SPecial Brew - Honda Fireblade SP Long Term Loan Update (1,000 miles)

If Honda made Carlsberg, it’d be tasty, classy, understated and the can would be ergonomically perfect. Thankfully, Honda makes motorbikes, not lager and the new Fireblade SP is back to being a pint of fizz in a half-pint pot. Steve Rose is still tiddly.

Honda’s 2017 Fireblade has had an interesting start to the year. Rave reviews at the press launch followed by a mixed reception and some strong opinions in the months that followed. Plus, some high-profile difficulties in developing the race bike. Of course, Superbike race machinery and road bikes are very different things – there’s not a lot of shared parts - so challenges with a racer have little relation to what we as road riders experience.

Into the countryside and the thing that grabs you first is the ride quality and poise. Discussing the speed would be vulgar and unnecessary – let’s just say we are doing 35mpg in a 45mpg zone. The Honda rolls into corners like it’s attached to your central nervous system, flicks more aggressively when the turns become tighter and is stable at speed, even on the pockmarked, acne-macadam my local council prefers. On Mode 2 (road settings), the electrically controlled Öhlins suspension is a demonstration of just how effective some oil, springs and a few holey discs can be in keeping your squashy round man-bits round. Not quite floating on air but there’s a big difference between feedback and ‘feelin-for-where-my-man-eggs-used-to-be’. The ride quality and road holding are just stunning as we annihilate some of Cambridgeshire’s nastiest, bumpiest B-roads.

Oh… Did I mention it was raining? 

Which just makes the performance all the more spectacular. What’s really helping is the thing I’m most keen to test. The Blade SP’s fuelling – this Blade SP’s fuelling – is perfect. Accurate to a fraction of a degree of throttle, precise and dependable…always.

Normally I don’t care how much faster a 1000cc motorbike goes than everything else because, aside from the initial acceleration and some extra overtaking grunt, it’s my riding, my bravery, my perspective on how quickly I want double-vision, watering eyes and that mental moment when you just can’t process any more info in this timescale, that determines how fast I go. 

But part of the reason I’m riding the Blade today is to really get to the bottom of the fuelling thing, so, in the interests of science, I find a quiet stretch of straight road and repeatedly accelerate as hard as I can in second and third gears, trying to swap closed for full throttle as quickly as possible.

It’s interesting, but inconclusive. Firstly, I’m blown away by the force of the acceleration. Can’t remember the last time I did this on the road and hung onto full throttle – it’s terrifying. Secondly, there’s something going on here. The Blade feels like it’s stuttering and stammering at the back wheel. Is this the fuelling lurching and hunting, or the back-wheel bumping and damping? I find a smoother, less back-road-ey stretch of tarmac – you might know it as the A1 - and try the same thing. The stuttering goes away, suggesting it’s a suspension thing, not fuelling. Sorry chaps, I’m putting health, hormones and licence on the line here and I can’t make this bike be anything other than brilliant.

The Fireblade is blowing my mind making riding this fast feel this confident. The quickshifter’s auto-blipper makes downshifts smooth enough to keep things settled going into damp corners. The riding position allows easy weighting of the outside footrest while leant over for some extra confidence and the linear power delivery lets me wind on the oomph while lifting the bike upright and then nailing it. Up till now, I’ve never been a fan of electronic control, but this ride is changing my mind.

Apart from the water running down my back and, er, crack (my fault for wearing non-zip-together leathers in the rain) I’m not uncomfortable. I have no idea what setting the engine electronics are on – the same ones as I picked it up with – but I trust the throttle, trust the suspension and trust the ABS enough to be braking as hard in the wet as I would be doing in the dry without even considering the consequences. The only niggle is a tendency for the bike to lurch slightly on a ‘just-open’ throttle as if the ride-by-wire system can’t decide whether the throttle is open or closed.

The Honda has everything a state-of-the-art superbike needs. It’s lighter than the opposition, packed with electronics, manages to be both tiny and roomy in that way that only Hondas ever are and, it goes like bejeezus when you open the throttle. The quicker you twist more bees jees and zees you get – obvious, but it never stops being entertaining. More importantly, it feels like a Fireblade should. The best Blades of the last 25 years were faster than their figures suggested, light enough to surprise you and noticeably smaller than the competition. They also had that certain ‘special’ something that left you thinking ‘never mind if-Carlsberg-made-sportsbikes…What about if-Honda-made-lager?’ I’m rambling now, time to stop for some nuts. 

I started this ride glibly talking about how the Blade really isn’t any quicker from here to there. I was wrong. Later today my 53-mile commute home will take a full five minutes less to complete than any other bike I’ve ridden. That’s a saving of 50 minutes a week both ways or almost two extra days a year to hug my wife if I buy a Fireblade.

£19k is a whole lot of money for a motorbike, but somehow, this one feels worth it. 

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS