Dale's Motorcycle Blog

MCN's Aug 19th Cover Story. Click to enlarge.

Motorcycle News, in the UK, has just released their 19 August  print issue, in which the BMW S1000RR goes head to head against Honda’s venerable CBR1000RR, and smacks it down like a red-headed stepchild.  Indeed, they say that their tester could do a 3-second faster lap in the test at the track in Brno.  They breathlessly report:

In this week’s issue of MCN, on sale August 19, we have a world exclusive track test of the BMW S1000RR. According to our tester, it feels more powerful than a Yamaha R1 and makes the Honda Fireblade’s suspension feel rubbish in comparison…

World exclusive riding impressions of the new BMW sports bike shows it can lap Brno 3 secs faster than a Fireblade.

Man, that sounds like a super hot bike, doesn’t it?  Three seconds per lap faster than the CBR1000RR!  Wow!

The thing is, that in World Superbike, where actual, professional racers do actual, professional racing, the S1000RR’s best result to date has been Troy Corser’s 5th place finish at Brno in Race 1.  He was 10th place in Race 2.  He was beaten by two Fireblades in race 1 and three in race 2.

And, of the top 10 riders in WSB after 10 of 14 rounds, four of them ride Fireblades.  None of them ride BMWs.

I’m just saying.