Supersport shootout - our first impressions

The MCN road test team is just back from three days of testing in the south of France. We’ve been pitching the new Suzuki GSX-R600 against Honda’s CBR600RR, Triumph’s Daytona 600, Kawasaki’s ZX-6R, Ducati’s 749S and Yamaha’s R6 in the world’s first group test of the leading supersports contenders of 2004.

And after the first two days on the road in bright and sunny conditions, MCN’s Trevor Franklin said: “The Triumph was the real surprise among them. Its relatively soft suspension worked well on the road and it only really lost out to the best when speeds got extreme.”

We’re still analysing our test data but our first impressions from the back-to-back road testing put Honda’s CBR600RR and Suzuki’s GSX-R600 at the top of the list.

On the track the GSX-R600 is among the front runners, too. We rode all six of the bikes at Le Luc, near Brignoles in the south of France.

So far there are four bikes vying for the title of hottest track supersport bike; the ZX-6R, R6 and CBR600RR join the GSX-R on the front row.

We’ll pull together all our findings for a final verdict which will be published in MCN on February 11, 2004.

Click here for our litre-class shoot-out verdict.

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