New world order: The supersport class is back… and there’s a naked bike muscling in

We’ve never really thought of Triumph’s Street Triple as a supersport bike before. From its 2006 inception it was always the tamer, more real world take on the Daytona 675 race rep, but not anymore. The latest Street Triple 765 RS has evolved into a machine the full-on Daytona could’ve been, if Triumph had stuck with it and it’s much more relevant for today’s roads and riders, thanks to its roomy, upright riding position and grunty, three-cylinder engine.

It’s the supersport bike of our generation.

Many lament the demise of the old Daytona 675, but Triumph, like most manufacturers, pulled the plug on supersport offerings due to poor sales, but after years in the doldrums the class has woken up. For 2024 there’s a remastered Honda CBR600RR and Kawasaki ZX-6R, while Ducati are still going strong with their Panigale V2, a bike evolved from the 2013 899 Panigale.

Meet the contenders…

Ducati Panigale V2 – £17,195

• Engine 955cc liquid-cooled V-twin 8v, 140bhp, 72lb.ft
• Frame Cast aluminium airbox chassis
• Suspension 43mm USD forks and single rear shock, fully adjustable
• Front brakes 2 x 320mm front discs with four-piston radial calipers. Cornering ABS
• Rear brake 245mm rear disc with twin piston caliper. Cornering ABS.
• Seat height 840mm
• Kerb weight 209.2kg
• Read in-depth Ducati Panigale V2 review

Honda CBR600RR – £10,499

• Engine 599cc l/c inline four DOHC 16v, 111.4bhp, 44.6lb.ft
• Frame Aluminium twin-spar
• Suspension 41mm USD forks and single rear shock, fully adjustable
• Front brakes 2 x 310mm front discs with fourpiston radial calipers. Cornering ABS
• Rear brake 220mm rear disc with single piston caliper. Cornering ABS
• Seat height 820mm
• Kerb weight 193.8kg
• Read in-depth Honda CBR600RR review

Kawasaki ZX-6R – £10,599

• Engine 636cc liquid-cooled inline four DOHC 16v, 115.7bhp, 50.5lb.ft
• Frame Aluminium twin spar
• Suspension 41mm USD forks and single rear shock, fully adjustable
• Front brakes 2 x 310mm discs with four-piston radial calipers. Cornering ABS
• Rear brake 220mm disc. Cornering ABS
• Seat height 830mm
• Kerb weight 187.2kg
• Read in-depth Kawasaki ZX-6R review

Triumph Street Triple 765 RS – £11,495

• Engine 765cc l/c triple DOHC 12v, 117.3bhp, 55.7lb.ft
• Frame Aluminium twin spar
• Suspension 41mm USD forks and single rear shock, fully adjustable
• Front brake 2 x 310mm front discs with fourpiston radial calipers. Cornering ABS
• Rear brake 220mm rear disc with single piston caliper. Cornering ABS
• Seat height 836mm
• Kerb weight 190.6kg
• Read in-depth Triumph Street Triple 765 RS review

Over in the racing world, grids have been boosted by new rules that allow big twins, triple and fours to race against the screaming 600s. Their definition of supersport has stretched to accommodate the new breed and here on the road, what we think of as a supersport bike has moved with the times too. That’s why we can include a fiery naked like the Triumph.

Supersport for the road

We love how the Street Triple RS doesn’t crush your knees or wrists and that being so exposed it gives you the kind of vivid sense of speed a fairing will always blot out. But most of all we love its ability to glide through corners with the grace and poise of a race bike. We got a taste of its handling abilities at its world launch at Jerez last year and it’s just as impressive on MCN’s test route.

Just about any bike has more ‘engine’ than you can use for the road, but very few have enough ‘chassis’, like the Street Triple RS’s and its set-up is just about perfect.

Its ride is velvety-plush and controlled and the way it rolls into corners and grips hard at full lean is track-grade sublime. The fully adjustable rear Öhlins and Showa fork set-up is softer than RS models of old and the new Brembo Stylema brakes have the power and bite to rival any superbike or super naked.

Previous RS models have impressed, but with its shorter wheelbase, extra rear ride height and flatter bars, this latest generation is one of the finest cornering bikes money can buy.

Its wailing three-cylinder engine also benefitted from a host of upgrades using Triumph’s Moto2 knowhow, boosting power by a claimed 7bhp to a 128bhp, or a real-world 117bhp on our dyno. Overall gearing is shorter and the gearbox ratios are closer together, with the exception of first, which is longer. These changes all add up to a Street Triple that’s even juicier on the throttle, freer revving and dishes out its wild acceleration with even more venom.

It weighs just 190kg fuelled on our scales, so there isn’t a lot of metal to push along. It screams and excites like a supersport bike should, but the Triumph’s road manners are still intact. The triple is every-day tractable, smoother than a big twin, gruntier than screaming four and still sounds like it’s gurgling razor blades on the pipe.

It also comes with goodies such as lean sensitive traction control, ABS, a slick up/down quickshifter and multifunction colour dash. The Triumph is a supersport bike you could happily tour on, commute or pound out summer trackdays.

When only a race rep will do

Despite the Triumph’s brilliance, for some, like the more race-minded riders on our test (Bruce Dunn and Carl Stevens) a supersport should always have a fairing and clip-ons. It’s a bit of a head-scratcher why Honda and Kawasaki have revived their race reps given their recent poor sales history, but you’d have to say it’s the resurgence in supersport racing and perhaps a dash of noughties nostalgia. In some ways the CBR600RR and ZX-6R have become modern-day retros.

