Honda CBR 400RR

GSX-R400RM vs CBR400RR

WHY DO TROMBONISTS always wear sandals? What are mosquitoes for? Does a moustache come with a policeman's uniform? What's Johnny Morris up to these days?

These great conundrums are clues in The Sun quick crossword compared to the mother and father of imponderables. The mother: why doesn't Honda import the CBR400RR into Britain? The father: why doesn't Suzuki bring in the GSX-R400R?

Both are outstanding. They make racy 750s feel as manoeuvrable as beetroot stains, yet are poised and predictable compared to sporty 250s. They have midranges that wouldn't embarrass a 600. They are beautiful. And the CBR verges on being comfortable. A salesman sayeth: "Get a customer to test ride one of these and it is sold."

Yet neither machine is officially imported to Britain. Both our test bikes are low mileage models built for the Japanese market and brought here by grey (unofficial) importers. Britain's official importers accept the bikes are fantastic, but still won't bring them in.

Honda UK's Dave Hancock: "It's the expense. We are looking at around £6000 for the CBR400RR once backup costs and the dealer cut have been taken into account. It would not sell. There's no prejudice against the CBR itself — I'm sure it's fantastic."

There is a down side to the brilliance. The CBR and GSX-R are dangerously subversive motorcycles. They can undermine the most heartfelt desire not to do anything silly as easily as they can ride round the outside of anything on the road. I fell for this one in a big way.

The unfussed way the GSX-R repeatedly transformed clumsy input from bars and pegs into sweeping, kneeslider-destroying joy started to addle my brain. I thought it was me doing this. Two seconds later the GSX-R and I were sitting upside-down in a field.

Bystanders said the front wheel tucked under after a ridiculously vigorous chuck in coincided with a slight hollow in the road resulting in a 20ft streak of rubber followed by an insurance claim. This is proof that a near-perfect motorcycle can simultaneously carry out self-control and self-preservation bypass operations. The GSX-R and CBR should carry a sticker saying: "You are not Mick Doohan. Do NOT be a prat."

Both bikes can also undermine your most deeply held motorcycling beliefs. In the first half hour, the CBR and GSX-R weaved through traffic as efficiently as trailies, cruised dual carriageways at 80mph with power aplenty in reserve, and shimmied down a B-road leaving a vile grin stuck on both riders' faces. "If we're only allowed to ride 400s in five years time, then so what? It won't be that bad," was the thought.

It's not the point (we should be able to choose what we ride, the GSX-R is uncomfortable), but these bikes are so potently brilliant that it's hard to stop let-the-Europrats-do-their-worst thoughts popping up. If chief Euro power-cutter Martin Bangemann ever realises the subversive potential of 400cc motorcycles, were in big trouble.

THE CBR400RR DOES not look like the air-pawing FireBlade. The FireBlade looks like it. Honda worked on the FireBlade engine for years to get such a phenomenal power to weight ratio, but much of the running gear and styling was pinched or copied straight from the 400.

The proof is everywhere. The 400's pillion seat pops up to reveal a hole big enough for an oversuit, the clocks are identical apart from the 400's bigger numbers (km/h not optimism), and the twin-spar frames with huge swing-arm pivot castings must have come from the same drawing office. The harder you look, the longer the list.

With its effective compromise of the out-and-out racing crouch, the 400 even feels like the FireBlade in the saddle. The seat is low but pegs are not so high as to induce leg cramps within minutes. If you are over six foot, those take an hour. Bars pull you over conventional forks, but not enough to channel a painful amount of weight through wrists.

The CBR400 immediately feels perfect. Within minutes you are weaving through tiny gaps in stationary traffic as if you'd been despatching the thing for decades, within hours you're cornering as if you've been racing for years. Its low-slung weight and perfect ergonomics defy you not to be confident. m» <ig

Front and rear suspension is luxuriously soft at low speed, giving a smoother ride than many much heavier bikes. The conventional forks are especially squishy, seeming to run both weak springs and little compression damping. Around town all the jarring, wrist-compacting injuries are left to the GSX-R rider. It is easy to see why this bike is the top selling 400 in traffic-congested Japan.

Amazingly, the CBR shrugs off fast lumpy corners as briskly as it deals with rows of Mondeos. The suspension still feels unusually compliant, soaking up bumps that you'd expect to get booted out of the saddle for. It tips in at the dab of a peg, steers on the weight of a buttock and has the accuracy and manoeuvrability that bigger bikes haven't.

A dry weight 601b heavier than an GV250 and 601b lighter than CBR600 leems to be the perfect compromise. As a road bike the CBR400's mixture of comfort, stability and accuracy is unrivalled.

