Are sportsbike a dying if not dead breed?

[Stevie GooGs]

Speaking to a few local dealers and they are not moving very many sportsbikes at all. Im 40 now and go back 20 years everyone i knew had a pocket rocket, then as ive gotten older supernaked bikes and now its adventure bikes. I thought it was an age thing with getting older but can't be as the young ones would be out of zx10rs, blades and R1s etc.
____________________
Current: 2019 Yamaha T7 -> 2015 KTM Superduke R | 2000 Yamaha R1 Past -> 2009 KTM 990 SM -> 2005 kawasaki ZX10r -> 2000 Honda CBR 600 FY -> 2002 Honda XLV 125 Varadero
Bike Pics! -> My Photography Website

[Bhud]

I think so, yes. Either dying or dead, that is. It's been happening for a number of years. Sales of sports bikes just evaporated over the course of about 10 years. The 600s were the first to be announced to be discontinued (e.g. CBR600RR), and the 1000s are winding to a close, too.

While there are lots of reasons for this, such as increasingly stringent emissions regs ("boiling the frog") and the price of entry (insurance and trackday costs), it's predominantly a market-led phenomenon.

At the end of the day, who is better off? A man who can easily differentiate cheap cider from champagne, or a man who cannot? In the case of people today, it's often a story of not wanting to taste champagne, in case they like it. There are all sorts of expensive hobbies in which a person can partake. The price of licensing, insurance, outfit, trackdays and such being what it is, sports bikes are a hobby that, arguably, competes unfavourably with other experiences a person might try. Those £199 experiences they used to sell in department stores or supermarkets, for example. Try jetskiing, try adventure quad biking, try fishing, or just take a weekend out at a nice B&B in a part of the country you haven't been before. All of these things let you dip your toes in the water for cheap, without that huge commitment sports bikes demand. As such, the world of sports bikes diverged from mainstream leisure motorcycling, and fell victim to the whims of fashionable people. A bit like skiing in the 80s. Once popular and aspirational, it retreats into a niche. It will always be there, mind. But not ever on the same scale as before.

[redeem ouzzer]

Unfortunately biking has become tame. People would rather ride around nose to tail on stupid adventure bikes with metal panniers to an overpriced cafe to eat a poor quality sausage sarnie and drink coffee that tastes like piss on a Sunday rather than the exciting world of LC's, tits, raves and racing off from the old bill.

Part of the problem is you have to be in your mid 20's to get a big boy's licence, ain't no one got time for that and the several years of punishment riding something horrible like an SV650 or CB500 that comes with it. It's much easier to pass the car test, give it a couple of years for insurance to mature then get something silly on PCP.
____________________
Be a REAL MAN!

[ThunderGuts]

Perhaps it's to do with enforcement too; speed traps are everywhere, average speed camera systems popping up left, right and centre etc. so a bike designed for speed isn't massively compatible with this.

Personally I "get" the adventure bike segment; my VFR800X is "half adventure" (the road half) but I enjoy the practicalities of it and it's still fun. I've never owned a sportsbike, I'd like to have a go on one but I expect I'd find it a bit of a one-trick-pony.
____________________
TG.

[Kris]

Speeding became as socially unacceptable as smoking in a playground, whilst the latest bikes have 210+ bhp and do 110mph in first.

Everyone went to the track instead, which is why trackdays are now full of expensive kit. Most people I chatted with last year at tracks don't ride on the road anymore. I think there were around 10 road legal bikes. Everything else was track prepped and most likely sorned.
____________________
NSR125RR - ZXR750H1 - ZX9R E1 - GSF600S - GSF600SK3 - VFR400-NC30 - SV1000N - ST1100-R - CBR900RR-R - GSF1200SK5 - GSF600SK1 - VFR1200FA - GSXR1000K2 - ZZR1400 D8F
www.prisonplanet.com

[chickenstrip]

The bikes can get faster, better handling and so on, and have done so. But there will always be the limiting factor of road conditions. Sports bikes have surpassed the race bikes of yesteryear; the track is a far more logical place for them. It's not like you can't get powerful, great handling machinery in more user friendly guise nowadays, and sports bikes have made a lot of contribution towards that by pioneering the engineering. But the road is always going to put limitations on how much you can really use them.
____________________
Chickenystripgeezer's Biking Life (Latest update 19/10/18) Belgium, France, Italy, Austria tour 2016 Picos de Europa, Pyrenees and French Alps tour 2017 Scotland Trip 1, now with BONUS FEATURE edit, 5/10/19, on page 2 Scotland Trip 2 Luxembourg, Black Forest, Switzerland, Vosges Trip 2017
THERE'S MILLIONS OF CHICKENSTRIPS OUT THERE!

[A100man]

[chickenstrip]

[ThunderGuts]

[Bhud]

[wr6133]

[A100man]

[Fisty]

[pepperami]

Sports bike as a genre will never go away.
Authorities will force sanitised bikes upon us by using regulation.

However, human ingenuity will find a way round rules and regulations.

People wanting to buy the latest 1000 bhp, 250 mph, MOAR power superbike will always keeps the manufacturing companies interested in producing sports bikes, maybe at a lesser volume.
____________________
I am the sum total of my own existence, what went before makes me who I am now!

[Copycat73]

some of us just got pissed off lookin at tarmac and the pain in the arse that created .. along wit back , arm and wrist .. the constant lookin out for speed traps.. draggin the road through average speed traps designed to catch bikes in jockland.. and limited luggage capacity .. so we put our R1 in for an MT-10...
____________________
Whatever I post I have no citation and no intention of providing one..
caveat emptor

[Copycat73]

[Blah blah]

Licencing laws will put quite a lot of people off, and they won't get the bug early in life.

The 16 year old has had a moped for the last year (fun at less than 40 everywhere, not!) and gets a 125 next month. He can pass a test so that he can then ride it without Ls but nothing else for a couple of years and then it's another test for A2.

2 years after getting an A2 or when he's 21 then he can do yet another test and get an unrestricted licence.

And if it's been more than 2 years before passing one of the many tests, then it's time for another CBT...

The other alternative is that he can catch the bus until he's 24 then try for a unrestricted test.

Or at 17 he can pass a car test and drive anything he can get insurance for while the motorcycling industry wonders where everyone has gone.

[Fisty]

[Bhud]

[spottedtango]

The only problem I have is when I go away for the weekend I find that the majority of other bikers are the bmw gs1200 squad.

I used to see people on lots of different machines, race bikes, cx500s.

I’m sure the GS is a good bike but y no variety?

[wr6133]

[MarJay]

There is a glimmer of hope on the horizon. Aprilia RS660.

Ok, Ok hear me out.

It's a bike aimed as a step up from a 125. There is an A2 compatible model. It's apparently got a riding position similar to a CBR600F. Full power, it's got about the same horsepower as an older CBR600F. It's got all of the electronics, 6 axis IMU, Blueteeth, all that.

The trouble with sportsbikes is, they got progressively more and more hardcore until us old fellas who all still ride bikes got too old and creaky to ride them. The Aprilia might just be enough to get the kids into it again, and to allow us old fellas to have what is really a proper sportsbike.
____________________
British beauty: Triumph Street Triple R; Loony stroker: KR1S; Track fun: GSXR750 L1; Commuter Missile: GSX-S1000F
Remember kids, bikes aren't like lego. You can't easily take a part from one bike and then fit it to another.

[Easy-X]

Is this some closet Yammie Noob fanboi thread?!
____________________
Royal Enfield Continental GT 535, Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[Copycat73]

[Copycat73]