Supersport icons

Kawasaki were first to blink back into the sunlight this year with a light reworking of the 636cc ZX-6R. Its inline four-cylinder engine is modded to meet Euro5 and it gets a colour dash, a slight facelift and faired-in wings. There are rider modes, traction control and ABS, but there’s no ride-by-wire or IMU, so no auto-blipper or lean sensitive rider aids to play with.

Honda’s CBR600RR was a revelation in 2003 with its RC211V MotoGP racer styling, underseat pipe and lashings of ‘mass centralisation’, but aside from tweaks along the way it’s stayed largely the same since. In the UK it fizzled out in 2017, but returned in this guise in Asia in 2021, before coming here with a Euro5 engine, lean-sensitive rider aids, up/down shifter and colour dash.

Longer forks give the option of raising the front ride height for racing and wings are purely for the track as this revvy, long-geared CBR is far from a natural born wheelie machine, even in first gear.

Despite their updates, neither Japanese screamer feels any different to how they did the first time around. If you loved them then you’ll still be in awe and if you didn’t, they don’t bring anything new to the party.

Do cramped, peaky 600 race reps really have a place in the world anymore? Why not go for a nice, practical middleweight sportsbikes, like the class-leading parallel twin-cylinder Suzuki GSX-8R?

Of course they do. Nothing quite delivers the distilled excitement of a four-cylinder supersport weapon in full flow. The din of their engines drills through your brain and their lust for corner speed borders on the insane. The harder you ride them, the better they get and if you’re going to do lots of trackdays, or just stick to your local B-road TT… and you’re 600-sized (small) they’re sensational.

They’re the cheapest of the supersport breed, too. As for which inline four 600 is the best, well it’s the same as it’s ever been. The Kawasaki is still every inch the old-school definition of a supersport bike. It’s loud, raucous, cramped and anti-social.

In other words, flipping sensational. Of all the bikes here it’s the one that puts the biggest smile on your face, even if it’s just in small doses. It’s the lightest of all the bikes here and easiest to launch off the line, but it’s strangely short-geared.

As a result, it accelerates like a demon with the best quarter-mile time, but its top speed is clipped below the Triumph’s. It’ll pull away in sixth gear, which is the last thing you’d expect from a supersport rev monster.

It’s also available in Kawasaki’s fantastic green, blue and white anniversary colours. The Honda couldn’t be more different. It’s still a belter and does everything a supersport bike should, as we discovered when we rode it at its Portimao debut a few months ago, but it’s milder than the Kawasaki.

Its smaller engine needs working harder for best results and it’s long-geared, so even teasing out a wheelie in first isn’t easy, but it’s the second fastest here and doesn’t hang around. Handling is just as pin-sharp and brakes nice and strong, stopping quicker from 70mph than both the Honda and Triumph.

The Honda is smooth, refined and not always out for blood, unlike the manic ZX-6R. It’s slightly less cramped and as beautifully built as it always was, although the wide seat and tail unit proportions look dated. Plus there’s a beautifully slick up/down shifter and colour dash and lean-sensitive assists to help you out in tricky conditions.

Supersport luxury

Although Ducati are inextricably linked with superbikes, they’ve consistently had a supersport bike since the 748, followed by the 749, 848 and Panigale 899, 959 and this V2.

They even made homologation special SP and R versions of the 748 and 749 for supersport racing and coming full circle, the V2 is back in the class with a control ECU.

It oozes supersport spirit and like the Honda, Kawasaki and Triumph the Panigale V2 is all revs, drama, big corner speed and pin sharp steering. It feels the most like a racebike with its low and widesplayed clip-ons and bum-up, nose-down aggression. It’s serious, single-minded and pumps out a lot of heat. It tolerates rolling around at road speeds, but you know it’s always dreaming of the track, even more so than the two Japanese.

Like the Triumph, we also rode it at Jerez at its world launch and it too was sensational. But if the two were parked in pitlane you’d be making a beeline for the Ducati’s keys. It’s all but as quick on track as a Panigale V4 in the hands of most riders, but much easier to ride.

You’d be wanting the Triumph keys for the ride home, though. In its transformation from Panigale 959 to V2 in 2020 it really came of age. Ducati gave it the V4’s styling, single-sided swingarm and top drawer rider aids and dash.

Power rose 5bhp to 153bhp and other detail changes included a 2mm longer rear shock to sweeten the steering response. It oozes quality from this year’s sultry satin and gloss black paintjob to its billet ali top yokes, all of which go to justify the extra it costs compared to its rivals.

On the road it can’t match the Triumph’s easy nature, but if you want the most powerful, fastest, sharpest-handling, best-braking, grown up supersport of all, the Ducati is the way to go.

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The MCN Verdict

Triumph’s Street Triple 765 RS is the supersport weapon of our generation. OK, so it doesn’t have a fairing and clip-ons, but sales figures have shown we fell out of out of love with traditional race reps years ago. The Triumph serves to satisfy any headbanger’s lust for speed with sublime handling and savage braking power to match.

It goes like a racer, but it’s easy to live with thanks to a roomy riding position, lots of real-world grunt, useful rider aids and a glorious three-cylinder soundtrack. Best of all it’s a hell of a lot of bike for the money.

But for those for whom only a race rep will do, the Ducati and new Honda and Kawasaki still shine. The CBR600RR is the refined one, the ZX-6R still gloriously angry and foaming at the mouth, but the Panigale V2 is quite simply the most poised, elegant, luxurious way to give yourself a supersport nosebleed.

Likes:

• Triumph refinement
• Honda build quality
• Kawasaki acceleration
• Ducati power and poise

Dislikes:

• Triumph on motorways
• Honda needs revving
• Kawasaki is cramped
• Ducati’s low clip-ons

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