Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade and SP updated for 2019
Midlife revamp for Fireblade focusses on electronics and cosmetics
THERE WAS some noise, as usual, about an all-new mega-update for the CBR1000RR Fireblade, but it’s not to be for 2019. Instead, Honda’s sweet litre bike gets a few neat tweaks to lift its performance and usability for next year.
The main changes are in the electronics. The traction control is now separate from the wheelie control, so you can dial in different amounts of intervention for each. The ECU is smart enough to work out the difference between wheelspin and slides, and wheelies, so you can now have quite high traction intervention, with lower wheelie control, and vice versa. The dash now has a three-position ‘W’ setting, alongside the Power, Engine Braking and HSTC traction settings.
Honda’s also tweaked the ABS settings, giving much less intervention above 120kph, and giving 15 per cent more deceleration. So when you hit the anchors at 180mph on the back straight, the world will go into reverse much more aggressively…
Finally, the ride-by-wire throttle motor is faster, so the throttle plates react more quickly to your inputs, both on corner entry and exit. Meaning the engine braking comes on faster, and you get on the power faster too. Nice.
The final mods are cosmetic – new paint for all the Fireblades – stock and SP. The stock comes in black with silver and red with white, and the SP tricolour has darker blue accents.
