Comparison Test: 2009 Middleweight Smackdown! - Rock, Paper, Scissors...

And with the latest crop of middleweight machines, you're definitely getting a lot for your money. Nearly all the entrants in this year's group have undergone changes in some way, shape, or form. We covered all the details of Kawasaki's all-new '09 ZX-6R back in the March issue ("Sharpened Sword"), and the minor revisions to the Honda CBR600RR and Yamaha YZF-R6 for '09 were examined in the January issue. Suzuki's GSX-R600 returns basically unchanged from its major revamp from last year.

Details on the '09 edition of Triumph's Daytona 675 have finally been made available, and while the changes aren't drastic, they're significant nonetheless. A 450-rpm higher rev limit means that the hydraulic cam chain tensioner and taller first gear from the previous model's race kit are now standard on the '09 Triumph, and a lighter exhaust system works with recalibrated fuel injection mapping and a revised cylinder head featuring new valves and a modified combustion chamber to provide a claimed seven-horsepower increase. A new magnesium cam cover drops precious grams from the engine, while lighter cast aluminum wheels shod with Pirelli's street "SP" version of its Diablo Supercorsa tires offer less unsprung weight and better grip for improved handling. The fork and shock on the new 675 now both sport high- and low-speed compression damping adjustment, and new radial-mount Nissin monoblock calipers provide better stopping power.

Our usual testing regimen included a day at Buttonwillow Raceway Park along with the usual street and canyon miles. For the racetrack sessions, we spooned on Pirelli's latest Diablo Supercorsa DOT race rubber (see sidebar on page 44). Datalogging specialist/"junior Geek" and avid track day rider John Olsen and Los Angeles County Sheriff Deputy motor officer John Young joined our usual guest testers Steve "Hollywood" Mikolas and Jim "Lucky Charms" O'Connor and SR's own El Jefe for the testing duties. As per our usual modus operandi, each rider rated each bike at each venue in 10 categories, resulting in a total of 50 scores for each bike at the track and another 50 for the street. The averages of those scores are listed with each bike in the following text, with the overall scores—averaging all 100 ratings on each bike from both track and street—listed in the SR Ratings chart at the conclusion of this story.

The two biggest contributing factors to the R6's placing are its very wooden-feeling brakes and a lack of top-end speed compared to last year. In last year's comparo, the Yamaha's power advantage was enough to cover up its comparatively poor corner entry speed due to its front brakes' lack of feel and modulation at the limit. This time the R6 was noticeably lacking in speed compared to the faster bikes in the group, making the numb brakes more of a liability. There were also issues with the slipper clutch, which seemed tighter than usual and caused some unintended backing into corners unless there was a good throttle blip on the downshift.

The R6 has a major power dip at 11,000 rpm, and its power peak is down over six horsepower from our '08 test unit. What happened? We're pretty sure that the power anomaly can be blamed on the new EPA noise tests, which now include a drive-by test that is conducted at full throttle and near-maximum power output with datalogging equipment to discourage cheating. This is the same reason for the '09 CBR600RR's loss of power compared to last year, and for the '07-‘08 ZX-6R's curiously woeful lack of steam.

Were it not for those problems, the Yamaha surely would have been vying for top honors at the track, with all our testers loving its scalpel-sharp steering and stable chassis. Virtually all the ergonomic and powerband complaints that surfaced on the street were completely forgotten at speed on the track, with everything on the R6 seemingly blending together to provide what has the potential to be an all-conquering middleweight. Just ask Ben Bostrom.

Even the brakes—which were praised last year for being such an improvement over the previous generation's binders—garnered some complaints this time around from the majority of testers. "The GSX-R brakes were pretty spongy," lamented Olsen in giving the Suzuki the lowest score in this area, with Kunitsugu adding that "feedback and power were lacking, sapping confidence." And there was no getting around the little Gixxer's extra heft compared to the others; any areas of the track that required flicking the bike around demanded a lot more effort at the bars than the others.

All that said, the GSX-R still has that comfortable feel that is easily acclimated to by almost any rider, garnering the highest marks for ergos and dashboard/control layout. "It was the most comfortable and easiest bike to ride around the track," said track newbie Young. "If it just had a little more motor…"

Triumph didn't make any claims on suspension changes other than the additional high-speed compression damping adjusters, but we think otherwise. The '09 model was much more composed over Buttonwillow's many bumps, with less of the overly-stiff spring/weird damping reaction of the previous model that would cause the bike to become unruly. Suspension compliance overall was much better, enabling the slim and flickable 675 to carry much better speed through the faster turns.

