A slightly one eyed view....

[MaximPhil]

According to Wikipedia:
1976 BMW first year of "superbike", before was 750cc, and ALL Yamaha
1977, 1978 Kawasaki
1979, 1980 Suzuki
1981-83 Kawasaki
1984-88 Honda
That should be good for now......

Thanks Ray

Phil

[MaximPhil]

Hi, Phil -

Motorcycle racing (road racing, that is) has always fascinated me, and I followed it pretty closely in the 70's and 80's.

My responses to the video Brian posted were based on one simple premise:

The producers clearly never intended to present the video as a "Superbike-class" racing history from the 70's.

Instead, they were using the term "Superbike" very, very loosely ... merely to highlight what they felt were landmark production motorcycles from the 70's.

If they were truly trying to paint a landscape of actual Superbike-class racing from the 70's, then they surely(?) would have mentioned some of the European manufacturers: Moto Guzzi, Ducati ...

And especially BMW, who won the very first officially-titled "Superbike" class race in 1976, with Reg Pridmore aboard an R90S.

(Actually, the "Superbike" moniker really started in 1973 with the fledgling "Superbike Production" racing circuit.)

This video's producers instead chose to include bikes like Suzuki's Water Buffalo and Kawasaki's H2 two-stroke 750 triple ... obviously, neither of these bikes were involved in Superbike-class racing.

As for the Honda CBX ... I own a first-year CBX, and I absolutely love it. But Honda never used it in their Superbike racing efforts.

For their initial effort, they instead used a CB900F-based racer, and Honda didn't even officially enter Superbike-class racing until 1980.

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All the bikes in the video deserve to be included as "super" bikes (meaning "great" bikes), but not all of them were involved in Superbike racing.

And these producers even missed the mark by not including that beautiful Benelli 750 Sei inline-6 sitting in the background!

I mean ... after all, it was the world's first production bike with a 6-cyl. engine!

I'd call that a landmark motorcycle ...

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Anyway, for the reasons mentioned above, I think the absence of the XS11 is a glaring omission by these producers.

Sorry for the long-winded response ...

Hi Marco,
Thanks for your response. An excellent read. I agree with all your points.
Phil