Racing Bentley

HALFWAY round a sinuous S-bend with a posted advised speed of 45kmh, the Honda VFR1200F gave me a real wake-up call. The bike and I had negotiated the first left-hook of the esses right on the money in terms of speed and line, but the ensuing right-hander had a tighter radius that demanded all the grip and cornering clearance that the bike and tyres could supply.

Even with all of those reserves committed, it wasn’t enough, and the front tyre began to wash out. Now, normally, it would be all over for a hefty shaft-drive sports-tourer at this tipping point, and time to man the lifeboats.

However the Honda gave me what felt like a full five minutes to sort things out, and apply a bit of positive lock to the handlebars to scrub the sliding front Dunlop the rest of the way round the bend while remaining thankfully upright.

At ride’s end, the tyre displayed evidence of the skid, with a frilly halo of shredded rubber on the extreme right side of the profile that a racer would immediately recognise.

The incident isn’t one I’d recommend for anyone seeking to discover proof of the VFR’s sporting credentials, especially when riding the Honda on the road. But it did allow some insight into why a lot of prospective sports-tourers buyers can’t immediately recognise the sporty attributes of the biggest VFR.

For those seeking a sportier ride than a tourer, the Honda’s shaft drive and hefty 267kg mass are complete turn-offs. And to those with a lean towards long-distance riding, the paltry 18.5litre tank of the VFR and the bent-forward riding position it forces its rider to adopt shriek ‘‘sportsbike’’. So what sort of bike is it?

Officially, the big VFR must be a tourer, because that’s the classification given it on the New Zealand distributor’s website. But the limiting of the VFR’s horizons by such pigeon-holing does the bike a disservice.

To me, it’s a sportier ride than Kawasaki’s ZX-14R, Suzuki’s Hayabusa, or BMW’s K1300S, and is easily the bike of such a quartet of choices that I’d prefer to swing my leg over at a track day.

There’s a simple reason for such a decision: the Honda carves up the turns with more relish than the three rivals mentioned above. The only time the VFR feels its 267kg is when you wheel it out the garage on a slight upward slope. The rest of the time it feels like it weighs 215kg at the most. Such are the light steering inputs required, the other sporty sports-tourers feel like barges by comparison.

The Honda’s steering geometry is a not too-flighty 25.5 degrees of fork rake and a stabilising 101mm of trail (the longitudinal distance at ground level between the front axle and the steering head), but the mass centralisation permitted by the V4 engine and the optimised location of heavy powertrain components like the shaft drive transfer gears obviously have a positive effect. Completing the picture is the well-considered suspen- sion tune. The ride of the bike might be targeted towards sustaining comfort over long periods in the saddle, yet you still receive plenty of feedback about the traction status of the tyres, and there is enough travel and spring control to faithfully maintain their connection to the road.

The Honda’s riding position also puts you in a sports-riding mood. It’s an easy bike to move around on, to hang personal mass off the inside of the bike to maximise cornering clearance. And the view from those low-mounted handlebars feels pretty close to that of riding Honda’s sporting flagship, the CBR1000RR Fireblade.

The flickable steering and ever- so-slightly-demanding ergos definitely make the VFR feel more athletic than most sports-tourers, as does the bike’s incredible engine.

Although the latter doesn’t quite snarl with the same menace and aural promise as an Aprilia V4, the VFR still kicks like Honda has inserted a Saturn booster rocket into its tailpiece. When the Honda exhaust flap opens mid-way through the rev range, the sonics turn up the volume, and can you feel the rear tyre trying to rip the covering layer of metal chips from the tarseal.

Last year, the VFR1200F received new fuel mapping that thankfully extended the range of the bike by dramatically reducing its thirst. Where the 18.5litre tank used to become a drought-prone area around the 200km from the previous fill-up, the current version will happily roam 280+km between refills. Which is just as well, as the Honda’s most direct competitor is BMW’s K1300S, which also possesses a 160+bhp engine and shaft drive, yet comes with a smidge bigger fuel capacity (19.1 litres).

Which brings up the real reason the VFR1200F is one of the most misunderstood of sports-tourers. The concept of a shaft-driven sporty bike has long been valued by the Bavarian bike maker, but represents totally new territory for a Japanese brand. We need to get over the shock of the new and accept this bike for what it is: a beautifully-made and brilliantlyengineered sports-tourer that is both as forgiving as it is exciting to ride. It had been 84 years since Bentley had won a race in the UK until it did so this year in a Continental GT3 race car. So, in honour of that win and the car, Bentley is going to offer customers a Continental GT3-R. It’s an all-wheel drive rocket that can hit 100kmh from a standstill in just 3.6 seconds thanks to its 421 kilowatt twin-turbo V8, which is a detuned version of the race car’s unit. Power goes through an 8-speed automatic transmission and all-new titanium exhaust system. The GT3-R is only available in Glacier White and only 300 examples are being built making this the rarest of all Continental GTs.