A minimum number of production models, identical in certain vital chassis and suspension specifications, must be available to the public before the racing version can enter the World Superbike series.
This has led to the creation of SPs, limited-edition homologation specials with incredibly advanced chassis, rock-hard suspension and (often) unexciting performance since the ultra-trick motors do not have to be homologated for the street.
Honda’s SP-2 falls into that category – but it’s also a superb road bike.
The original SP-1, the street version of the machine that took Colin Edwards to the 2000 World Superbike title, suffered from excessive transmission snatch at small throttle openings so slow riding was a jerky proposition.
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| 99kW on 194kg of bike delivers startling straight-line performance. |
Honda went overboard on stability while attempting to challenge Ducati on its home ground and the SP-1 was as solid as a railway locomotive and about as nimble.
These are the areas Honda has addressed in the design of its second-generation sports V-twin. The 62mm throttle bodies, up 8mm from last year, give a useful 3kW boost to the top end, but the big deal is the smoother pickup from a trailing throttle, thanks to multiple injectors.
There’s some power-thudding, inevitable with any motor that runs 100mm pistons, but the motor smoothes out after 3500rpm and the power delivery is almost linear – the harder it revs the harder it runs.
Above 7000 there’s a surprising high-frequency secondary vibration but it serves as a warning that you are now in Warp Factor territory and next week is getting closer than you think. There’s no distinct power band so it can be deceptively gentle, but 99kW on 194kg of bike delivers startling straight-line performance.
The biggest improvement is in the slower corners. The SP-2 picks up cleanly, without snatch or jerking, and lays down huge lumps of V-twin torque with micrometer precision of control – and that’s as important on the street as it is on the track.
| At full tilt it’s a precision tool. |
The clutch and gearbox seem unchanged from last year; maybe I just got a good one because the transmission on the test bike was considerably better than my memories of the SP-1.
As usual with big motors, the change is noisy at low revs but direct and very positive. Above 5000rpm clutchless upshifts are the norm and if you get the throttle just right the only way you’ll notice the gear change is by the drop in engine revs.
The diamond-shaped twin-spar alloy frame is also carried over but the swing-arm is new. It's welded up from press-forged aluminium alloy sections to form a light but incredibly stiff box section between the engine and the back wheel with deep banana-shaped extensions to hold the wheel.
It’s seriously stiff.
Suspension is by Showa at both ends, 43mm upside-downies in front, adjustable for preload, compression and rebound damping, with a gas-charged remote reservoir monoshock at the back, also fully adjustable. The factory’s median settings are a bit stiff for bumpy country roads but, having had a nasty experience when I softened up the standard settings on the new FireBlade, I left them alone – after all, this is supposed to be a race bike, innit?
What you get is a harsh, somewhat unsettling, chassis action at low speeds. At full tilt, however, it’s a precision tool the reports every crack and ripple in the tar without transmitting them to the steering. Despite its close-coupled, 1420mm wheelbase, it’s still surprisingly slow-steering by track standards (although this area has been tightened up considerably from the SP-1) and stable almost to a fault.
Really quick flip-flops require a lot of body English and the bike can be hard work to hustle on tight going.
In some ways it’s a very European chassis and repays being ridden as such. Do your braking early, hit the apex and wind it on hard; that’s what V-twins are all about – the only problem I had was that I kept getting to the next corner before I was ready; this thing pulls like a train.
Talking about brakes, the SP-2 carries the same Nissin four-pot callipers and 320mm floating discs as its predecessor but braided stainless-steel hydraulic hoses are now standard, as are removable mounting brackets on the lower fork legs, so you can fit a wide range of racing callipers for the track.
On the road the standard stuff is superb, immensely powerful but progressive and precisely modulated, accurate enough that you can let the brakes off just a little to quicken the turn-in without upsetting the chassis, steering with the brakes like the fast guys.
The SP-2 retains the twin sideways-mounted radiators, allowing the body panels to be kept slim and taut. The fairing, with its two headlights and central air intake, is even sharper than the earlier version, although the screen is a little higher, following input from test rider C Edwards.
The tank is wide and flat; it’s quite a stretch to the clip-ons and the seat is little more than the proverbial plastic plank. The pillion seat wasn’t even there; I presume there is one, because the bike has passenger footpegs, but it wasn’t fitted for the test.
Instead there was a neat plastic tail-piece with a little storage space beneath – just about enough for a cell-phone and a pair of designer shades.
The instruments are digital, with the curved liquid crystal bar graph of the rev-counter stretching right across the instrument panel. It’s still not as easy to read as an analogue dial but it’s a lot quicker to scan than a numerical display like the speedometer, which needs to be read rather than looked at, but digital instrumentation is both lighter and more accurate than mechanical clocks, telling reasons for their use in this application.
The Honda SP-2 is not a particularly comfortable bike; it’s a hard ride and it can be hard work. It is, however, a superbly honed canyon carver and the better you learn to ride it the more you’ll enjoy it.
It holds its line like it’s on rails, with immense torque to launch you out of the turns, which is how it got its nickname - the Express Train.
Test bike from Mekor Honda, Cape Town.
Price: R133 000.
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