Cant say I have talked about new machines on here before.
I spent last Monday and Tuesday Coaching at Phillip island for California Superbike School (dont be hating) and the Aussie branch has just updated their machines from the 14 to the 15 S1000r. Note the coach bikes are stock, stock mufflers, just crash protection and race fairings added. Running Dunlop A13 "road" rubber.
The changes I was told was mainly in the electronics with a few minor changes aka the electron controlled suspenders.
The dash is quite different, also your switch blocks are now fully packed with lap timer and traction controlling do dickies. The dash now has a lean angle indicator and stores your MAX lean on each side until you turn the key off.
Jumping on the bike it felt the same as the 14 model no big surprises erg wise. You let the clutch out as you leave the pits.....and then you NEVER TOUCH IT AGAIN......how, oh yeah its got a quick shifter for your up shifts and a shifter/blipper for the down shifts. Yep you tap the shifter and the engine blips and it changes down instantly - if you barreling into honda/T4 at 230kph in 5th then you just hit the brakes as hard as you can and hit the shifter to change down 3 times and the wizardry, blibs, changes it down, slips the clutch so your good to just tip it in to your now recorded MAX LEAN Angle. how cool is that!
The shifter is also changeable from std shift to race shift from std, so it doesnt matter how you like it.....now thats free.
The electron suspenders work faultlessly - PI has super fast and super slow corners, it felt think each corner as easy as the rest.
The big improvement from my end was the wheelie and traction control, the 14 model was rather crude when it came to the front end lifting. the 15 model now lets the front get to about 2-4 inches off the deck and then leaves it there as you change up and keep it nailed. Very nice. The traction control seems fair less intrusive, the older bike would cut in and out as you drove hard out of the corner, which meant there was alot of sideways movement. The 15 model is far softer - much like the ZX10, its light is flashing on the dash but you just get good hard drive off the turn.
Some of the BMW at the track had newer light weight rims, mine was fitted with older ones - so the lighter ones would only increase performance.
Lastly all the coaches believed the newer model was faster than the older one, if that was possible.
Oh and 55 degrees was my max lean angle, not bad on road rubber I thought.
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Originally Posted by neil_cb125t
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