2008 Fireblade

‘I say what a fine array of shiny missiles you have my good man’
‘Absolutely Sir, are you looking for anything in particular, we have the full line up of weaponry from the Honda Skynet corporation on display with appropriate demonstrators. Perhaps a sub spatial orbiter, stratosphere cruiser,…
‘That one there is rather appealing with the stubby exhaust vent‘.


Ah, of course, the latest generation of Fireblade, note the sleek outer shell and pared down profile for decreased molecular friction. Perhaps Sir would care for a swift lunge into hyperspace? The oxygen tanks are full and should see you through two hours of earth time heavy breathing. If we could just take a little blood for the demonstrator contract…. (A tiresome necessity you understand should you burn up and trash on re-entry‘).
‘Don’t mind if I do, a couple of millilitres be sufficient‘?
‘Perfect Sir. If Sir would care to get suited up I will just run through the instrumentation checks before you launch onto the supernova space highway‘.
‘Be aware that the thought police will be surrounding the outer limits of the atmosphere to snag the unwary aero space age warrior as they accelerate into the golden void‘.
‘No problem my good man, see you in two hours’

I’m always reading about race track derived technology, every year the marketing gets more Sci Fi, more alchemistic, here’s a line from the new Fireblade brochure …”Sired by a MotoGP champion and tempered in the fires of world super bike and endurance racing…’ the sentence continues with words like ‘omniscient and ‘searing performance’ we truly are being persuaded to buy the pinnacle in mass produced fire breathing 21st century two wheeled motorised propulsion, (no doubt the other factories coin similar enchantingly human-machine symbiotic qualities) but this is the best one I’ve come across so far.

Every year there is a new feature or an improved spec integral in the design of a new machine, every year technology that costs hundreds of thousands of pounds utilised, proved or broken within the global race calendar that the factories are participating in, every year trickling through the R&D system to benefit us, the bike buying public, mere road riding and track day mortals.
Technology designed purely to make the bike faster, lighter, more responsive, better handling and for more efficient braking.

The 2008 Honda Fireblade is no exception. The bike that won the World Superbikes title last year in the hands of James Toseland has contributed to a large extent in the design and build of the new litre class Honda.

I had a quick two hour spin on the latest bike last week courtesy of my local dealer, he knew I didn’t want to buy one, he knew I just wanted to have a thrash and write an appraisal of the machine as I saw it, and he still let me out on it. (So by way of thanx click the link to visit the Hastings Honda - JS Gedge website. Make sure you talk to Andy).

In pure comparison terms I reckon it’s the same as walking into a Porsche or Aston dealership and asking any lurking Swiss Tony to test ride the £100,000 supercars available. You have to spend that sort of money on four wheels to get close to the thrills and sublime control of a modern 1000cc sports bike.

I didn’t really get a chance to pore over all the detail at the official launch on the 21st February this year, because naturally the place was crowded with eager onlookers, but I had attended a launch of the Kawasaki ZX-10R two weeks prior and these two are effectively the two bikes that have been radically overhauled this year and so you could argue should now leapfrog the other factories in terms of supremacy in the litre class wars, both on the track and on the road, with any factory racing efforts carefully nurturing the technology that we will see in another couple of years on our road bikes.

Emphasis these days is more on handling, braking and the rider enhancement of the power produced, lets face it, litre class bikes ten tears ago were blindingly quick as well, but the difference is that they were bulky and generally needed a lot of suspension adjustment to make them steer. Today’s versions are svelte and sleek and handle like you never dreamed a litre class bike would ten years ago.

Would today’s road going Fireblade be able to compete against a decade year old BSB machine? I venture that not only would they be able to compete but that the road bike would be stronger, because of the technology that has filtered down and become affordable for mass production which has enabled greater rider control, not then available.

For instance. The gravity die cast frame is stronger, lighter and narrower than ever before, giving it a diminutive feel, The flowing ‘hybrid’ aluminium swing arm apparently gives greater stability at high speed and grasps the latest Unit Pro Link suspension.

The standard reactive steering damper works incredibly well allowing low speed leverage but high speed stability, a sensor on the front wheel measures the wheel speed and auto adjusts the valves within the damper unit accordingly.

