@killer : Just a couple of questions.

1. Whats the difference in the Top speed before C1 at coimbatore ?
2. Whats are the best lap times set by the R15 ( stock is around 2:16 and the Daytona ones 2:09 in the hands of shyam at MMST? ) and CBR in their respective One make series in coimbatore and MMST ? Would like to know the difference between the new R 15 too which they used at the last round ! A friend who rode the race found it difficult to steer than the old bike. Your thoughts ? Searched for your older posts could not find any related to the new R15's dynamics !

@Srinath - I believe most of the prospective buyers here are never (supposedly) going to ride on tracks. And as far as the city riding is concerned, CBR does provide you a more comfortable and practical ride with good mid/low range torque. And most importantly, the riding posture for R15 being quite aggressive, might not suite many a riders here. Both have diff ideas/purpose behind.

I would like to discuss this out at our next meeting...

Sorry for OT, will just answer these questions

I hit 140kph on the CBR, dont quite recall for the Ninja but it was significantly more. 130kph on the R15

Best laptime of a stock r15 at chennai is 2:15.xx which I as well as Anya Racing bikes set in the early one make r15 races. The bikes were completely stock at the time (only mirrors removed). Daytona kitted r15's yes 2:09's at Chennai. Coimbatore one make race times i dont recall, there were only a couple of those conducted and i wasnt taking part at the time so didnt pay attention. I remember our fastest indian rider Rajini was testing the stock CBR at Kari after one of the rounds, he too managed a best of 1:22.xx.

At Chennai its 2:06's for the CBR250 with asian gp riders. Best indian riders were around 2:08's and 2:09's. However those bikes were not stock. Based on feedback we've been giving Honda at each race, they've been tweaking suspension settings, reducing overall weight and improving the one make CBR bikes, those bikes were also running race exhaustsl, so its not a fair comparison vs stock CBR bikes.

I wasnt there for the last round with the new r15's so sorry dont know the times for that.

Cool! it's not everyday one get to chat with someone who is actually putting these machines through their paces. Though I have to admit I was not referring your test. The one I was referring was by Bike India at Madras Motorsports Club's race track. Results per lap were..
R15: 2:20:8 (that's pretty close to 21)
CBR250: 2:17:0

That's close to 4 secs per lap. I would consider anything above 2 secs per lap as pretty big margin in a race, hence the "smoked" expression. Though insignificant for daily commute.

hmmnnn.. so the verdict is out, that in any situation, be it city roads, highway or race track, CBR will always be ahead of R15, ofcourse the R15 rider will be enjoying his bike's handling, but CBR rider would enjoy the fact that in the end, it was he who won, irrespective of handling/ride/aerodynamics/cornering abilities/braking/and what not. plus he enjoyed a plush and comfortable ride. ofcourse he spent some extra bucks too ...to purchase CBR.

this is the reason i asked those 3 questions, because on reading the thread i found that everybody was discussing round and round but nobody dared to ask what everybody wanted to know.

Real world scenarios we call them.

it will be interesting to know how KTM fares in between these two.

@killer: please take a KTM also to race track ASAP and tell us the results.

Well to be true, if you really want real world scenario, you'll have to factor in something very important that you've ignored. Riding Skill.

In the same test, the magazines 'expert' rider was doing 1:24's on the CBR and couldnt get below that, hes a friend of mind whos raced abroad and no novice himself. He simply wasnt comfortable pushing a bike that was bouncing around like a pogo stick. Remember this, the less experienced the rider, the less he will push a poorly handling bike to the edge. So unless you're talking simple straight line head to head, the CBR will not be ahead in 'all' situations and your question was pretty pointless to begin with. It will boil down to the the rider and through twisties, the one on the R15 will have less of his heart in his mouth That is the only verdict to arrive at as far as this discussion goes

i might just do that, quite tempted to pick one up for myself, though its a pure street fighter, not meant for track

Cool. Like i mentioned earlier, tighter track the difference will be less. The Madras track has 2 very significant straights where the CBR can stretch its legs and pull that advantage. No denying that, where straights make a difference its pretty silly to compare a 150 with a 250.

So that people reading this dont get all confused, with the latest discussion on who will win etc. Thats not the point here. i'll say it again. A laptime comparison of these 2 on tracks is not what you are looking for coz theres a significant difference in CC and power between the 2 bikes. As far as the discussion is concerned, what bike is more comfortable and suited to cornering regardless of other factors? the answer is r15 by a long shot. That is all, and let the prospective buyer keep that in mind and then decide what to buy based on his other preferences and requirements. Ofcourse there is still the option to fix the CBR's handling issues and then these become non-issues, so its not the end of the world

we will be eagerly awaiting for that.

well yes it all depends a lot on the rider himself, like you always consider the factor that how will the bike behave on a race track and your thinking is influenced by it. on the other hand for a city and highway rider who has never been to a track -he doesn't bother how it will behave on track, coz he is only bothered about how will the bike pull away from 0-60/80 kmph and he will never do cornering in city or highway or hill twisties the way it will be done on track, coz traffic conditions and other safety aspects like road conditions have to be kept in mind, which doesn't come on track.

btw, do you anticipate that KTM may have better handling and cornering abilities than CBR.

Twisties are not found only in hills...i have a couple just outside my office right plonk in the middle of bangalore city where i shoot my videos and have my daily dose of fun. On that same section i'd be slower on a CBR except for the straight streches and i wouldnt even enjoy it. Also, 'on the road daily riding' is what 'real world scenario' means, and in a 'real world scenario' nothing is constant. Your arguments are revovling around typical road racing scenarios where egos clash from time to time, its common everywhere. I dont want to encourage that sort of immature discussion but i wont let it slide that easy either. On the road you're more likely to get beaten by another rider simply becoz of his skills and the risks hes willing to take. R15 can easily beat the CBR and vice versa too canhappen in those conditions, thats the real world. Another thing, the race track and road are not 2 completely different things like people want to make it sound. A race track is just a clean road in a safe environment. How a bike behaves there, directly relates to how it behaves on road, regardless of how hard a rider chooses to ride. Some dont ride hard on street, some do, it need not be as hard as riding on track but can still be fairly spirited and a bikes handling will make a significant difference ther. At the risk of sounding cocky, you can be sure i'll smoke 90% of CBR's in the city and hills on my stock R15, but thats just skills, does not mean R15 is a faster bike does it? silly argument really and shouldnt have any relevance to this thread. A mature biker isnt going to buy a bike with the objective of winning street races.

I dont anticipate KTM duke will handle better than CBR, i know it does

since this discussion is not going anywhere, i am backng off from it.
also understood why not many are discussing it in this thread.

The discussion already went somewhere and was answered by several people before this "who will win" war came up. Nobody is asking anything because all relevant queries have been answered

@Killer thanks for the info

The problems is with the name CBR ! While it should have been called the VFR 250 ! Hope people understand the difference.

And about the query raised by the thread starter . If you want a ' Little sporting ' feel I would say pick the VFR .. Sorry CBR ! . If you want ' more sporting feel' pick the supersports R15.

Heard VFR stands for V Four Racing. V for the engine configuration, Four for the number of cylinders. If thats correct, than the CBR250 is nowhere near that description.

hmm.. That was the time of the RC45 and RC 51s when they were called V for racing ! Not the time of the hog VFR1200. It's still a V four built ( it is called the V four cylinder ) for another purpose and not pure racing and that was what I had meant rest is upto the readers to take it !

Good post