Where each successive version had felt like the powered-up progeny of the previous year, the world champion Honda had a character all of its own. Riding Kocinski’s RC45 first underlined this. To make this bike motor, I had to ride it like the four-stroke GP racer it had become. Maybe that’s why Li’I John took to it so quickly, as he was the only man, until Max Biaggi more than a decade later, to have won world titles in both GP and Superbike racing.
The Honda revved like a two-stroke, but it still drove as cleanly as a road bike from 6,000rpm upwards. From 10,000rpm on, things happened faster, then from 13,000rpm it took on the mantle of a two-stroke GP racer. No four-stroke I’d ridden before had ever picked…
