Red Alert

Red Alert

Warning: Riding Honda’s RC211V can alter your perceptions!

IT WAS LIKE SOME SORT OF WEIRD PARADIGM SHIFT, ME sitting at a table in Repsol leathers with Nicky Hayden on the other side in street clothes. The only thing normal about the scenario was that I was the one taking notes.

The occasion was the annual HRC test day at Motegi, Japan, last December, where select moto-journalists had an opportunity to throw a leg over various works Honda racebikes, Hayden’s RC21IV MotoGP bike among them. Having ridden the Ducati Desmosedici, Kawasaki ZX-RR and Yamaha YZR-M1 at Valencia, Spain, a month prior, I eagerly jumped at the chance to ride the machine that is considered the class of the MotoGP starting grid.

One four-lap stint showed me why. After learning the track on Daniel Pedrosa’s world championship-winning RS250 two-stroke (some learner’s bike!), I hopped on the 990cc V-Five four-stroke and was immediately impressed by how easy it was to ride-at a non-race pace, anyway.

Valencia is a tight track, but the 2.98-mile, 14-tum Twin Ring Motegi circuit somehow seemed even tighter, with a plethora of firstand second-gear comers and just one thirdgear sweeper where the road course passes under the oval. Of course, connecting those slow comers are some mighty fast straightaways, the mightiest of which sees racers click into sixth gear before plunging downhill into an off-camber, second-

gear right. Yikes! As a result, the circuit puts a premium on braking stability and acceleration, both of which the RC-V has in spades.

Whereas the carbon-fiber stoppers on Valentino Rossi’s Yamaha gave me fits while trail-braking, on the Honda 1 had no such trouble. Considering that both bikes use similar (if not identical)

Brembos, the difference may simply have been due to the shrouds over the RC-V’s rotors keeping them up to temperature. Or not. All I know is that when I climbed off the bike, my hands hurt from all the hard braking.

As for that other all-important consideration—acceleration—I’d also have to give the nod to the Honda. While the Yamaha felt a bit smoother coming off corners, the Honda stumbling a bit at low rpm, after that, it was no contest.

Among the RC-V’s electronic controls is one that renders throttle application in the bottom three gears non-linear, so the butterflies don’t open as far as they would if they were connected directly to the twistgrip. This pays dual dividends of easing wheelspin and countering wheelies-not that the RC-V doesn’t wheelie, because the front wheel gets light as soon as you crack the throttle, and stays up, nice and low, as you make one full-throttle upshift after another. And I must say, at its 16,000-rpm redline, the V-Five’s exhaust note was music to my ears-even if it deafened those standing along pit wall!

Come time to downshift, the RC-V’s slipper clutch and anti-engine-braking system make it nigh impossible to chatter the rear wheel-unless you change down at too-high rpm. Don’t ask how I know.

Having spent the past two seasons racing the works Honda in MotoGP (and recently signing for two more), Hayden says the RC-V’s power was what surprised him most when he moved up from his RC51 Superbike. “It was a much bigger step than I thought it would be,” he admits.

Me, too, Nicky. Me, too.

Brian Catterson