my 09 Big Bang R1 review.

[Saki]

Well went into the bike shop today for a bit of a look around. Was looking long and hard at the RC8 when the guy in the shop offered me a ride on the big bang 09 R1. So i couldn't really say no!

I have ridden my mates 05 R1 so i had an idea of what a "normal" R1 would feel like.

My first impression of the styling is: i like it! I think its a quite attractive bike. I like the headlights and the air intake design. The colour schemes are nice. Dash was impressive, it was large so it displayed everything you would need to know, but has some strange horizontal bars which build up until they hit an R1 sign. Hard to explain but if you see it lit up you will understand!
The arse is a bit large with the b-king'esk mufflers hanging out the back.

Next step was to sit on the bike and start it. Well i must say bike feels very light just sitting on it and swaying it around. Clutch felt very firm and solid, but easy to use. Brakes were set to be mega hard and i must say the new 6 pot setup, really works well!!
Seat was very comfortable you could spend many hours sitting in that seat without getting a sore bot bot. The rear and front suspension i found to be very hard also and i weigh 95kg, but thats the stock setup.

So finally time to fire it up and if you are aware of these big bang motors first thing you will obviously notice is the engine noise. Having the new firing order setup obviously gives it a funky noise. Not a bad sound but you realise exactly whats going on when you take off! Whilst still idling was intrigued to find out how fast this new motor revs up and wow what a shock, half a turn of hte throttle for a second and its sitting at 75% of hte rev range! Its sharp!

So onto taking off! and must say that clutch is really easy to work and throttle response was very sharp. So off i go down the road slowly being followed by the bloke for the shop so thinking "ahhh need a bit more speed" So give it a bit more a turn and think hmmmm i seem to be moving fast, look down and 90km/h is showing on the dash. Wow what a shock it was less than 50% throttle and the amount of low to mid range pick up was amazing, esp for a litre bike!
So give those brakes a work out and YEP they sure stop that bike.

So we get out onto some windy roads and the KTM he is riding i don't even struggle to keep up. 1 thing i did find quite disturbing is the amount of vibration the bike had. With the uneven firing order you need to rev each gear up enough to be smooth, if you put any load onto the motor it has a huge vibration. I cranked it upto 3rd gear doing 70km/h and gave it a crank to load up the motor and labour along and i must say the motor was really vibrating.
With the way the power comes on in the R1 it doesn't give you that hit that the other litres give you where there is not much power down low then goes ape shit up top. This bike has nice low-mid range then gets to the top end of the power bracket, but i never really felt it give me a kick in hte guts, the power felt like it came on so smoothly, rather than that explosive hit!

Another problem i didn't like was the amount of heat that pumped off the motor, it felt alot like the 05 model with hte amount of heat!

Overall i can't pick many faults in the bike, except the price is a bit way out there and compared to the new ZX10R, the Ninja is still better value for money. Out of all the next generation sports bike, i felt the R1 and 08-09 ZX10R felt like the only 2 that where a step above the older generation.

I think most people either like it or hate it, but go for a ride before you say you hate it, cause its a new experience!

[IsleofNinja]

Good write up mate.
Sounds like the pre release blurb wasn't that far of the mark re the "big bang' donk. Though the journo's didn't mention any vibration issues in the reviews I read (must have been a nice kickback involved )

[Saki]

Cheers mate! Yeah vibrations weren't bad if you rev it out through the gears properly but it gets a bit savage if you don't do it properly!
After feeling and riding that its making me not want to get a bike with that, so hopefully the new 2010 ZX10R wont have it cause it would be kick arse for the track, but pretty shit for the road!

[zx-10r]

'ape shit up top' , isnt it so

the styling isnt bad, i also think dual semi underseat exahusts are cool