R1 noise, bike porn and a quick lap

Trawling the internet for a sound clip of the Crossplane Crank Yamaha R1 on full chatter, I came across this: a few fast laps on board with New Zealand Superbike racer Tony Rees as he works the CABS Throttle Blipper on his 2011 R1. (Skip to 7:35 for the fast ones.)

CABS is a system used by Superbike teams that makes use of the R1’s digitally controlled throttle. When you change up a gear, the bike blips in the perfect amount of revs to save time on track and make downshifts as quick and easy as clutch-less upshifts. Not sure it will be much use on the road but for a spot of bike porn it’s not bad.

Stick an aftermarket set of pipes on the R1 from 2009 onward and this is what it will sound like, straight out of MotoGP. I’ll be fitting some aftermarket Scorpion’s and the factory recommended Akrapovic’s to mine shortly. More on that later.

By Andy Stevens