When a manufacturer announces a new model invariably posts will appear online claiming the bike doesn’t make enough power, usually the claim is that bike ‘needs’ another 20hp, sometimes followed by predictions of the model being a total sales failure due to this perceived lack of power, and even the death knell of the company due to it.
Given that unless the bike in question is low powered most riders would never use full throttle for more than a few seconds even in an entire ride, so what they really want is more more torque, more mid range responsiveness. They want more to happen when the twist the throttle.
A good example of this is an old video on Youtube about Hildo’s Harley. A young guy on a 160hp or more Honda CBR challenges an old guy on a beat up Harley of maybe 60hp to a drag race, and gets soundly beaten every time.
Great !
I used to commute with my 1987 TT600 and won many traffic light races (No roundabouts in Germany during that time)
Easy to leave those 4 cylinders behind for the first bit…
A guy on a VS1400 was always on the same run and gave me a really hard time – I could’nt believe it.