Bikers Pls: GSXR1000 Vs ZX10R Vs R1

This is why the Aprilia got the 2006 Masterbike award, buts thats another story :D

However in terms of power, the RSV isnt lacking in that compared to any of the big litre jap bikes, the torque is pretty much comparable for the most part just with a lower BHP.

But again most people compare the power of the new litre bikes against the power of the older Mille when comparing the two types of bikes, totally wrong, the new RSVR is a totally different bike altogether.

A lot happier to rev higher than before and quite happily hitting 180mph if needed, but the low down grunt is more than a match for any other litre bike.

A friend of mine is currently leading the table in the New Era Sound of Thunder championships and is running an RSV Factory that is putting out 170bhp at the crank and its more controllable than any of the other bikes on the circuit due to the way it delivers the power and that thing had have the gearing changed because it was hitting nearly 190mph on the Revvitt straight at Snetterton :D

The only real difference between all the new bikes is the character, they will all pretty much do what they were designed to do from a track perspective, some behave better on the road than others, but unfortunately most riders arent actually capable of riding the bikes on the road well enough to understand where the weaknesses and strengths of each lie.

Dont get me wrong, i have a soft spot for the K61000 and very probably the K5 too, the earlier ones are only in the same league in terms of engine performance, the rest is totally different in terms of handling and looks,

Ultimately though they are "belly button" bikes, as in "everyones's got them" ;) :D

(that was a joke by the way, dont want the riceracers getting upset :D )
 
aye - you've certainly peaked my interest in the RSV. Shall have to go investigate... :)
 
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If you're starting to look at big twins, then why not try the SP2?
Granted you cant beat the sound of an RSV with a full Akropovic system fitted, like the one that goes past my house every morning. Can hear it a mile off and my little girl (22 month old) looks round saying "bike"

Robb
 
L Plate said:
I think you will find (and this is where the Jap bike owners start to cringe) that the Aprilia (now its owned by Piaggio, the 4th largest bike brand in the world) is actually cheaper to service and run these days.
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I'm pretty much agreeing with everything else you've said, but peerleeeaasse, Aprilia's are no where near as reliable or cheap to run as a Jap bikes (what about £400 first services to check the valve shims? etc etc). The rotax engines are great, but the electrics and plastics are terrible. The electrics are prone to failure, the plastics are hugely expensive, even when compared to jap - and worst of all getting replacement parts is a nightmare. Dont forget Aprilia went bust not even 18 months ago, before Piaggio picked up the peices. Might be getting better, but certainly no where near good.

Certainly the best you could do would be the RSV, woe betide anyone who has a Falco, Futura, Caponord etc etc.

My 0.02 from Aprilia experience...
 
hahaha you my friend are so misguided about Aprilia its unreal ;)

my first service just cost me £106, (should have been £200) the major service (valve check) is done every 12000 miles now at a cost of £240

Every guy that i know that has owned an Aprilia or worked on one (and i now spend enough time in the pits with them to know this) quite happily states that they cant remember the last time a Rotax V990 actually needed the valves adjusting, the engine itself is bombproof, the finish on my 2006 RSVR with all its Ohlins gear is far beyond anything that i have had from a Jap bike, in the time that i had my 1999 RSV i never had one problem on it and the servicing cost me again £240 for the major service

In fact i am telling porkies there ;)

Full service
Full suspension setup
Dyno run
New chain and sprockets including fitting

£343 inc vat

The servicing on the newer Rotax engines are every 6000 miles, with the major service being carried out at 12000,24000 etc etc.

The problem that you are talking about is unscrupulous dealers charging an arm and a leg because of Aprilia's old reputation, admittedly Aprilia used to a nightmare on the parts front quite simply because they ploughed everything they had into racing and forgot to actually sort the finances out to back it, they never went bust, Piaggio bailed them out, and they are getting back on line now quite happily, so much so that they have just introduced a 4 year warranty on their bikes.

As far as the plastics go, of course they are expensive, arent all bike plastics? someone actually worked out from parts once that to build a GSXR600 from parts would cost in the region of £35000, strangely enough the Aprilia is on the same sort of par with that.

Electrics arent really a drama anymore and the faults were specific to particular bikes from particular years, i am more than happy that i havent had a single problem with mine in its first 2500 miles that i have done on it in the last 2 months.

