Sport-Tour Sh Ootout
SPORT-TOUR SH OOTOUT
CW COMPARISON
SPEED AND DISTANCE WITH STYLE AND GRACE
IT’S A CONVENTIONALLY ACCEPTED RULE OF LIFE THAT A wise workman selects the proper tool for the job he’s about to undertake.
The same goes for motorcycle riders. If you plan on making sport-touring your primary type of riding, you select a sport-touring bike as your primary mount. But doing that requires that you sort through a conundrum, as few styles of transport are farther apart than "sport” riding and "tour” riding.
Or are they? All sport-touring really means is that you ride backroads, at enthusiastic speeds, on sport-oriented machinery. For the purposes of this comparison, a further requirement was added: that a proper sport-tourer is one that comes equipped with hard saddlebiigs. Within this definition, four motorcycles qualify. The Honda STI 100, Suzuki Katana 1 100, Kawasaki Concours and the newfor-1991 BMW K100RS.
The intended missions of these four range from sporttouring with the emphasis on "tour,” to sport-touring with the emphasis on “sport,” which means that whatever style you prefer, somewhere in this quartet is a machine that will come pretty close to being your ideal mount.
The most familiar of these four is the Kawasaki Concours, introduced in 1 986 to challenge BMW in the sporttouring market. Kawasaki’s pledge was to leave the bike unchanged for live years, and this, for better or worse, it has done, with the exception of slightly higher bars and windshield, and a change from gray to red in '87.
Almost as familiar is the Suzuki Katana 1 100, which features, as it has since its 1988 introduction, a glorious brute of an engine, and since a 1989 revision, an extremely effective suspension, all wrapped by a motorcycle which, while very sport-oriented, has been dialed back a couple of clicks from the hyper-sport mode so well represented by Suzuki’s GSX-R 1 100.
Two new bikes, compete with these veterans of the sport-tour wars. One of them is Honda’s slab-sided, VFour-powered STI 100. This magazine’s editorial staff was so impressed with this two-wheeled tour de force last year that it named the ST as Best Open Streetbike in our annual 10 Best Bikes balloting.
The final contender is BMW’s K 100RS, which can best be described as a K1 wearing RS clothes. The bike has been available in Europe and Canada for a year, and now can be had, complete with the K l's 16-valve motor and extra-stout frame, but devoid of its controversial bodywork, right here in the U.S. of A.
Each of these bikes uses four-valve-per-cylinder heads, but there the similarity ends. The Katana uses a twin-beam frame, the other three use tubular frames. The Katana uses bias-belted tires, the others ride on radiais. The Katana uses an oil-and-air-cooled engine, the others employ liquid-cooling. The engines of the Katana and Concours are inline-Fours mounted across the bikes’ chassis, each with a slight forward cant, while the Four of the BMW is
mounted longitudinally, in lay-down style. That of the ST is also longitudinal, but is upright, as befits its V-Four configuration. Three of the four are fed by carburetors, while the Beemer gets its fuel dosage by way of an electronic-injection system that is controlled, along with its ignition system, by what BMW calls the Digital Motor Electronics engine-management system.
Three of the four bikes use conventional swingarms, while ever-unconventional BMW uses its single-sided, double-U-jointed Paralever, though, paradoxically, clearance problems preclude removal of the bike’s monster 160/60 rear tire and its 4.5-inch-wide wheel unless the silencer mounting bolts are completely slackened. Only one bike, the Suzuki, uses chain drive. The other three are propelled by driveshafts.
Suspension calibrations follow through on these differences of specification, with the ST possessing by far the
most plush ride, and the Katana possessing the most sporting. The ST and the BMW have the least suspension adjustability, the ST with five preload positions and a rebound-damping adjustment on its rear shock, the BMW with just three rear preload settings. Neither bike offers fork adjustments. The Katana offers settings for both shock and fork preload, along with shock compressionand rebound-damping adjustability. The Concours suspension relies on air pressure for most of its variability and it offers four positions of shock-rebound damping.
We rode all four of these bikes on an extended, highspeed trip through the fall beauty of California’s Sierra Nevada foothills, and what we found wasn’t exactly what we expected to find.
Though the new K100RS is beautiful to look at, it just doesn’t work very well unless it is being flogged along open country interrupted only by fast straights and smooth, sweeping corners. These the bike likes. Tighter, rougher corners it doesn’t like, thanks to its heavy fork preload and surprising lack of rebound damping at both ends, which causes the suspension to react much too quickly over rough pavement, quickly enough to greatly upset the chassis—and therefore, the rider—when the bike nails a bump while heeled over. BMW has soldiered on for six years with essentially the same suspension on its K-bike line, and the system is beginning to show its age. Certainly, a $ 1 3,000 flagship sport-tourer deserves better.
But the BMW’s problems don’t end there. Its fuel-injection system doesn’t work as well as the four-carb systems feeding the other bikes in this comparison. The most glaring problem is a flat spot from 4000 to 4500 rpm, right where most people will ride the bike when at cruising speeds. BMW technical personnel tell us they’re aware of the problem, but are unsure of what’s causing it. We can only note that our K1 test bike (Cycle World, April, 1990), which supposedly uses an identical engine and fuel-injection system, did not exhibit this problem.
