The first time I encountered a big bike on the road, I was driving, I kid you not, a Ferrari 512TR. It was about 12 years ago, on one of my favorite roads, very early on a Saturday morning, and I remember thinking at the time that it would be unlikely ever to get much better than this.
For 10 minutes we had the dice to end all dices, bike in front, me in the Ferrari behind. To this day I don't know what sort of bike it was, but on the straights it would leave the Ferrari for dead. And around the corners and under brakes I'd reel it back in.
At the end of the road we came to a traffic circle. The bike went one way, I went the other. But just before he disappeared over the next horizon, the bike rider flipped up his visor, grinned, and said, "Now that's what I call fun. And you, my friend, are what I call a proper fruitcake."
Since then, I've often wondered whether a really quick car could live with a well-ridden superbike – not on the road, where it's too crowded and dangerous, but in the controlled conditions of a racetrack. And when Porsche launched the new 911 Turbo earlier this year it seemed like the perfect excuse to lay a 12-year-old wager to rest.
Enter the editor of Autocar's sister magazine for bikes, TWO's Tim Dickson. When I first asked Dickson to provide a bike and rider to compare against the Porsche and myself, he initially suggested a Honda CBR600RR and Niall Mackenzie. But in reality that would be like comparing Jenson Button driving a Caterham CSR against yours truly in a 911 – not an especially level playing field.
What we agreed on eventually is the bike world's closest equivalent of a 911 Turbo – the 170hp, $11,299 Honda CBR1000RR– with Dickson himself, an experienced and decently quick rider but not an undisputed champion of the universe, to ride the superbike.