Yet despite extensive fiddling, there was still some harshness remaining that prevented the Triumph from really showing its true potential, and its tail-high chassis attitude often compromised aggressive braking because of the massive weight transfer that would inevitably occur. Compounding this issue are brakes that, while offering excellent initial bite and power, tended to lose feel towards the limit (although nowhere near as bad as the R6). Even though the three-cylinder engine's flywheel effect negated the need for a slipper clutch, "braking deep into corners on the Triumph is hard work, because the tall rear ride height wants to throw you over the bars," wrote El Jefe, "and the brakes demand a lot of concentration due to their numbness at the limit."

Nonetheless, there's no overlooking all of the Honda's numerous good aspects that resulted in its comparatively high scores from our testers. "Feels friendly immediately," wrote O'Connor about the CBR's amiable character, with Young concurring, "the Honda was very predictable and never startled me." There were some complaints with the CBR's ergos, with a couple of testers wishing for a bit more ground clearance from the footpegs, and the majority of testers felt that the Honda's lack of a slipper clutch was a glaring omission in this high performance group ("I find it odd that Honda felt it's OK to add 22 pounds with C-ABS, but not a few pounds with a slipper clutch," complained El Jefe). But other than those gripes, there was little else to single out with the CBR, and its low scores in the power department were more than offset by high scores everywhere else. For instance, the Honda carded the usual high ratings for its stable yet agile chassis manners and sharp steering characteristics, and all our testers loved the brakes—"Nice, crisp feel, with good power and modulation," wrote El Jefe. And although the top end was lacking, the CBR's impressive torque for an inline four was still present in spades that made for strong corner exit drives. "Makes you feel like you're setting hero lap times," said Kunitsugu, with the added caveat, "well, at least until you see the lap sheet at the end of the day."

The '09 Kawasaki's powerplant is not only the strongest on the dyno (even over the 675cc Triumph), but its quick-revving character translates to fierce acceleration all the way from the beefy midrange to its screaming top-end. Even though the Triumph gets the initial jump off the corner, the ZX-6R quickly makes up that ground and then some on the way to the next bend. "What an awesome bike!" wrote Olsen, "the ZX-6R is so exhilarating to ride, it doesn't seem in the same class with the others." El Jefe concurred: "All I can say is ‘Wow'! It's pretty easy to tell this is the strongest engine of the lot."

Despite being the heaviest bike here, the Kawasaki's handling is surprisingly agile while remaining surefooted in nearly every situation. "The 6R feels like it's 20 pounds lighter than the CBR, even though it's that much heavier," said Olsen. The Showa Big Piston Fork proved its worth over Buttonwillow's bumpy pavement, remaining poised and communicative through the gnarliest corner entries that would be doubt-filled on the other bikes; "I knew this would be the real test for the Showa BPF," wrote Kunitsugu, " and it passed with flying colors. The aftermarket will have a tough time improving on this." Even the brakes received accolades, with every tester's ratings sheet scoring the Kawasaki highest; "Best brakes I've ridden with on a 600 in quite a while—superb feel, excellent power and progressiveness," said El Jefe.

Surely helping the Suzuki's street manners are the Bridgestone BT-016 tires, which provide superb traction and handling characteristics. Even then, it wasn't difficult to notice the bike's extra heft when riding aggressively through tight canyon roads, with a loose, wallowy feel when pushed hard. Perhaps Mikolas described it best with a telling description: "The tame one of the bunch."

Just a hair over one second separates the quickest time from the slowest, once again indicating how closely matched the five bikes are in this comparison. As stated before, the times are significantly slower than last year due to colder weather conditions and pavement deterioration that resulted in numerous sealer patches with poor traction in critical areas for lap times. Still, all the bikes had to run on the same course conditions, so the times shown here are relative.

While the ZX-6R shows its superior acceleration and handling powering through this section, the GSX-R is surprisingly able to keep pace with the more powerful Triumph off the slow Turn 1. Where the Triumph loses time is a rough section of pavement at the entrance to Turn 2; the suspension still isn’t able to handle the bumps that well, resulting in some speed loss as El Jefe is forced to wrestle the Daytona 675 back on line. The Honda's top-end deficit shows here, and the R6 loses too much time at the beginning of the turn to make up.

The apex of Turn 4 crests the one hill on the course, placing a premium on front-end feedback and quick acceleration off the apex. Once again the ZX-6R and Daytona 675 demonstrate their superior speed into and over the Turn 4 hill, with the Triumph showing better apex speed even though it loses a bit in the upper gears accelerating toward the Turn 5 kink. The top-end deficit of the Honda and Suzuki are apparent in their slower section times.

Here is where the benefits of the ZX-6R's engine and front-end come into play, with the Kawasaki showing a blistering entrance speed in this decreasing radius sweeper that is over 3 mph faster than the next bike. Segment times are basically a wash in this 180-degree turn, with the Triumph's superior midrange punch apparent in its high exit speed, while the R6's agility allows it to carry speed into and out of the turn.