The fact is they are as reliable as the Jap bikes now, people just dont want to believe it ;)
 
L Plate said:
hahaha you my friend are so misguided about Aprilia its unreal ;)

my first service just cost me £106, (should have been £200) the major service (valve check) is done every 12000 miles now at a cost of £240

Every guy that i know that has owned an Aprilia or worked on one (and i now spend enough time in the pits with them to know this) quite happily states that they cant remember the last time a Rotax V990 actually needed the valves adjusting, the engine itself is bombproof, the finish on my 2006 RSVR with all its Ohlins gear is far beyond anything that i have had from a Jap bike, in the time that i had my 1999 RSV i never had one problem on it and the servicing cost me again £240 for the major service

In fact i am telling porkies there ;)

Full service
Full suspension setup
Dyno run
New chain and sprockets including fitting

£343 inc vat

The servicing on the newer Rotax engines are every 6000 miles, with the major service being carried out at 12000,24000 etc etc.

The problem that you are talking about is unscrupulous dealers charging an arm and a leg because of Aprilia's old reputation, admittedly Aprilia used to a nightmare on the parts front quite simply because they ploughed everything they had into racing and forgot to actually sort the finances out to back it, they never went bust, Piaggio bailed them out, and they are getting back on line now quite happily, so much so that they have just introduced a 4 year warranty on their bikes.

As far as the plastics go, of course they are expensive, arent all bike plastics? someone actually worked out from parts once that to build a GSXR600 from parts would cost in the region of £35000, strangely enough the Aprilia is on the same sort of par with that.

Electrics arent really a drama anymore and the faults were specific to particular bikes from particular years, i am more than happy that i havent had a single problem with mine in its first 2500 miles that i have done on it in the last 2 months.

The fact is they are as reliable as the Jap bikes now, people just dont want to believe it ;)
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They may be getting better, but Aprilia as a company and their dealers have a looong way to go before I bought another. I had a Aprilia Futura (54 plate) from new for about 18 months before getting rid. Drop it off the side stand at rest and say goodbye to £2500 and 9 months getting the bits. Not happened to me, but 2 people I know from the community forum were in this exact position (whom I met personally so not virtual). The other issues were the rectifiers melting, coils going down, huge use of oil etc etc etc etc.

Not saying there a bad bike, and I'm sure the new RSV's are different again. But still it will be some time before I get another..... For info, I swopped it for a BMW GS which was just as bad even given the bombproof name they have, but the dealers were about a million percent better.... and at the mo I'll just have to amuse myself on my ZZR1400 :D
 
To be fair I dont think any of the 3 short listed will dissapoint will they, I am persoanlly a big honda fan and only want a Fireblade for my next bike, I dont want it for a while yet but its all i want to really consider as the next step up.

For the looks I have to say the R1 does it for me, no questions. Revews give them all good and bad points but for me it would be the R1 all the way :)
 
mikeh501 said:
They may be getting better, but Aprilia as a company and their dealers have a looong way to go before I bought another. I had a Aprilia Futura (54 plate) from new for about 18 months before getting rid. Drop it off the side stand at rest and say goodbye to £2500 and 9 months getting the bits. Not happened to me, but 2 people I know from the community forum were in this exact position (whom I met personally so not virtual). The other issues were the rectifiers melting, coils going down, huge use of oil etc etc etc etc.

Not saying there a bad bike, and I'm sure the new RSV's are different again. But still it will be some time before I get another..... For info, I swopped it for a BMW GS which was just as bad even given the bombproof name they have, but the dealers were about a million percent better.... and at the mo I'll just have to amuse myself on my ZZR1400 :D
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I hear what you are saying, fortunately the dealer i have would prefer to look after the customer first and foremost hence why i ride past 2 other Aprilia dealers to get to them :)

I had heard quite a lot of bad things about the Futura, fortunately the problems that they suffered were never really a problem on the RSVR too.

The sort of customer service i got was on a level like i have never seen before

I ordered my bike, got top dollar for my old one with 28000 on the clock, and i asked for a few upgrades on it.

Rear shock
Full R&G crash bungs
Datatool System 4 Alarm
Tail tidy
Akrapovic end cans
Ohlins damper

Not only did they knock £400 off the screen price of the bike for me, but they also gave me that list of upgrades at cost and fitted them for free.

Whenever i have been there in the past, nothing is too much trouble for them, i have recommended so many people to them in the past and everyone of them, be it Jap bike owners or otherwise have come back happy and with money in their pocket :)

But as you say, its a shame all the dealers arent like that.
 
Dogbreath said:
But they are common for a good reason...
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cos no one has the guts to tame an early ZX10R ;)
My mate had a K1 Gixxer 1000, putting out a dyno confirmed 160bhp. Full Ti Akro system, PC fitted and K&N. Very nice bike, but you couldnt use it on the road with out running the risk of loosing the license. Since it was soo easy to ride fast.
Tis interesting that the No. 1 selling bikethis year so far, is the GSXR750, 2nd is the Blade, 3rd is the R6, 4th is Gixxer 600 and 5th Gixxer 1000. These are junes figures btw.
Could it be that the litre bikes are loosing out to the 750/600's since they are more "real world useable"?

