HONDA

So it was a bit of surprise to see the CBR1000RR SP unveiled for 2014 and for a number of reasons. First, the SP isn’t really a homologation special; total production will number 5,000 units worldwide, far more than the mandated 1,500 minimum, and it doesn’t feature much of anything that will be of real use to professional race teams (especially a ride-by-wire throttle system, which luckily for the World Superbike PATA Honda team is allowed to be retro-fitted). And second, the SP features Öhlins suspension and Brembo brakes; this is a break from Honda tradition that has always been to use Showa suspension and Nissin brakes exclusively (since those companies are owned by Honda).

We published Alan Cathcart’s riding impression of the CBR1000RR SP from its world press launch in Qatar in the last issue (“More Than the Sum of Its Parts,” May), which included an extensive tech discussion of the changes to the Honda, so there’s no need to go into detail on them here. He was only able to ride the ABS version, however, and American Honda will only be importing the non-ABS model SP into the US. So when we were given the opportunity to spend a couple of weeks with a non-ABS US-model SP, we were already grabbing our gear by the time the bike arrived.