Additionally, in spite of new rubber mountings not used on the buzzy Kl, the engine vibrated enough to eternally fuzz the bike’s mirrors, and to tingle the rider’s fingertips and toes. A final complaint is that the bike exhibited a large amount of lash in its driveline, this making smoothness, particularly during hard riding in the lower gears, difficult to achieve.
On the plus side of the BMW’s ledger sheet is that it is very nicely finished, very comfortable and very secure during freeway riding and in fast sweepers. Its big Brembo brakes worked very well and gave fine feedback—and BMW is still the only motorcycle company offering antilock braking in the U.S.
But these positive points don’t obviate the bike’s deficiencies. Because of those deficiencies, we rate the K100RS last in this field of four.
And we rate the Katana 1 100 and the Concours as tied for second and third positions. Never mind that these bikes are very different from one another. Each is extremely good at what it does, and which one the sporttouring rider chooses depends only upon which end of the sport-touring spectrum he favors.
If his tastes run a little more towards “tour” than “sport,” the Concours, with its upright riding position and tall, full-coverage fairing, would be a fine choice. The Concours, with its Ninja 900-based engine, isn’t a standout in any particular area, but as a package, it is nicely balanced, with a well-thought-out suspension that provides great comfort and control. Riding accommodations are very good, and its long, wide seat is the best of these four bikes, especially when passenger-carrying ability is factored in. The engine’s powerband, though biased towards high rpm, is wide enough to allow the bike to be ridden very quickly indeed over twisting roads without requiring a constant tap-dance on the shifter, and the engine is smooth enough that accessing the upper-rpm ranges for max power jangles neither nerves nor fingertips.
What remains worrisome about the Concours is the incredibly poor fit of the plastic pieces of the bike's fairing, particularly around the instruments, a characteristic that has plagued the model from Mile One.
The Suzuki Katana had no such problems, though the bike's styling remains a sore spot with some riders. But for those whose sport-touring tastes run more towards the “sport” side of the equation, what stands out about the big Kat are its bags of horsepower and brilliant handling, even with its optional Suzuki/Krauser luggage packed to the brim. Thanks to the very precise and neutral steering of this bike, to its well-balanced and controlled suspension, to its great brakes and to its GSX-R-derived engine and slick-shifting transmission, the Katana is absolutely the hot tip among this quartet when the going gets curvy, accomplishing aggressive, high-speed riding with confidence and security, though aggressive riders are likely to
touch down the bike’s footpegs and centerstand.
The downside of this is that the Katana’s sporting nature means the bike is a bit hard-edged for less intense rides. As a freeway mount, for instance, because of its high, rearward footpegs, its vibrations and its poor mirrors, it is the least comfortable of this group. But in the mountains, when the adrenalin is running hot and heavy, it is far and away the most fun.
The pick of the litter, however, has to be the Honda ST l 100, which came, frankly, as a bit of a surprise. This is a very large, heavy motorcycle, with softish rear suspension and very soft fork springs. It shouldn’t work as well as it does, but the fact is, once its rider gets it rolling, the bike seems to throw off its bulky nature to reveal itself as a nimble, agile performer with lots of comfort, effective fairing coverage, super brakes and a velvet hammer of an engine. The latter, while not as powerful as that of the Katana, easily puts the powerplants of the other two bikes in this comparison right onto the trailer.
But what’s nice about the ST’s engine is not just its peak power. This thing makes so much torque that it ought to be hitched to a plow. This kind of torque means not only that shifting in the sporty sections of your favorite tour can be kept to a minimum, but that the touring sections are very
relaxed: At a 60-mph cruising speed, the ST’s engine, rev limit 8000 rpm, is loafing along at 3 100, just waiting for you to whack the throttle the minute the mirrors look clear and the road looks inviting.
So we have a clear winner in the CW sport-tour-off: It’s the ST l 100 by a landslide. As for the middle positions, are we copping out by declaring the Concours and Katana tied for second and third? Nope. Each is incredibly good at doing what it was designed to do. But each was intended to operate in different areas of the sport-touring experience, and to downgrade one or the other because it is true to the intent of its designers seems inappropriate.
What’s nice about the Honda ST is that the intent of its designers clearly was that the bike be a 90th-percentile performer in all areas of sport-touring. And the bike is as good as that intent. Want it to be a mini-Wing? Fine. It is. Use it to cruise from here to Timbuktu. Want it to be a VFR750 with full touring option? Fine, it’ll also do that, developing lean angles severe enough to give you vertigo, all with plenty of performance left in reserve.
It is, simply, this year’s definitive sport-tourer, a motorcycle that’s sufficiently well rounded to be the right tool for the job, whichever variation of the sport-touring vision is yours.
BMWK100RSABS
$13,051
BMW of North America
HondaST1100
$8998.
American Honda MotorCorp.
KawasakiConcours
$6899
Kawasaki Motors Corp., U.S.A.
Suzuki Katana 1100
$7029
American Suzuki Motor Corp.
