2020 Honda Fireblade CBR1000RR-R: What to expect

Hello and welcome to the channel and today we are talking about Honda's brand new CBR1000RRR for 2020. That's right we are getting a brand spanking new Fireblade next year and in true Honda style they've been secretly developing this bike on test tracks away from the limelight, away from all the buzz and the rumours and the gossip on the run-up to EICMA 2019 and then suddenly just hours before the big show they come and steal everybody's limelight with this big announcement and we've got a tonne of information on this bike, a tonne of pictures and I have to say it looks absolutely stunning. They haven't just given this bike a lick of paint and a bit of a tweak on the engine, this thing is completely redesigned and re-engineered and it could very well be the sports bike for 2020. So let's just jump in have a little look at some of the technical spec on this bike. I must warn you it's not going to be the most technical video out there on YouTube when it comes to the numbers but we also want to talk about the more philosophical side of this bike and ask the question really who is a machine like this for in 2020 where we have this brand new breed of super nakeds, slightly more road focused but equally mental 200 horsepower plus bikes. Where does that leave bikes like the Fireblade that traditionally speaking have been you know the kind of road going sports bike, they've been very well known for being you know absolute weapons on the track but also very rideable on the road too and it looks like Honda have kind of taken this bike and made it a little bit more track focused, a little bit more performance focused than ever before. Well let's have a look, so first up if you actually look at some of the quotes from Honda themselves they are saying that the CBR 1000RRR's battleground has moved to the racetrack, they're calling this a track bike now where it's advanced performance they say can be most fully demonstrated. Now that's not going to say that this is a bad bike for the road, quite the opposite I think it's probably going to be even easier to ride than the old bike especially with some of the new technology in there but it certainly sets the overall tone for this machine and it may influence your decision whether you're going to buy one or not especially when we consider that you are now very well served in that 200 horsepower plus market for street bikes now some of which are just potentially more focused for road riding. So first up the big question is to winglet or not? That is the question, well the 2020 CBR 1000RRR answers that with a plumb we have six winglets in total and I like the way they've done it here you can see here but they're kind of enclosed in these little tunnels they're not quite as what would you say Halfords as to winglets on some other bikes like the V4 Streetfighter from Ducati these things look nicely integrated into the bike and they have a proper purpose to play it's all about downforce it's all about high speed stability better braking wheelie control and all that kind of stuff so again with absolute performance in mind this bike of course comes with all of that aerodynamic technology there. The new Euro 5 engine remains an inline four so it's not the V4 that some may have expected and it's sharing the same bore and stroke as that RC213V as well. We also get a semi-cam gear train, we get finger follower rocker arms, we get titanium conrods, we've got aluminium forged pistons as well all about reducing that inertial weight. Also it's got the same friction reduction technology and piston jets and check ball system as found in that RC213VS so this bike very much takes its lineage from Honda's high-end racing machines. Each piston is five percent lighter than the previous bike as well and helping to keep the temperature under control we now have a multi-point and multi-directional oil spraying system as well that only activates at higher rpms so that's all about keeping that balance between oil pressure and temperature right. When it's not required at lower rpms those check balls within the jets shut off the oil flow and that just helps to maintain a better oil pressure elsewhere and if all that means nothing to you then let's just sum it up simply and say that this bike puts out 214 horsepower at 14,500 rpm with peak torque of 113 newton meters achieved at 12,500 rpm. It's 25 horsepower up on the previous bike and just to make it even more simple for you if you're not into numbers this thing is just flipping mental all that bundled up into a package that weighs less than 201 kilograms wet and feeding this mighty beast we now have a newly designed ram air duct in the front of the fairing this thing is feeding a stream of air directly into the airbox at the rear of the bike we've got the 421 exhaust system which has been designed and developed in conjunction with Akrapovic we've got a titanium end can and also a clever valve system on this bike as well which can switch between open and closed to either give you more torque at lower rpms or more power at high rpms too we've got three default riding