Wheels now feature even thinner walled spokes for less unsprung weight, standard mono block calipers are reduced in weight and the exhaust system is now fully Euro 3 compliant, the salesman reckons Honda spent £100's of thousands per day just developing the new system just getting it compliant with the new regs, but also delivering it all in an aesthetically pleasing stubby GP style vent. I like it!

Naturally the motor is new, featuring a revised more compact cylinder head (presumably for an even more efficient burn) lighter pistons in a revised cylinder block for a few extra revs, dual sequential fuel injection and a new ‘assist’ slipper clutch housed in new crankcases. The list goes on, but you get the idea. Lighter faster, fleeter etc.

The bike feels like a 600 from a few years ago, its small and amazingly light, well actually its not as amazingly light as I thought it was, its just a snag under 200KGs (quoted ‘wet’ weight) but the balance belies the weight.

On the open road I encountered a large hub cap in my line of flight exiting a corner, a brief shimmy and we were round it, no fuss just the engines urgent call to arms as the relentless and free flowing revs urged me forward. Rider input and impressive balance and weight transfer tested.
Ten minutes later on an unusually long fast and open stretch of road that was mercifully free of meandering minds steering their painfully slow cars home, produced a smooth power wheelie as I gunned it in fourth gear, the bars didn’t flap and the front wheel touched down almost nonchalantly , the damn thing just takes it all in its stride and somehow cajoles you into upping the pace, a series of third gear S bends further on flowed by though the roads were hideously cold and the grip did suffer. It moved a little later on into a fast downhill sweeper . (Naturally this could be put down to the idiot riding the bike as opposed to a shortcoming in the bike itself).
Equipped with Dunlop Qualifiers I’m sure in warmer weather they would have been perfect.
I felt the tyres after 1 hour 45 minutes as soon as I landed back at the showroom and the tyres were barely warm, perhaps I had to try harder. I looked up and the first few drops of sleet started pinging sporadically around me, at least I had a dry ride.

I must admit the thought of the slipper clutch eluded me whilst riding, but looking back it must have unobtrusively kicked in for some rather rapid downshifts (grey faced Geiger eyed individual staring through mottled wet glass as I gracefully semi fishtailed at him, trying to be as urgent but progressive on the brakes as I could) and the gearshift down through the sequential box seemed short and neat, positive, and there was no jerkiness, so the ‘assist’ part of the slipper clutch nomenclature worked well.

Some have said and I partially agree that this type of innovation divorces the rider from the actual riding experience but it’s not like you feel the bike taking over, making your decisions for you while you merely sit on board it just ‘assists’ in the whole process being undertaken, (in this instance the avoidance of mouth agape idiot Geiger boy in his vile mauve hatchback as he blithely sailed into the middle of the road from his driveway without looking). So Check! The slipper clutch works well as does the front brake set up.

Once again Honda have created a fantastic machine, it appeared to be good at everything, it’s a great looking bike and no doubt will offer years of trouble free scudding.

I can’t compare it to the other main rivals in its class as I don’t have the time or probably the ability to really fine tune what the differences are, let the big budget bike mags do that.
The only flaw that I can see is not specific to the Blade, it encompasses it and its peers.

The bike had so much power and ability it was disappointing that it wasn’t possible to use all of it, admittedly in perfect conditions I probably couldn’t anyway, but even (by my standards) at savage speeds I won’t admit to, it was still painfully obvious that there was loads more left, notwithstanding the plague of slow moving cars and a hundred other sundry considerations, it begs the question for me, why do I need a 1000cc sports bike? There will always be that last 25% I’ll virtually never be able or have the opportunity to use, from that point of view its not a sensible every day option for people like me. I'd just want to ride it faster and faster wherever I could.
Streetfighters with their lumpy midrange and wide bars, big bore supermotards, 600cc sports bikes, they are much more 'sensible' and are capable of achieving the same journey time stats as a Blade would.

However there’s something about straddling a super bike and just knowing that you can figuratively kick the shit out of anything else on the road other than a superior spirit on the same machine, and its comforting that you can have all this control for less than 10 grand. After all power is nothing without control apparently.

My thanx to Hawkwind for space music and the pig that is the Roi du Mont