BIG, OLD LUMPS OF IRON...

...well, steel and alumium alloy, and plastic, some rubber too. Yet your Jotas, CB1100Rs and Katanas still have charm. You just need money to sample it

Words: Jim Moore

There’s no finer expression of a big, powerful superbike than an air-cooled, inline multi-cylinder engine. The apex of development for that particular package was the early 1980s – a time when manufacturers threw everything at their own interpretations of the design before liquid-cooling and improved aerodynamics changed the way engines were packaged. There are plenty to whet your appetite, too, from Kawasaki’s last of line Z1000s and early GPz11s to Yamaha’s behemoth XS1100, and Honda’s polished all-rounder CB900F. But there are others which offer something different – something more – while also bringing a touch of exotica into the mix: bikes like Suzuki’s unique GSX1100S Katana, Honda’s deliciously trick (for the time) CB1100R production racer, and Laverda’s bullish yet beautiful Jota – an Anglo/Italian triple twist on the theme that’s…

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Practical Sportsbikes (Digital) - 1 Issue, May 2023

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