Aww, what the heck, get a K6 Gixxer 1000, slap a Racefit can on it and go play at MotoGP :D

Robb - NC30 is currently spread over my garage having a shock fitted
 
Them figures are slightly misleading though Shoei in all fairness ;)

Suzuki deliberately choked the supply this year of the GSXR750 for a good reason and it is extremely difficult to get a K6 at the moment, most dealers will tell you that they are not expecting any in until September time, such is the demand (due solely to the crafty way that Suzuki have marketed it this year, that is from a Suzuki dealer).

Also the sales figures are inflated because the big names this year (including Aprilia once they had been taken over officially by Piaggio) offered 0% finance on all the new models, this alone saw younger riders especially legging it down to the local dealer to snap up the GSXR600 and the ZX 636's

When i spoke to one of the Suzuki dealers about all this he pretty told me that he was tripping over people wanting to get hold of the GSXR600's only to change their mind about it and want the GSXR750 when they realised it wasnt much more expensive, gave a healthy power increase, but was also on 0% finance.

And as for the losing the licence part of it, in real world its no harder to lose the licence on a 600 than it is on a 1000 these days ;) (ultimately that comes down to common sense anyway :) ).
 
figures are from here:

http://www.mcia.co.uk/S_Press/scontentX.asp?sc=X7

not from the likes of More **** News.
Granted about the license loosing bit, but when you live within 20 mins of Devils Bridge and 30 mins of Knot End, the orads are bit more policed than average, esp with all the accidents in the "Devils Triangle" (Devils Bridge, Hawes, Sedburgh).

Robb
 
Dont get me wrong, i wasnt doubting the figures ;)

I was just explaining how they are arrived at through marketing and sales ;)
 
A friend has a standard 04 ZX10R and doesn't complain of any twitchiness or any other instability issues. He went from a ZX9 to the ZX10 and as soon as it was run in was happily breaking the speed limit all over the place.
 
there is breaking the speed limit and there is riding it hard, either he has been lucky or he is simply not giving the bike enough stick, i havent come across a ZX10R owner yet that hasnt complained about how violent the steering can be when the front gets light coming out of a corner and i have seen it plenty of times myself, one of my mates who has one, hasnt got the damper fitted, i asked why and he simply stated that there was no point trying to hide the problem, might aswell live with it and stop trying to hide problems with the riding that causes it.

By that i assume that most people get far too aggressive with it and induce the bad handling, which doesnt take much on them because the engine (and not many people disagree on this either) is far too on/off (as in twist and the power is too aggressive too quickly).

This probably explains why subtle changes were made to the newer bike in the handling department :)
 
Sales figures don't necessairly reflect the 'nature' of a bike, the reason 600/750's are popular is also due to insurance and running costs..

As for 600/750's being more "real world usable" I don't necessarily agree, I have gone from a GSXR600K1 to a '1000 K3, simply because my brother had a 1000K2 so I got to have a good test ride, instantly the bike felt the same as my 600 but obviously with much more midrange, and plenty of top end, but it's very controllable, and linear, it's not like the bike runs away from you.. I was surprised at how easy it was to ride, and not be intimidated..

My riding style has changed though, on the 600 I tended to have a more On/Off throttle action due to the relative lack of power, the 1000 I have a much more controlled throttle action, gently rolling it on out of corners, and feeding the power in a more controlled manner, but the bike is set up to let you do this.. I admit that the 2004 ZX10R I rode was not like this, you tried to roll it on coming out of a corner near to the limit, and everything was fine until all of a sudden a big wallop of power came in which more often then not caught me out, it certainly didn't feel anywhere near as controllable as my GSXR, but no doubt with time, I'd get used to it..
 
Gixxer every time for me

I originally had a GSX-R 600 K2 and graduated after 18 months to a 1000 K3.
For me it felt a natural transition and I wasn't intimidated at all.
In fact the 1 litre bike feels easier to ride as you don't have to rev it hard and be up and down the gearbox constantly.
It's pulls well from 35mph in 6th gear all the way to 185moh without a gear change, that's pretty impressive torque.
Having had both 600 and 1000cc bikes I'd say, go for the 1000 in my opinion, you'll never look back and if you get a 600 Youll master it and be gagging for a litre bike.
Just seen the date on the post... Lol
Wonder what he got and if he's still alive ;)
 
UnderToker said:
Just seen the date on the post... Lol
Wonder what he got and if he's still alive ;)
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I was just thinking I bet he's already bought/owned & sold the bike by now. :p

Welcome to the Forums though UnderToker. :D 14 posts in 5 years you want to watch yourself or you'll get sussed for Spamming. :p
 
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