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Honda unveils standard 2017 Fireblade at Milan Show

Did you spot the deliberate error last month? Yep, Honda showed off the super-trick SP and SP2 version of its new hot-poop 2017 Fireblade at the Cologne Show – but there was no sign of a new base version. Were us poor working class types going to be left hanging, having to buy last year’s bike forever and ever?

Well, of course not. For reasons best know to themselves, the big H had held on to the details of the ‘normal’ CBR1000RR for the Milan show this week. Perhaps they have to keep Honda Italy sweet or else the quality of coffee at Honda HQ falls off a cliff or something.

Anyway. Here she is – the base CBR1000RR Fireblade which will be shunted out of Honda dealers by the utter truckload next year. The headlines? Well, it’s essentially all good. Honda’s taken most of the sweet stuff that’s appeared on the SP and SP2 but left out the race homologation gear, swapped the pricey Öhlins semi-active suspension for duller-yet-still-excellent Showa BPF forks and BFR shock, and dumped the SP2’s forged wheels. So you still get the 11-ish bhp more, and a hefty weight reduction (down 16kg on the old stocker), making for 189bhp pushing 195kg wet mass around.

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The base bike also gets much of the electronic jewellery that we all need these days: an internal Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) that tells the bike’s brains what you’re doing in terms of leaning, wheelying or stoppying, and uses that info, together with wheel speed sensors, to dictate what happens to the ABS and engine control functions.

The ECU controls anti-wheelie, traction control, cornering ABS, rear wheel lift control, engine braking adjustment and power modes. The SP’s quickshifter setup is an optional extra, but you do get the RC13V-S style colour TFT dashboard, which is nice. As an aside, it’s weird how we’ve grown to accept the ubiquity of eye-bleedingly bright and detailed colour screens on everything from a £40 tablet for the kids to the central heating thermostat, yet we’re cock-a-hoop that a £13k motorbike is finally getting one. But there you go.

We’re ecstatic that the SP’s super-trick titanium fuel tank is carried onto the stocker, and theres a lighter rear subframe and wheels (compared with the 2016 bike) too. The flashy Brembo stoppers on the SPs are swapped for new Tokico calipers, that come with ‘track-ready’ pads, which are claimed to have a high friction coefficient, and work better at high temperatures.

Will the new base Blade have the measure of the competition? Well, it’s looking better for Brand H than it has in an age to be fair. Compared with the lower spec Suzuki GSX-R1000R, the standard R1 and non-RR ZX-10R, its numbers and equipment are all very much in the ballpark. Add in the typical Honda ‘X’ factor which always makes its bikes feel much better when you ride them than the figures might have suggested, and the signs are good.

Of course, Honda’s Bundesliga dealer network and immense brand loyalty means they’ll sell a gazillion of them to committed Blade fans anyway. But this 2017 model might just have the cojones to tempt over the neutral, uncommitted superbike buyer from other brands – and that’s perhaps not been the case for a while.

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