The fact that there are no competitors to these two dinosaurs is telling. Long gone are the days of the Honda Blackbird. Triumph canned its plans to make a ’Busa rival over a decade ago. BMW quietly stopped making the K 1300 S a year or two ago. And it’s not as if we’re expecting a fresh raft of rivals in the next few years. Big bikes belching out massive power while offering sporting aspirations have found themselves out of favour, and if it wasn’t for the fact that urban America has turned to this pair to tune, slam and ruin in a multitude of other ways there’s a chance that you wouldn’t be reading this as a assessment of two new bikes, but rather this would be a cracking used test.
Riding the Hayabusa does indeed feel like a blast from the past – it certainly offers a blast and its heritage is firmly in the past. I can’t see it appealing to anyone other than current ’Busa riders who have worn out their old one. Yes, it’s got a stonking powerplant, but everything else about it has been superseded in one way or another by a whole raft of new bikes. There may only be a few bikes able to live with its terminal speed, but to achieve this you need to put up with its awkward riding position, wooden brakes, thirsty motor, capitulating suspension and average tyres.
Don’t take from that, that the ’Busa is a bad bike – it’s not, and I enjoyed my time riding it – but it is about as far from the cutting edge as you can currently buy. It will continue to be sold under derogation rules this year, but beyond that it needs the mother of all revamps to make it relevant and ready for the years ahead.