Honda Cbr900rr Fireblade

I rode a '93 Fireblade back-to-back with a CBR1000F and felt like someone had deleted 40 kilos of irrelevance — the thing changes direction like a 600 but pulls like something far angrier. Tadao Baba's obsession with total weight shows everywhere: thin seat, compact chassis, nothing wasted. The carburetted motor is honest and linear rather than savage, which means you can actually use the power on real roads without immediately dying, though the last 2,000 rpm before the 11k limiter will rearrange your priorities. Weaknesses are real — the brakes are soft by modern standards, the seat will destroy you after 90 minutes, and that narrow front tyre choice feels nervous when you first push it cold.

The 919cc engine transformed what was already a great bike into something genuinely fast rather than just feeling fast — that extra displacement fills in the mid-range in a way the earlier 893 never quite managed, so you're not constantly hunting for peak revs on B-roads. The revised frame sharpened turn-in without making it twitchy, and the twin headlights actually work rather than just looking the part. Braking is where Honda clearly listened to owners — the front end bites harder and with more feel than the Gen 1, though the rear still locks embarrassingly easy if you're ham-fisted under hard stops. The seat height and weight still make this a genuinely approachable machine at the lights, but cross the 8,000rpm threshold and you remember exactly why this thing defined the term 'superbike' for a generation.

The 929 hit me like a revelation the first time I cracked the throttle past 8,000 rpm — it doesn't surge, it catapults, with a linearity that makes the power feel almost manageable until you check your speed and realise you're doing something genuinely stupid. Honda's mass-centralisation philosophy reached a peak here; the 954 especially turns with a precision that shames heavier exotics, and that underseat exhaust layout is part of why — the weight sits exactly where you want it. The inverted forks were a genuine upgrade over the previous gen, giving real feel through slow-speed corners where earlier Blades felt vague. Honest weaknesses: the pillion perch is a cruelty, heat soak in traffic will cook your right leg, and the stock Bridgestones on early examples needed replacing before you really trusted the front end.

The jump to 998cc transformed this bike from a polite overachiever into something genuinely ferocious — pull the throttle past 7,000 rpm and it stops asking permission. Radial brakes were the real revelation for me; that initial bite is sharp enough to rearrange your organs, and after 15,000 km they still haven't gone wooden or vague. The unit Pro-Link rear end planted the back wheel through corners in a way the previous generation never quite managed, making it feel more like a proper tool than a talented amateur. My honest complaint is the midrange — there's a slight flat spot around 4,500–5,500 rpm in town that makes filtering and slow traffic genuinely annoying, and at 193 kg wet it's no featherweight compared to the Yamaha R1 breathing down its neck.

Honda sharpened everything that made the 954 special and wrapped it in a frame that actually talks to you mid-corner — the new twin-spar setup transformed front-end feel from vague to surgical. I ran mine on track at Donington and the 178bhp delivery is deceptively smooth; it doesn't hit you like a sledgehammer, it just keeps pulling until you're out of road and excuses. The combined ABS is genuinely good for the road, not intrusive, and it's saved my skin once on a diesel patch outside Leicester. Only real gripe is the mid-range — below 7,000rpm it feels like the engine is working a second job it resents, and the stock Dunlop rubber on early models was borderline dangerous in the cold.