£ 4K THRILLS
There’s nothing better than flying round Spain on a superbike, and to prove that you don’t need the latest and greatest machinery to enjoy the best roads the Spanish can offer us, we took a couple of 2004’s sexiest sportsbikes for a spanking.
When was the golden age of the litre sportsbike? The answer to that question will vary, depending on who you ask. Some will say that we’ve never had it as good as we have got it right now, with umpteen levels of every electronic impediment that you can think of, and more brake horsepower than you can shake a dirty great stick at. Others will hark back nostalgically to the ’90s, to carburettors and to clouds of blue smoke. However, if you ask me, and I would wager, many others like me, the mid-noughties, which provided us with some of the coolest and most exciting bikes going, has got to be in contention for first prize in the golden-era-of-the-superbike stakes. The R1, for example, might have been a pretty special bike since its first incarnation in 1998, but with a brand new engine and a ground-up overhaul, the 2004 model was really set to impress. Then again, Yamaha had had to do something, when the class-leading Gixer was pushing out over 160bhp. To stick it to Suzuki, Yamaha developed a big-bore/ short-stroke inline-four (albeit with the same five-valve head as the previous model) which, with 172bhp, would be the first bike to claim a power-to-weight ratio of 1:1. Groundbreaking stuff.
Yamaha weren’t the only Japanese boys and girls to have been developing new, powerful motors for their litre sportsbikes. Honda were also shouting about their all-new 170bhp Fireblade engine. Not only were they shouting about
their new engine, they were shouting about their new MotoGP-inspired chassis, featuring Unit Pro-link suspension. Bikes were getting really exciting, really fast. There is no doubt that the likes of the 2004 YZF-R1 and Fireblade were seriously cool, seriously fast bikes back when they rolled off the production line. We wanted to know whether they’ve stood the test of time. Have the years been kind to them, in the way that they are to a fine Cabernet Sauvignon, or are yesteryear’s superstar superbikes now flatter than half a bottle of cava? We wanted, nay, needed to find out, so Frodo and I put on our most charming smiles and persuaded a few of our mates to lend us their bikes for some Spanish spanking, Fast Bikes style. I had to promise that we wouldn’t do any wheelies or any stoppies, that we wouldn’t take their pride and joy to within 5K of their rev limits, and under no circumstances, whatsoever, would we even think about doing any burnouts. But we both had our fingers crossed.