Only the brakes are a disappointment. On our bike they lacked the initial bite of the GSX-R's and unlike the rest of the bike, which was pristine, the CBR brakes felt second-hand. The forks were pitted so perhaps unlike most grey imports our machine had seen winter use.

If the CBR's comfort is a relief, then the engine is a revelation. Let the clutch out at 2000rpm and instead of stalling, the canted forward motor tolerates your audacity until 4000rpm. Then it hauls. At 5000 the intake roar overtakes engine whine and from there to the 14,500rpm redline the climb is linear and strong. Kawasaki's ZXR400 was never like this.

The CBR400RR was designed with the fickle, wealthy Japanese in mind. It is splattered with stickers bragging about the Castec Gull Arm swing-arm, LCG frame (low centre of gravity) and Direct Air Intake. It screams "I am trick".

The Castec Gull Arm is the pinnacle of CBR unnecessary trickness. On the right side the arm swoops up and over the exhaust - like a gull's arm presumably — letting the pipe tuck in tighter to improve ground clearance. That's the theory. The practice is it looks scrummy and does nothing for ground clearance because there's such a whopping gap between exhaust and swing-arm.

Flashness continues in the tail. Drag your eyes away from the gorgeous Corvette-style rear light unit and you'll see there are no pillion footrests. You can then press a hidden button below the pillion saddle and watch passers-by gaze in wonder as the pillion pegs pop out.

Gimmicks sell the CBR in Japan. In Britain, decisions will be based on a test ride and the CBR will not disappoint. As a practical motorcycle is scrapes through on the strength of cheaper insurance and hour long comfort. As the best way to spend a Sunday it scrapes past everything bar the GSX-R.

THE 400 IS PURE, concentrated GSX-R: everything you love about the 750, now in a smaller, more extreme package. It's got the double-cradle frame, the distinctive looks and it makes the 750 feel like an aircraft carrier.

If the CBR is pure road bike, then the GSX-R is unadulterated racer. With toes on pegs, heels brush bum, and the bars are so low it feels like your back is parallel with the road. The screen is ridiculously low but still your chin nearly bashes it. Everything above the horizon is blanked out beyond the top of your visor.

This is good and bad. Bad because knees ache after 25 minutes, wrists don't last much longer and the low screen spares only the top of your thighs from the breeze. Good because the GSX-R is one of the finest handling, most exciting motorcycles in the whole wide world.

The front-end is so fast that a dab on a peg will fling the GSX-R into the turn like it's bungeed to the deck. Whereas the CBR is immediately natural, the GSX-R takes getting used to. While you watch the delicious rear-end of the CBR cruise gently round a mini-roundabout, the GSX-R has already dived across the roundabout and is making for the wrong side of the road.

Until you're used to the GSX-R, three cups of strong coffee are recommended before riding. A normal human being's reactions are not quick enough. No wonder Suzuki does not publish rake and  trail figures - they'd scare people.

Once into GSX-R mode, grins get progressively broader. It can turn later and adjust corner line more radically than most people will dare to test. Stay within your limits and the GSX-R does the rest, depressingly easily. Taking this bike to the limit would need not just a race track, but a GP rider and slicks.

Suspension front and rear is tauter and firmer than the CBR's. Braking is where the difference is most noticeable because of the greater damping of the GSX-R's upside-down forks. Combined with the front-end dominated riding position, you find yourself braking far too hard just to relish the torrents of feedback gushing up from the front tyre and the floating feeling from the back. Brakes are identical to those on the 961b-heavier GSX-R750.

The traditional GSX-R engine is in the background. Power isn't as seamless as the CBR's, but there's enough everywhere to let the rider wind open the throttle, settle back and try and keep up with the handling. A hole appears around 6000rpm, and clutch juggling is required for smooth getaways, but from 8000rpm to the 15,000 redline power soon overtakes the restricted CBR.

Getting used to revving an engine to 250 revolutions per second (15,000rpm) takes time, but the GSX-R motor is so well balanced that it's not as hard as the more mechanically sympathetic would imagine. By 12,000 the motor is screaming, but it never sounds tortured and ;Ctually feels smoother in the last OOOrpin than the previous three. The condensed GSX-R theory applies to the looks. Instantly recognisable Cause of double-cradle frame and brash graphics, the 400 takes the GSX-R look further by being even more aggressive. The twin lights are closer together to give a meaner, Bjorn Borg stare, the nose fairing dips over the front wheel to highlight the rider's ultra racy riding position, and the screen is so low it looks like something heavy landed on it.

But the GSX-R is one of the elite, where aching knees, a cricked neck and compressed wrists are not an issue. The performance overrides all that. Easily .□