It was slower on acceleration and heavier to turn, meaning, in short, the Honda got beat where getting beat counts: on the racetrack and in magazine shootouts. Yes, it can be argued it was a better everyman's bike, but losing anything sits poorly at Honda, and the fix was in: make the 2006 more flickable, harder accelerating and able to carve a tighter line.

They accomplished this; I would even go so far as to say that they exceeded the target. But herein is my problem: I just don't agree with how they got there; the ends don't, as we all say, justify the means. This bike no longer shines in the confidence department. True, it's more fun at the limit, but that reassuring CBR "feel" of being easier to ride and more stable than its competition was the first casualty of the new ride; it's just not there.

And I've avoided inking this story, today and every day for the past five weeks: I like Hondas, respect their engineering heritage, love their take-no-prisoners racing history (both two- and four-wheel I might add) and would say Sochiro Honda is one of my top five most-revered motorsport icons. Complicating this, I especially like the people I interact with at American Honda, and while I'm adept at being MO's problem-solver, I disdain being its problem creator. Yet, here I am, dissing my second-favorite (behind Ferrari) marque, and doing so six weeks late, at that. {Sigh} Well, then, nothing left now but to partake of the nitty gritty of what I liked and didn't, read on and feel free to disagree, MOFOs.

Honda's recent CBRs developed a reputation as dependable, stable and friendly, perhaps a tad boring even. They've fared quite well in MO sportbike shootouts for precisely that reason, allowing even our least experienced testers to gain confidence and feel at home on the racetrack.

"Honda's engineers decided to make hundreds of subtle changes for 2006, redesigning fully 60% of the CBR's components."

However, with an expert racer at the helm, Honda's slightly heavier and relatively slower-steering CBR 1000RR wasn't quite able to match the outright pace or excitement levels of the other Japanese superbikes.

To address this slight performance gap, Honda's engineers decided to make hundreds of subtle changes for 2006, redesigning fully 60% of the CBR's components.

Changes Include: A new magnesium accessory cover, a lighter fairing with redesigned profile to better expose those magnesium covers, new camshaft metallurgy and reduced shaft wall thickness for weight reduction and quicker revving, a lighter exhaust, new lighter weight forks and shock, a lighter and more compact radiator, new smaller ECU (black box) that's 100grams lighter, a compression ratio increase from 11.9:1 to 12.2:1, dual (nested) valve springs and a revised crankshaft alloy for improved durability, an increased redline from 11,650RPM to 12,200RPM, a 1-tooth larger rear sprocket that improves acceleration but doesn't sacrifice top speed, thanks to that higher redline.

To quicken the steering (and make the ride more exciting), they decreased rake by 1/4°, shortened the trail by 2mm and shortened the swingarm by 5mm, brake rotors were increased to 320mm from 310 but their thickness was reduced to 4.5mm from 5mm.

And that's just the start, there are hundreds more tiny modifications for 2006, but you probably wouldn't have the time or patience to read them all if Honda published the whole set.

The changes netted a whopping (claimed) 17Lb reduction in wet weight -- even though the new bike carries the same fuel load as last year -- and a 3% increase in peak power, without sacrificing low-to-mid range performance. All these changes mean more money, right? Nope, the 2006 CBR 1000RR will cost the same $11,299 as the '05 model and they're already available at your local Honda dealer. Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, the downside to these changes is a decrease in the bike's stability with a direct impact on its ease of use for average riders.

If you'll allow me to get a bit selfish here, I'll write a few words to expose the new CBR's appeal to guys who can really use all that it has to offer. What follows is the story of my first day on the bike at Buttonwillow raceway.

After two guided warm-up laps to re-orient the anxious journos to Buttonwillow's three miles of twists, turns, humps, bumps and curbs, I decide to get a little aggressive with the throttle on the bump between turns six and seven. This is my first real goose of the new CBR and I'm nearly rewarded with a ride to the ER. One second I'm trying to carry the front tire over a rise, and the next second, I'm desperately trying to roll the throttle closed while hanging pull-up style from the clip ons and staring at the bright blue sky. Shit! I'm about to loop this thing at 90MPH! Say hello to quicker revving and a shorter swingarm. I get lucky this time and the front comes back down without too much drama, although I've already blown past turn seven and am deep into the escape road.

"The brakes exhibit outstanding power with excellent feel and the CBR's tail wags in the air as I get it stopped in time."

I sheepishly roll back to pit lane, where I'm greeted with curious glances and scattered chuckles from the assembled engineers, mechanics and Honda staffers.

They had a direct view of my attempted orbital maneuver and one mechanic says it looked "like that time Biaggi nearly looped his YZR-500 during a victory wheelie". "You were way up there", he chuckles. I was indeed. If you kind sirs would please excuse me, I think I'll just head on over to the restrooms.

