Tan lines, outdoor boozing and socks with sandals; there are many signs that signify the start of the Great British summer, but for us here at Fast Bikes, this most revered time of the year is traditionally kicked off with the world’s biggest, toughest and fastest sportsbike test. It’s who we are, it’s what we do and for the past 17 years we’ve been able to categorically outline the best performing new metal through our gladiatorial, head-to- head, no-nonsense track shoot out. We’re talking about SBOTY, which has been our staple approach to experiencing the good, the bad and the sometimes confusing make-up of what manufacturers have had to offer, across all shapes and sizes of sportsbike goodness. It’s been one hell of a ride, but for 2019, at the behest of your requests, we’re upping the ante. Welcome to USB! Nope, we’re not referring to one of those funny little dongles that you plug into your computer to download adult material, we’re talking about Ultimate Sports Bike.
At the risk of sounding like a used car salesman, and getting all heady with the pitch, trust us when we say that this is our most comprehensive sportsbike test yet, seeing us getting stuck in on the road, around Cadwell Park racetrack and on Bruntingthorpe’s private testing ground to work out which of 2019’s performance- fuelled offerings has what it takes to collar the inaugural USB crown. As you rightly pointed out to us, in the same vein as owning a Swiss Army penknife and only using it for its bottle opener (apparently they can do other things as well), there’s more to sportsbikes than one quick lap around some distant racetrack. It was that kind of thinking that helped us draw the foundations for USB. We wanted to test everything from day-to-day comfort to top speeds, how quick a bike can stop to how fast its tank will drain… and, of course, how speedily it will lap up a circuit. So, over a two-week period, in the face of rain, sunshine and an abundance of rude gestures from fellow road users, we clocked thousands of miles, consumed hundreds of litres of fuel and sacrificed an unholy amount of kneesliders in a bid to determine which of these eight, great sportsbikes ticked the most boxes. Some of these bikes will be familiar, seeing the return of Suzuki’s adored GSX-R1000R, Honda’s prized CBR1000RR SP and Yamaha’s much-loved R1M. Ducati’s V4S is also back for more crown-chasing action, and we’re really pleased to re-introduce the revised Kawasaki ZX-6R for 2019. Its rev-happy, sibling ZX-10RR is also in the mix, alongside the all-new BMW S1000RR M-Sport and the capacity-cranked Aprilia 1100cc RSV4 Factory. If Carlsberg did sportsbike line-ups, they’d be crap compared to this. More to the point, they might not have been able to have exploited the virtues of this meteoric line-up, so we got stuck in instead, having kitted the bikes out on top-drawer rubber from our friends at Bridgestone (using their new S22s), and having secured every bike head to toe with R&G’s awesome protection products. Here’s what we made of them…