2009 Literbike Shootout

strange "shootout"

As much as I enjoy reading motorcycle.com's articles usually, I have to be honest in saying it's more than a little bit strange that you would do a test of what are essentially 4 race bikes without actually doing any times at the track... I mean... it's completely counter-intuitive to what any normal magazine would do.
I don't even understand how you could possibly judge whether a bike's engine or transmission or etc. is actually "the best" without seeing if it actually makes a substantial difference in measured times at the track. Seat of the pants is one thing but if that's all your going for then "fun factor" is all that's important really.
I don't care one bit which bike wins, it just seems like you guys wasted a lot of time without any track times to show for it.
Hmmmm

Of course...

I know lots of people ride these bikes on the street, that's obvious I suppose.
I wasn't saying that people don't ride these bikes on the street just that there are also people, like myself for instance, who ride their bikes on the track. I think it's clear that a large # of people who own bikes such as these or the smaller engined 600's or pretty much any high capacity sportbike will track their bikes.
I am certainly not saying that track times should be the only consideration just that for this class of motorcycle it really can't be argued that "most" riders don't care at all about track times. If we were talking about cruisers, streetfighters or something of that ilk then of course that would be the case... but for a sportbike that is essentially a homologation model for suberbike racing it just seems like testers would at least fulfill the curiosity of readers who want to know the times, even if they don't put them into the final tally.