ROAD TESTS
22 Honda CBR WOOF Hurricane
And engineering re creates the original, all-encompassing
seduction of a Superbike
72 Suzuki VS1400GL Intruder
In price and mechanicalness, the closest
Japan has come to Milwaukee.
SPECIAL SECTION
42 The Day They Broke 200
NSU 's historic streamlined streaks across the salt, circa 1956
By Pete Lyons
45 The Need For Speed
The name says it all Tenacious By Pete Lyons
50 On The Salt
Bonneville: Where the world runs wide open
Photos By Freud
55 Faster, Faster, Faster
A list of limit-pushers through the ages
By Pete Lyons
FEATURES
26 Top-Speed Streak-Off
Dissecting 161 miles per hour with dyno
computer and speed gun
38 Aerodynamic Age
A look at shapes that slip or plow through the air
By Kevin Cooper
56 Video Review “How To Beat A Speeding Ticket
Picture the officer holding a baby
By Hershel Thunderpants
60 Beat The Press: Kawasaki KLR650
Three punishing days aboard Kawasaki s Great White Whale
By Tim Carrithers
75 Suzuki VS700 Intruder: Direct Hit
The look that stole the showroom floor
82 Official Recognition
Motorcycles, motorcycles in Washington, D C
By Kevin Cameron
93 Product Evaluation Harley-Davidson Fringe Jackets
A pair of modern day ' scalp shirts' for motorcyclists
132 The Quest
Japan s license exam can test a motorcyclist s patience
By Ron Goldstein
8 Editor I al/Z?ogs And Tigers-Phil Schilling
13 Letters/A/o'//
15 Bits/ Tim Does His Part(s)/Tim Caruthers
17 TDC/Come Daytona/Kevin Cameron
96 NewsUne/April Fuel/Tim Caruthers
100 Checkers/Har/eys In Baja/Ken Vreeke
The new CBR is pure
Honda: slick, smooth
and priced to move, with
engineering that catapults
this middle-of-the-road
Superbike to the farthest
edges of performance.
□ Return with us now to those thrilling
days when all God-fearing Superbikes
were propelled through the troposphere
by great, fizzy in-line fours. And wel-
come back, Honda, with a new in-line
Superbike that competes directly with
the quickest of the quick.
Much has changed since Honda’s
CB1100F drifted out of sight four years
ago, and the Brave New Open-Class
World reverberates with variations on
the four-across theme: five-valve Gene-
sis engines, oil-cooling, high-compres-
sion powerplants wrapped in aerody-
namic bodywork. Now Honda offers up
its Hurricane literbike—refining, extend-
ing, expressing its Superbike vision with
the quiet reserve of a company that
competes with the radical fringe through
a grasp of solid centers.
Consequently, the Hurricane presskit
is not a document of the Knock-Your-
Socks-Off kind: No great tricks lurk in
the CBR’s engine bay; there is nothing
particularly novel in its steel chassis. The
bike’s seating position does not splay its
rider over the fuel tank, swan-dive style;
neither is this new Honda, at 582
pounds, surpassingly light. The
CBR1000F has been touted in Europe as
the fastest, strongest, hardest of the
hard-edged. But in the United States
Honda has toned down the speed-chat-
ter and marketed the Hurricane as the
latest slice of single-track high-tech-
polished, slick and moderately priced,
with just enough racy bits for a $5398
motorcycle.
Still, the CBR retains a two-edged
quality: The Hurricane’s powerplant ap-
pears a model of docility—at idle it bur-
bles with a placid hum—yet our Hurri-
cane test unit pumped out 113 rear-
wheel horsepower at 10,000 rpm on the
Kerker dyno, the strongest sporting en-
gine Cycle has ever tested. The engine’s
silky torque hauls the F-bike from stop-
lights in second gear with only the faint-
est tug of throttle, yet the Hurricane
makes short, quick work of the quarter-
mile in under 11 seconds. CBR suspen-
sion soaks up freeway expansion joints
with supple control, yet expert riders can
heel the Hurricane over in fast sweepers
until its centerstand, then aluminum un-
der-cowl, then brake pedal, and finally
fairing lie belly-first against the pave-...