I was thinking Old School when I saw the thread title. Back in The Day, it was common for bikes to have 21 -19” wheels. Honda introduced the Interceptor with a 16 inch front wheel that allowed the forks to be “tucked” up under the headpipe, altering the steering geometry what seemed radical at the time. I used to read all the mags back then, and I recall it was a sensation, good or bad. It steered differently and braking/fork dive was something people weren’t used to. I never rode one, I was a dirt bike guy back then, but every streetbike I’ve owned has had 18 inch front wheels.
But I’m not gonna argue with Honda engineers. Those bikes are Collector’s Gold now.
I was kinda curious what top speeds liter bikes were up to these days, so I looked up a few models (Yamaha YZF-R1, Suzuki GSX-R1000, and Kawasaki ZX-10R). Turns out none of them advertise a top speed on their sites! You can find just about every spec but that. This has to be deliberate in some way, like a fear of legal liability or agreement to stop an arms race.
You can find the information elsewhere of course; I just found it interesting that it’s not on the manufacturer’s sites.
The rumour/urban legend was that some Japanese bikes deliberately had a default speed limiter set to 300 km/h or just wouldn’t display higher speeds on the speedometer?
A nicely turbocharged YZF-R1 or whatever will do well over 200 mph though…
It’s more than rumor. Back in ‘98, Suzuki was criticized for introducing a motorcycle (the Hayabusa) that could exceed 300kph/186mph. Within a year or 2, the Hayabusa had a top gear speed limiter and would top out at “only” about 180 mph. Such limiters have been used on all Japanese liter bikes and hyperbikes* since then.
It’s pretty easy to disable the limiter. If you know what you’re doing, you can reprogram the bike’s ECU with a laptop. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can send your ECU to a vendor who can reprogram it for ~$150.
*Hyperbikes is a term sometimes used to describe a sub-class of sportbikes. Compared to liter bikes, they’re longer and heavier, more comfortable, and, not being limited to 1000cc by racing organizations, have larger engines of 1300-1400cc.
Since I got you motorcycle drivetrain folks here: what’s up with this one? I do a triple take every time I see the photos. I’ve seen similar geometry for low speed scooters but this is a big bike.
One reason the Niken is so stable is its Ackerman mechanism and parallel linking bars. These components help transfer load to the remaining front wheel when one wheel loses grip, ensuring that at least half of the contact patch remains in contact with the road. This is a key advantage over traditional motorcycles, which rely on a single front wheel for stability and can be more prone to sliding or losing grip in slippery conditions.
There was a leaning three wheeled scooter out about that same time. I think the complexity did them in. The reviews I read said they rode and handled nice.