modes too with the option to change all of the parameters around things like power engine braking wheelie control and of course the selectable torque control too so summing the engine up we've got those finger follower rocker arms we've got titanium conrods and forged aluminium pistons reducing inertial weight that airbox now fed by the newly designed ram air duct and the titanium end can on that new exhaust system developed by Akrapovic as well elsewhere looking at the chassis and the general equipment you get on this bike there is a new aluminium diamond frame that sees the removal of the upper cross member with the rear of the engine now hosting the rear shock as well overall the fireblade's vertical and torsional strength is up by 18 and 9 retrospectively and interestingly the horizontal rigidity of the bike is actually reduced by 11 to give the rider more feel for the road too in the standard model you get showers 43 millimeter big piston fork or the bfp and that's matched to a fully adjustable shower balance free rear cushion light or a bfrcl at the front of the bike we've got a whopping 330 millimeter front disc that is up 10 millimeters on the previous model uh and we've got a nissan four piston caliper there the abs on this bike is also adjustable for track riding too if however this isn't good enough for you and you need a bit of an upgrade on that you also have the sp model which introduces uh olins and brembos all around you now get the 43 millimeter olin npx front forks and you get brembos stalmer four piston radial calipers on the front as well and both bikes are actually getting an increased rear tire size with the 2020 fireblade rocking 255 zr17s elsewhere we've got a bosch six axis imu which manages all of the electrical systems and we've also got a three level honda steering dampener on the bike as well which i think is made by shower too a five inch fully customizable tft display as well which is operated by this rather cool four-way switch on the handlebars honda's got the keyless smart system installed on this bike too and the adjustable start mode aka launch control also comes as standard as well and the really cool thing about this uh keyless system here is it actually serves a proper purpose honda wanted to keep this top yoke on the bike as simple as possible because if you remember that ram air duct actually directs air straight over the top of the yoke into the airbox and they didn't want anything on that yoke that was going to disrupt the airflow so they had to get rid of the ignition system and the key so therefore they've gone keyless and it actually makes sense so summing up the chassis and equipment we've got that new aluminium frame and spring arm we've got the bosch six axis inertial measurement unit a full color tft dash three default riding modes plus the option to customize things like power engine brake and wheelie control you've also got honda's selectable torque control and launch control comes as standard as well and finally let's talk about the aerodynamics on this bike this bike looks slippery because it is it's taken a lot of its learnings from the moto gp world and this bike is more aerodynamic than ever before we talked earlier about the winglets those winglets are there adding downforce we've also got some other clever stuff going on on this bike as well like the front mud guard that's been completely redesigned to deflect air away from that front tire we've got a new rider position as well so they've lowered the fuel tank by 45 millimeters to enable the rider to get even more tucked into this bike and there wasn't a lot of space on this bike before so definitely not a good bike if you've got a bit of a bad back because you are going to be hunched up and tucked up even more on the 2020 fireblade that's all about getting you into the best possible position purely for aerodynamics it's definitely not built for comfort so summing up the aeros we've got this new aerodynamic fairing to reduce the drag coefficient we've got the lower fuel tank getting you the rider into a more compact position we've got the inner fairing winglets drawn from the rc213v moto gp bike and honda's smart key adds convenience and also simplifies that top yoke design as well so what are your thoughts on this bike the 2020 honda fireblade and the fireblade sp the cbr 1000 rr r for me i think this looks like an absolutely amazing feat of engineering the bigger question is whether or not this bike really has a place on the road anymore especially when you consider you can get this power now in much more kind of road focus machines but absolutely taking nothing away from this bike it is a miracle of engineering a bike that i would certainly love to own just for the occasional kind of sunday blast or track day or something like that whether it's practical as your only bike is probably down to you as an individual but definitely not for me what are your thoughts so comments down below once again thank you to everyone subscribing to the channel and getting involved with these videos really appreciate you guys coming along for the ride and until the next one ride safe