2002 Openclass Shootout, Part I

This topic (open sport bikes) ALWAYS brings out the squidliest dorks of any M.O. "Reader Feedback" forum.



Never fails. Every damn year.



What are we *****ing about this year? Lessee......



"I paid $12 for THIS???"



No, asswipes, you paid $12 for yesterday's beer allocation.



For THIS $12, you paid for the entire site, including boatloads of tests, daily updates, humorous writing, news that arrives far quicker than it does with the print mags AND the nice little bike community hangout this place provides.



"My ZX-9R is sorta kinda just as good as the other bikes if I throw wads of aftermarket cash at it and ignore my lobotomy, so therefor this test is invalid because the 9R wasn't included!!"



They clearly stated in the beginning of the story that the ZX-9R is the best within its preferred niche, which is comfortable and fast straightline and sweepers oriented street riding. They also clearly stated that it'd get waxed on the track and in twistier backroads, and overall, and that unless the criteria for measuring these bikes is solely comfort and price then the 9R would finish last, as it always does.



How do they know this? Because they test the bike every year, and Burns has already tested this year's bike himself, and because Kawi threw in the towel in this class a long time ago, just as they threw in the towel in the 750 class a long time ago.



Aside from the fact that the 9R is FAR bulkier and ultimately slower and much more difficult to ride well than the others (don't bother me with selected straight line figures, otherwise we'll need to include the Hayabusa and ZX-12 too) it also has far poorer build quality than the others, and it's a helluva lot less sorted than the others.



(In other words, there's some damn good reasons you can ALWAYS buy 9Rs all day long at firesale prices, and you can't with the others. Those same reasons hold true come resale value time as well.)



Ever hear of a GSX-R1000 or 954 suffering from carb icing that leaves them stranded in the middle of nowhere?



9R owners have.



Ever hear of R1 or 954 owners being informed by the U.S. arm of the manufacturer that they're not aware of such an issue, even though they already had six reported cases on file in their office within the past two weeks AND their British 9Rs already wear carb warmers precisely to combat carb icing??



9R owners have.



Ever have of a GSX-R 1000 owner being told by the manufacturer to carry around a bottle of isopopyl alcohol under their seat for use when filling the gas tank, as a potential molotov ****tail half assed method of "preventing" said carb icing? (And it still didn't work.)



9R owners have.



Ever hear of GSX-R and R1 owners complaining about how poorly damped their stock suspension is, only to have the manufacturer deny any such problems up until Lindemann Engineering informed them upon inspecting the suspenders that the stock Kawi suspenders were so worthless that they couldn't be made to work without gutting them?



9R owners have.



Ever have your GSX-R1000 dyno reading be 117 rwhp, after reading in the mags where it made 130 rwhp?



9R owners have.



Ever have your R1 make 62 lbs of shaky graphed torque, when the magazine dyno run said it made 71, with a much fatter curve?



9R owners have.



(And yes, I speak as a former 9R owner, who had all these things happen with my bike. I was also aware of a few others just within my group that had these things happen to them too.)



Had the 9R been included in this test it would've ended up exactly where the beginning of this test placed it: 1st, if what you mostly care about is comfort and price; Last, if you're testing the whole bike, including outright performance and build quality.



Every single test conducted anywhere on this planet has broken it down as such, and this year's 9R has already been shown to still suffer from that ****ty carb glitch it's always had and it's already been shown to still be overweight, underpowered and far too physically large to compete in this class on a performance level, which is how they're testing these things...



"That mean man said bad things about MY bike!! I want my $12 back!!"



WAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!!!!!



Christ.....

Click on the Joe Rocket links to the left of me as I type this. What do you get, a big fat error. Look at the main page and see how nice it looks. Click on the video link, oops, ftp error. Click on any of the other links (ones that at least work although possibly not as they should), and see how the look/feel of the web site completely changes. Not that these are huge problems, but it looks bad for a pay site to appear this way. They obviously aren't forking out the $$$ for a professional web designer to design the site.



Also, they don't seem to be paying a professional editor any $$$ to edit the articles. They look like the author just jumped off the bike, wrote something off the top of his head in 10 minutes because he had to take a leak, posted it, and then rushed to the John to relieve himself, never to look over it again. Heck let me ride bikes for free and half-arse an article every week or so. I'd gladly work for free.





$12 is chump change to anyone, even my little brother who won't work to save his life. The problem is that MO made a promise to vastly improve the site if we offered some subscription money. The site has not changed at all content wise, or other wise since it went pay. Heck, I think it is well worth $1 a month to have something to read for a few minutes on my lunch break, but I hate when someone promises me something and then does not come through. I would be griping at them for this even if they had only asked for $1 a year.

first of all gsxr 1000's and 954's don't have carb icing cause they don't have carbs genius ever heard of fuel injection

I have

Ever beat an R1 or 929 every which way on the streets?

I have

Have you ever even been to a track to race whatever your imaginary bike is

I haven't.

Ever blown a piston on a honda or yamaha and had to rebuild the whole engine cause it is solid block.

Honda and Yamaha have

So my point is unless I actually see

an R1 or 954 beat me where I actually ride my bike talking ***** about carb icing when I live in the southwest don't mean ***** to me, but rather I get the satisfaction of beating all of these other bikes.

By the way do you even own a bike??