News Approved

Heard about this news about 2 weeks ago.

In a Light weight TT, The mountain maestro John McGuinness would be riding it! This is MEGA! Not for the lightweight TT but for Honda CBR500R too. There is no doubt it will be race prepped and thoroughly tested by the RLR Racing Team. Having John riding it, adds whole new dimension to it. It will be having its head on with Kawasaki ER6 which is sold here as Ninja 650. This race limits to 2 cylinders only.

Very excited to hear this news, cant wait to see John setting up lap record on it like he have for 1000 CC, Superbike TT and Senior TT.

Cheers!

- Lalit

The team will have to do a lot of hard work on it to be able to even match the competition. The CBR500 is way underpowered.

47 hp vs 71 for ninja (51% more)
and
43 Nm vs 67 for ninja (56% more)

And although it's a tiny bit lighter, 204 kg vs 195 kg (4% less), the advantage in % is even smaller if you add the rider+riding gear = 100kg

ummm.... Isn't TT more of how the bike controls/steers rather than outright power?? Any TV channel which beams these races live/recorded?

The TT isn't about control/steering or outright power. It is all about who got the bigger cojones! Watch a few videos on you tube, you will understand what i mean

No channel in India telecasts the Isle Of Man. Sadly.

I agree that it's not about outright power, but that holds true only when the numbers are in the same ballpark, maybe 10-15% difference at max. I did some calculations (that i just added to my previous post) and ninja has a big edge over the ceeber. The average speed for the winning Ninja 650R last year was 183.715 km/h, which is higher than the top speed claimed for the cbr500r. Now go figure.

And as for it being about big cojones, that applies mainly to the bigger class bikes. IMO, The lightweight category bikes simply don't go fast enough to be any sort of real scare to these seasoned professionals.

Having big cojones is not about how big is the bike or how fast a bike goes or what its top speed or how much CC or BHP of power it has at TT mountain course, its about how you understand the track well. Its a street track with trees, bends, hedges, wall, footpath, lampposts kissing knees, shoulder and many more.

Be it small, big or fastest, faster bike doesnt matter, riding and winning matter, beating the time and beating the fellow rider, matters; that too without getting killed. And you dont need 1000 CC bike everytime to do it.

Cheers!

- Lalit

I'll re-iterate.

"The average speed for the winning Ninja 650R last year was 183.715 km/h, which is higher than the top speed claimed for the cbr500r."

Power isn't the most important thing for the TT but it certainly is not a non-factor like you make it sound.

This is the first year for CBR500R in the TT, so lets see what RLR Racing team would bring on the track to compete with Kawasaki ER6. And obviously there is no replacement for displacement.

They wont be using factory CBR500R for sure, they will prep it for the race. I am looking forward to it.

Relax, I did not made anything sound like any other thing. Just tried to put forward my thoughts about it. If you agree then its fine, if you disagree then its fine too.

Cheers!

this is great i would love to see it go racing.....

Correct me if im wrong but the CBR500R at redline indicates a 192kmph. This was reported by the first owner of the Red 500R in the world on the 500R forums.
Again topspeed has very little to do here. Remember a lightweight bike will in almost all cases outhandle the heavier more powerful bikes around a corner. It is all about agility and manuevering around the TT.
At most the litre bikes only open up 60% throttle around the track and are usually hovering well below the vehicle's capabilities. With a lightweight bike with moderate power at the wheels, it should make for a significant impact on how the bike will handle around the track.
I've been going through their team's development reports on some forums and the team has already recieved their 500R and are currently in the process of testings its capabilities and doing any modifications if need be to make it TT capable.

re: Honda CBR 500 to be raced at Isle of Man: xBhp News

This news is a bit old now, but as i suspected, the CBR500 will not be racing at isle of man

John McGuinness forced to shelve Lightweight TT plans - North West 200 - Belfast Newsletter

In all honesty, you just can't compete with 650cc bikes in race trim using a 470cc bike (also in race trim). It's an even bigger void than comparing the pre-2012 800cc motoGP bikes to their moto2 counterparts.

re: Honda CBR 500 to be raced at Isle of Man: xBhp News

^^ the reasons cited for this is shortage of time to prepare the bike for race.

re: Honda CBR 500 to be raced at Isle of Man: xBhp News

I have seen Isle of man races. They're terrible rat races. Closed public streets.... And no one racer has any intent on taking it light. Everyone at his limits. And unlike MotoGP where you have grass & sand run offs in case you crash, in Isle of man, you might just hit a pole/ wall at 150 kmph. Any mistake could be your last.

Isle of man is all about how far the rider can push himself. And in all probability, Rider matters more than the bike. History has shown people winning races with 30 bhp disadvantages too, but that was MotoGP, not Isle of man.

Today however, one has to have a fast bike too, atleast upto around the league's average level if not the best. Rider & Bike are like 60:40 in the Isle of man. There are enough straight roads in Isle on Man too: where Ninja will run off with a huge advantage everytime.


CBR doesn't have the outright power to kill the ER6 platform, and in stock condition, it doesn't even have much of a weight advantage too.

From the above article, McGuinness is diplomatically saying that we don't have a "race winning" bike. No double meaning here. Either the power is low, or the weight is too high or something wrong with the frame. What else can it be?


I really think the CBR platform has future potential, if they could reduce the weight, and get better aerodynamics. In other words, "more time", exactly what McGuinness says.