This series of switchbacks rewards quick steering and good power, and interestingly the GSX-R gets through quickest, even though its acceleration deficit shows in its slow exit speed. Once again the R6 makes good use of its agility here, carving through with the second-quickest time and highest exit speed. The ZX-6R's slow showing here was mostly due to gearing with the control tires, as it was forced to come off the exit of the switchbacks between gears.

Here is a measurement of each bike's speed at the end of the straight just before Turn 8, the fastest part of the course. The Kawasaki's top-end advantage is plainly evident, as is the Honda’s deficit. The R6 might be down a couple of ponies to the GSX-R, but the Yamaha's top-end acceleration advantage allows it to post a higher speed. The Triumph comes off the exit of the esses well, but it loses its acceleration advantage as the speeds get faster.

Compared to the old Dragon Supercorsa, the Diablo Supercorsa has a much taller and more triangular profile that presents flatter areas on the shoulders to increase contact patch size at moderate lean angles, and provide more traction and improved feedback entering and exiting corners. The tires' internal construction has been changed, with the front tire getting additional cross plies to help with stability under braking; both still utilize the zero-degree steel belt design that runs steel threads along the circumference of the tire to provide stability and reduce tire growth at speed. The near-slick tread design puts the maximum amount of rubber on the pavement, and there are four different compounds offered (contrary to current trends, the Diablo Supercorsa's construction only uses a single compound).

We used SC2 compounds for our track testing at Buttonwillow, in 120/70 front and 180/55 rear sizing. The tires were a bit taller than many of the stock OEM fitment rubber (with the exception of the Triumph, which comes equipped with the Diablo Supercorsa "SP" street/track version stock), but adjustments were easily handled within the range of stock components.

As before, all our testers found the Pirellis to offer superb grip over the course of the day, with light and neutral steering habits. The front tire provided excellent feedback and allowed easy trail-braking into corners; the rear was a little numb in comparison at max lean, but still offered excellent traction with good bump absorption.

As per our usual test regimen, we attached our Racepak G2X data acquisition system on the back of each bike during Kento's timed laps at Buttonwillow Raceway. The GPS speed data graph at right shows some interesting correlations to our subjective comments; the top row of the graph designates where each section signifies a particular section of the racetrack. Unfortunately the times and speeds in the following analysis are not directly comparable to our previous tests for two reasons: First, the exact designated points on the track for each analysis area are slightly different due to logistical issues. Second, the lap times are significantly slower than our previous tests at Buttonwillow, which we can attribute mostly to the deteriorating pavement surface and the numerous pavement sealer patches in various turns that proved to lack decent traction.

When I crunched the notes and numbers after street testing I had the CBR and ZX neck and neck. Kawi fun factor versus Honda practicality.

The closed-course portion of our evaluation changed my opinion dramatically. After being put through its paces, the updated Honda was upended, relegating it to second on the box. The latest-generation CBR started a trend towards more midrange, and I applaud the forward thinking of the engineers at Honda R&D. But when pushed to the upper-end of the rev-range, the RR literally fell on its face and sacrificed top-end-power. Team Green has done their homework and the results reflect the company's efforts. Nice to see Kawasaki is shaking things up again.

The GSXR, while not a bad bike, is just dated compared to the others. It doesn't excel anywhere and is in need of a re-design. Although the Honda came out with a few minor updates, it lost something from last year—mainly its engine. Much improved from last year, the Triumph feels like some of its quirky issues have been tuned out. The R6 is the same one we've come to know over the past few years: a track-focused middleweight full of compromises. But all these bikes are evolutions of the same basic package.

The ZX-6R is a truly revolutionary machine. It does everything so well that it doesn't seem fair to compare it to the others in this test. It's an exhilarating ride, a fact backed up by all the measurable data, but who cares? The size of the smile it gives you is all that matters.

The Triumph looks great, and its almost-V-four-sounding engine has an addictive tone. But the 675 just didn't do it for me on the track, and its seating position was too awkward. The Yamaha, alas, is just too track-oriented for my tastes, and while the Suzuki fit me great and was an easy bike to ride on both street and track, it was noticeably down on power. The Kawasaki is obviously a great bike with amazing handling and power, but the overall feel of quality isn't quite up where it belongs, and the styling is a little too boy-racer for me.

In '85 I chose the Honda 500 Interceptor, and in '09 I would go with the Honda again. The CBR wasn't my favorite on either track or street, but it's a very balanced bike with no glaring deficiencies. And that's enough for me.

I was a little skeptical of the Showa Big Piston Fork after the riding the bike at the Autopolis International Racing Circuit in Japan at the world press launch, but after railing through the bumps and gnarled pavement of your typical American track, I've become a convert. Its superb action works with excellent brakes and a very flickable chassis to create what is hands down the middleweight to beat in '09.