Having owner RC30 and rode mates OW01 as well as running one in from new back in the day for mate that raced them at TT and British Supercup, would have to say calling the OW01 torquey compared to the RC30 is plain nuts. The power spead on RC30 is one of the best egines i have ever rode. Yes RC30 gearing in town is a pain, but if you ride a RC30 in town, its your own fugging fault!!

Both were race Homoligation specials and as such finish on paint and like is not the best. For me, RC45 was a better bike than RC30, but as has been said each to there own, but when you have people that have owned and lived with a bike surely they have a better handle on it?? Just a thought.

And dont think just because own a bike sing its praises, i have a MV F4S, gorgeous bike to look at, but fuck me horrible to ride, power, handling the lot, not nice.

Neosophist wrote: RC30 / RC45 / NR750

I'll have one of each please when i win the lottery!
Still remember drooling over the NR that used to sit in Hursts motorcycles in Belfast when i was a young un...

speedy231278 wrote:I thought it was only the ZXR-R that was supposed to be crap on the road because they had flat slide carbs, where the base model had round ones? I've never ridden mine, so as yet I don't know just what 'fun' I'll be having with them. But then, the baby RVF has flat slides and it's not that bad at low revs around town....

You need a lot more throttle control to ride a bike with flatslides, open to quick will bog, then come on song and try and spit you off, raced a ZX7R with flatslides at start of season and was hard work, fast but hard to ride. Average rider would hate it/them.

vic-vtrvfr wrote:

Neosophist wrote: RC30 / RC45 / NR750

I'll have one of each please when i win the lottery!

Still remember drooling over the NR that used to sit in Hursts motorcycles in Belfast when i was a young un...

The ZXR400 SPs have flat slides on them.. I don't like them for road, you have to concentrate too hard, if you balls it up and are too eager with the throttle the engine will bog until it clears.

If you are racing and time it right you can open the slides quicker than cvks as there is no pressure to equalise, which is why you can be un smooth with them.. for racing they have advantages.. also no butterflies to affect the air.

For road, even though there is a delay cracking cvks open., if your in the right gear it is not that bad.



The NR sounds nice when being warmed up.

In 2012 I think the RC30 makes the perfect road bike out of all the old 'super bikes', most modern 600s / 1000s will blow an RC30 away on a track unless it has much more spent on upgrading it. They will also be cheaper to buy and maintain.

Being a Honda it is still perfectly reliable and will start when you want it to, build quality is fantastic with plenty of exotica throughout as a product of the 80s bubble period when Honda went all out.

The reputation from the bike is second to none so will always draw a crowd and they are a pleasure to ride, as a road bike they are great, gearbox isnt amazing for town driving but certainly livable, torquey v4 motor pulls strong from idle.

Not slow by any means but not all out crazy like many of the modern bikes, so in my view makes for a perfect 'sports' road bike, more so than any other of the bikes out there.

Crack the throttle on a modern blade / s1000rr and you will be breaking the speed limit before you can think, the bikes also get phenomilly hot.. the blades warm up before you can put your jacket on, modern litre bikes in my opinion are too much for the road, you can never enjoy their power, at the top end of the revs your always breaking the speed limits.

The RC30 is rideable and still much fun, not cheap though so really for the collectors, but that is who they were built for.

Just my 2 cents anways.

abrmoto wrote:Average rider would hate it/them.

Ah that's why i never took to them i guess.

I admit to being a below average rider but with above average toys to hone my crap skills on

I think I've been misquoted... lol (one too many set of tags)

Fixed - you are right, miss quoted, sorry about that.

Mardy fuckers..lol

We all know that in terms of hitting all the nails on the head it was Honda rolling the RC30 out.

Other homologation specials were also very good - but I recall the ZXR having a 90mph first gear...the OW01 just being a Yamaha and the Suzuki being crap..

you cannot buy the quality that Honda put into the bikes of that era. Looking at new bikes - they look shit.

The RC30 is everything I want in a bike, there's just no modern equivalent. I'd have one in a heartbeat if I came into that amount of spare cash.

There's a heap of ride reviews and comparisons of the RC and OWO1 from their era in this book, worth a read:

speedy231278 wrote:But then, the baby RVF has flat slides and it's not that bad at low revs around town....

They're 'semi-flatslides' for want of a better word - the slide is flat in shape but they still use constant velocity (CV) carb principles - throttle butterflies etc - so miss out on the main advantage of flatslides.

Cammo wrote:

speedy231278 wrote:But then, the baby RVF has flat slides and it's not that bad at low revs around town....

They're 'semi-flatslides' for want of a better word - the slide is flat in shape but they still use constant velocity (CV) carb principles - throttle butterflies etc - so miss out on the main advantage of flatslides.

I wouldnt even call them semi flat slides. They just have a flat slaped CV piston.

Like cammo said, they behave nothing like flat slides, and act like normal CV cabs.

A true flat slide has no butterfly, moving the slide controls the amount of air, not a vaccum piston.