Twenty-five years ago was three years before Al Gore conceded a too-close US presidential race to George W. Bush, as we collectively decided to kick the global warming can down the road a bit further. Honda’s first bike with a catalytic converter was also three years in the future – the VFR800FI. Just before all that hit the fan, 600cc Japanese inline four-cylinders were all the rage: carbureted, basic, cheap, and expendable. Ninety horsepower in a 420-pound package was all you really needed. And in 1997, the top 600s were still even pretty good streetbikes. The MO crew was positively giddy over all of them.
1997 600cc Sportbike Shootout
By Motorcycle.com Staff Mar. 15, 1997
Photography by Jerry Lowe and Tom Fortune
Forget 750s or open-class sportbikes, the real battle for supremacy is waged in the 600 class — these are the best-selling sportbikes made. Here, manufacturers pump huge amounts of money into research and development to produce the quickest, fastest, best-handling machines possible. This space-race for the 600 title has led to machines that out-perform liter bikes of just a decade ago. But which 600 is best, and more specifically, which is best for you? Read on, and join us for a thorough thrashing of the world’s best 600cc sportbikes.It was the best of times, for sure: Motorcycle Online recently rounded up the best 600cc Sportbikes produced, dusted off our leathers and fired checks out of the corporate account like a cheap six-shooter, appropriating funds to rent Los Angeles County Raceway’s quarter-mile drag strip, Willow Spring Raceway’s Streets of Willow, as well as taking over Graves Motorsports’ shop for the better part of a week to have the bikes dyno’ed and track prepped. Lastly, we brought in AMA Superbike star Shawn Higbee and reigning Willow Springs Formula One Champion Chuck Graves to assist Editor-in-Chief Brent Plummer and Associate Editor Gord Mounce in the testing. The point? To carve as many canyons as possible, shred a bunch of tires and fry three clutches at the drag strip? That’s what the four of us thought until Managing Editor “Big” Tom Fortune brought us all back to reality: “This is a street bike test. Remember, tens of thousands of people around the world are going to plunk down their hard-earned money on one of these machines, and in many cases, it’ll be their only bike that they have to live with for years to come, through various conditions such as sport touring, commuting and canyon riding. And less than three percent of the machines will ever see a racetrack. You will evaluate these bikes with that in mind!” That said, we headed to Palomar Mountain, and the testing began…
The testing Begins: Kawasaki ZX-6R
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