Shorts changed, I head back out on my own and start trying to string a few laps together, albeit with a more methodical approach to probing the bike's new characteristics. I quickly find that it's easier to upset the new chassis with clumsy steering inputs, since it now reacts to the slightest rider movement. This is easy to figure out however and once I start acting like a proper rider, the bike reacts like a proper motorcycle. At Buttonwillow, turns three, four and five are a tight right-left-right series of 90° turns, mixed with changing camber, lots of bumps and a slight elevation change.

This is typically a difficult place to get a 1000 through with any speed, as 1000s tend to resist these rapid transitions and line-adjustments. However, aside from a little squirm from the stock Bridgestone BT-015 tires, the CBR flicks through with effortless precision and encourages efforts to squeeze every last tenth out of this section.

"If you don't have the skill you're most likely to find your brain intimidated and your weaknesses exposed."

Once out of turn five, you're greeted by a series of short straights between turns six, seven, eight and nine. They're short enough that there is very little time spent on the center of the tire, since you're mostly finishing the previous turn or setting up for the next. You do all this while accelerating through each straight. It is sections like this one which highlight the increased respect demanded by the new CBR.

The old bike would truck on through here hard on the gas, with a heavy-hand required to keep it turning inside the lines.

The new bike turns effortlessly through here and demands smooth inputs to both steering and throttle, lest you find yourself taking a ride over the highside, courtesy of the harder-hitting powerplant and responsive chassis.

In other words, it'll give you exactly what you ask for, but you'd be well-advised to ask for the right thing at the right time.

If you have the skill, it's like riding a scalpel with a hyperspace button.

If you don't... you're most likely to find your brain intimidated and your weaknesses exposed. However, it's still a Honda and like most Hondas, it'll try to shepherd you through as best it can, so you'll probably come out the other side with all your fingers and toes intact. Honda claims the new CBR 1000RR has about 3% more power than the '05 model. However, when you couple this power increase with less flywheel effect, a shorter swingarm and a claimed 17Lb(!) weight reduction, it feels like the bike has an extra 20Hp and you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference between it and the wooly ZX-10R (Kawasaki modified the new ZX-10R's power delivery to make it more linear and manageable, but this CBR feels more like the old ZX-10R).

On Buttonwillow's front straight, the CBR elicits stupid giggles and produces unintended power wheelies and entertaining TZ-250 like speed wobbles. To put it simply, it feels fast and it is fast. However, those wheelies and wobbles are merely window dressing, because the new CBR doesn't actually shake its head or do anything you wouldn't want it to do in a straight line, it just lets you know you're hauling ass.

Page2During the lunch break, Honda fitted the CBRs with Bridgestone BT-002 Pro race tires. This tire swap helped me to figure out how much of the new bike's skittishness was attributable to the stock BT-015 tires and how much was chassis revision. Like most modern sportbike tires, the stock 015s are really good. However, they seem to have a bit too much flex in their carcass, which amplifies the new bike's responsive handling. On the sticky race tires, the chassis seems a bit more stable and forgiving and the added grip makes it easier to exploit the sharper handling and harder acceleration.

Indeed, I loved the connected feeling from the 1000RR on race rubber and had a ball threading the CBR faster and faster through the most technical sections of Buttonwillow. Last year's CBR couldn't hang with the competition of race rubber. However, this year's bike feels like its laptimes will fit right in with the latest crop of Japanese Superbikes.

When the day started, I was a bit put-off by Honda's willingness to sacrifice stability for lap times. Indeed, my overall impression is that the new bike has lost some of the signature Honda friendliness and given up its biggest distinguishing trait; its approachable nature which allows a rider to immediately feel at home on it.

As a motorcycle reviewer, I think it's my duty to point this out to the reader, since the majority of buyers aren't going to be racing these things at an expert level. For those buyers I'm worried that the new bike's responsiveness will manifest itself as an intimidating tendency to overreact to rider inputs resulting in a rider who's less-relaxed and even less likely to extract the most from his/her riding abilities.

Of course these are just my opinions, and I seem to be the only journalist who feels this way, so it's quite possible that I'm mistaken. By the end of the day, my initial reservations were replaced by my usual post-track euphoria and speaking with the other fast guys in attendance, I quickly realized they all felt the new bike was a vast improvement over last year's stable sweetheart.

Of course, they're right when speaking in context of expert club racers and AMA pros. However, as the euphoria fades, my brain keeps telling me that this bike isn't as well-suited to the average buyer and I still believe that the majority of canyon carvers and track day participants will be faster on last year's bike. But "average" riders aren't really what these 1000cc Superbikes are all about. Though we can't control who buys which ride, these bikes are truly meant for racers and the fastest and most experienced of the street crowd. Mixed as my opinion of the new CBR may be, there's no denying that Honda totally nailed its goals with the '06 CBR. They wanted faster lap times and they got them, by making the CBR quicker to change direction and quicker to accelerate. An accomplished rider can use these traits to easily outpace their laptimes from an '05 CBR. Indeed, once the '06 was fitted with sticky BT-002 Pro race tires, I found myself giggling and having a ball. One quick flyby from a sideways Doug Toland was all it took to convince me of the basic competence of the bike and the more laps I put on the bike, the faster and more care free I felt.

