there was a whole mid corner section which simply didn't exist on the Ducati, it can brake deeper and harder, lean over deeper, and power out earlier than the Suzuki could. It's worth noting that the injected SS does steer quicker than the carb bikes, and personally I find they don't respond well to conscious counter steer, I prefer to just lean and not think about it but that's personal preference. On a country road you don't know well, the Ducati would be substantially quicker - the duke lays its power down in a much broader band, so for every given corner you can go a gear each way and still pull hard - it's a total blast on the road. For info, it was a 97 RF600R and a 98 900ss ie.
I used to have a ZZR 1100, now that was quick, 147bhp and 250kg. I now have 67bhp and still more than happy with it, the read tyre last longer than 2 weeks now!! Any way my SS Junior will be fastest, then I'll wake up.
Biggest bike I ever owned was an R6. Kept it about three weeks and went back to two stroke 250s until I got this air cooled Ducati.
November 2015. It has a black modified CB900 on the cover. It's etched in my mind as my CBR restoration was featured in the same issue!