"The new CBR is definitely faster than the old one and feels right on par with the other bikes in its class."

After a day spent lapping Buttonwillow Raceway, I can attest that the new CBR is definitely faster than the old one and feels right on par with the other bikes in its class. It is also more exciting to ride and arguably more "fun" for experts. However, I honestly think that less experienced track day participants would be faster and more relaxed on last year's bike. To be fair to Honda, I had an issue during my first few sessions, where the front brakes were hanging-up and dragging through the corners. This would cause the bike to feel more nervous than normal and may have set the tone for the rest of my time with the bike.

Couple that setup issue with my near loop and we could have a tainted impression. Indeed, the more I rode the bike and the faster I went, the better I felt about it. Does this mean it isn't as well suited to slower riders? Or, is it simply a combination of events which made me feel the bike is a step-backwards for average riders? This question will be answered shortly, when the rest of the MO staff rides all four Japanese 1000s back-to-back in our '06 Open Supersport Shootout.

Big changes for the short of attention:

• Much quicker steering, not twitchy, but definitely livelier.

• Accelerates noticeably harder than last year's 1000RR and revs quicker in general, thanks to those lightened internals and slightly shorter gearing.

• Honda's ultra-trick HESD system has more work to do this year, due to the steeper geometry. It wasn't hard to initiate a cyclic wobble through the bars, but the HESD did a good job of calming things down after a wiggle or three.

• The Ram Air inlet has been moved to a hidden spot below the steering head, which gives the fairing a slightly cleaner look and caused several journalists to ask if ram air had been deleted. The new intake sounds like it's a bit louder or more aggressively tuned than last year's, this gives the new bike a very pleasing sound from 8,500RPM to Redline.

Ten Questions with Sean "Dirty" Alexander

1. How is the motor different from last year? First of all, it's better. Significantly so, and that's what you need to know. Details: the internal weight reduction has paid off -- it revs noticeably faster, and my seat of the pants dyno says it'll easily out-accelerate previous CBR models.

2. Is it on par with the GSXR and ZX10R now? Yes, it should be very close in laptimes and its overall feel has become less "Honda" and more "Typical Japanese Superbike".

3. Is there any difference in rider comfort? No, it feels comparative to last year's bike.

4. Can you feel the difference in weight? Yes: you can always tell when a bike is lighter, and 17 pounds is very obvious. Additionally, the steeper geometry makes the bike feel even lighter.

5. What about this bike helped you punk some journalist clowns? In the last right-hand sweeper before the esses, the CBR's new-found ability to make rapid line changes allowed me to weave my way through them like so many rolling traffic cones.

6. Is it pretty? If yes, did you feel cool riding it? Do you care? Come on now, sportbikers care! Yes, but I only feel cool when I'm figure skating with Brian Boitano. Do I care if I look cool? Would I admit to my admiration of Brian Boitano if I wanted to look admirable myself in front of the teeming MO masses?

7. Were you able to tune-out some of that nervousness with suspension adjustments? It's a 1000cc so it's hard to make it twitchy or nervous -- and it has that great steering damper, so nervous isn't the right descriptor. Did I adjust it to be more confidence inspiring? No, the problem I was having wasn't a suspension problem. The difficulty is the wheelbase is shorter, the rake steeper, the trail lessened, these things can't be tuned out with suspension sag and/or damping adjustments.

8. Put yourself on record speculating what a tire swap to (your favorite tire) would do. The CBR was a lot nicer once we took off the OEM Bridgestone BT-015 and went to BT-002 Pro medium compound race tires, which are a heavier-steering tire than the OEM rubber, and squirm less. This made the bike feel more settled and confidence-inspiring. If these were the OE tires, yes, I would've had a slightly better initial impression of the '06 model, but regardless, I still recommend the stability of the '05 for the vast majority of our readers.

9. I guess it wheelies well? Did you need that change of underwear? I'll say! The thing came up so fast it took me a moment to realize that I was looking straight up at the atmosphere, and not down the racetrack.

10. Overall, and probably most important for our readers, are the changes made for '06 enough to justify buying a new one or changing how it stacks up against the competition? That depends on who you are and what you want. If your intention is to race competitively, the answer is yes. But, my beef with this bike is that it sacrificed user friendliness for the rest who aren't pro-licensed racers. Even for those who pretend to race -- from track-day veterans to canyon crazies -- I think it would be easier to go faster on last year's model.