What happened to the 600cc bikes?! | GTAMotorcycle.com

What happened to the 600cc bikes?!

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stunaz

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Thinking of getting back into it after a long break. Started to look around and turns out the bike world is.... strange and fading.

Theres nothing out there except weak 300s, 400s or Liter bikes. Than you got the nakeds getting sold for almost 10k with bargain bin parts? triumph selling a trident 660 with non adjustable front forks(wut?!)

what happened to the middle class 600s ? some are no longer in production and they havent been updated in 10+ years. I thought seeing next to no bikes on the road in the past few years was just me not looking, but is bike riding in NA dying?
 
stunaz said:
Thinking of getting back into it after a long break. Started to look around and turns out the bike world is.... strange and fading.

Theres nothing out there except weak 300s, 400s or Liter bikes. Than you got the nakeds getting sold for almost 10k with bargain bin parts? triumph selling a trident 660 with non adjustable front forks(wut?!)

what happened to the middle class 600s ? some are no longer in production and they havent been updated in 10+ years. I thought seeing next to no bikes on the road in the past few years was just me not looking, but is bike riding in NA dying?
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Cost to build a four cylinder 600 or 1000 is very close to the same. Therefore selling price of 600 or 1000 was close. Imo, 600's are not good street bikes. A new round of emission regs in Europe meant that manufacturers needed to spend a fortune to qualify each engine they wanted to sell. Manufacturers used that impetus to go forward with 1000 cc four cylinder and ~650-750 cc two cylinder.

As for bikes on road in Ontario, insurance is brutal (especially on SS and/or new riders). Many people aren't willing to pay that much for a toy they can use less than half the year.
 
As for the 600 supersports - Simple. People stopped buying them. (It isn't just the cost of insurance ... that's largely an Ontario problem, but they haven't been selling in Europe, either.)

A modern R6 is, honestly, a terrible street bike. It needs to be revved to the moon in order to go anywhere. It's expensive (the cost of manufacturing a 600 is the same as the cost of manufacturing a 1000). It's uncomfortable.

There's plenty of bikes out there to choose from - possibly more choices than ever. They're just not 600cc supersports.

I expect that the superbike class will be the next to go, and that's unfortunate. The performance level that they offer is irrelevant to street riding anywhere.
 
I should add that the Yamaha FZ07/MT07/R7/whatever the adventure version is (I don't pay attention to them) and the FZ09/MT09/etc are excellent bikes ... budget suspension and all (but that's an excuse to upgrade). Everyone I know who has one, really likes them. Many have done suspension upgrades, but at $5k less up-front cost than a sport bike (and not being slotted into a sport-bike insurance classification!) there's the money to do that.

Couple things here. By using the same engine in a wide variety of models, Yamaha saves on R&D, tooling, emissions certification (to the emissions regulators, they're all the same bike if the engine calibration is the same), and they amortise the costs over a greater production volume. The R6 engine isn't suitable for using it in anything but the R6 or something very similar ...
 
Aside from the reasons above, another factor is a flooded used market. 600's got honed to a fine point over a decade of relentless development, but then hit a brick wall. With no reason to buy an expensive new one, anyone shopping could pick up a low miler for way less than new. The difference between a 2005 GSX-R600 and a 2015 model is pretty minimal, so there's lots of great examples to buy.

Brian P said:
I expect that the superbike class will be the next to go, and that's unfortunate. The performance level that they offer is irrelevant to street riding anywhere.
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Maybe I'm hopelessly optimistic, but I don't think the class will die like 600's did. I do think it'll shift, though, to mostly higher end models like what Ducati is doing with the V4 and Honda with the latest CBR (very not cheap). The days of a $10,000 litrebike rocket from Suzuki are behind us, but you can spend $30,000+ and get something great. You couldn't justify those prices for a 600, but you can for what is functionally an unlimited class now.

I could be naive and sportbikes will become the preserve of custom and low volume builders, but I think the demand is still there in Europe and North America to keep some big brands developing models. Just saw the Fast Bikes 2021 mega superbike test, and most of them are either new or were new last year. The Panigale and RSV4 have been iteratively developed, but the updates are constant. Only the R1 and Gixxer haven't seen anything significant recently, and that reflects those manufacturers recent approaches, more than anything (Yamaha to develop for market niches rather than established classes and Suzuki to put new bodywork and screens on old bikes and sell cheapish)...
 
Motorcycles are far from dying in NA and the rest of the world. But as stated above the world is changing how and what motorcycles are brought to market, also due to covid you may see unreasonably high prices on what was an "affordable" motorcycle. Just keep looking you'll find what you are after with minimal compromise.
 
Brian P said:
I expect that the superbike class will be the next to go, and that's unfortunate. The performance level that they offer is irrelevant to street riding anywhere.
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the liters making 220+ hp is pretty fun tho

so whats happening with the WSS class and all the variants. no more middleweight 600cc races? they all racing 10 year old tech?
feels like we're going backwards with the mt07s etc where they're making a bit more torque and almost half the horsepower

the R7 looked exciting until it turned out to be an MT07 with bodywork and some minor adjustments :(
 
WorldSSP has a limited future and Dorna/FIM knows it. It's going to morph into something else ... probably Supertwins or some variation thereof. It is sure to be a lower-performance class than the current WorldSSP 600 class, which is arguably uncomfortably close to Superbike. When Dorna/FIM figure out what to do with it, national-level racing will follow. It's going to have to be sooner rather than later.

I'm sure Aprilia will want somewhere to race their RS660.
 
Pretty much everything that brian said.

The era of hyper focused niche bikes is largely over and versatility is king, want a comfortable bike to rip around on, do a bit of touring and some commuting? Get a naked bike. Want to do all that AND track days?
Get a European naked.(or spend money upgrading the japanese suspension and brakes)

Want a comfy do it all bike that can do mild offroad and long distance touring as well? Get an adventure bike.

In addition, the superbikes might be going away, but we have the supernakeds now so 🤷‍♂️

I will say though, I doubt the RSV4 and the Panigale V4 are going anywhere, they're just too good, too sexy, and their architecture is shared across multiple platforms that I think they are here to stay.

but your run of the mill ,plain-jane inline 4 japanese superbikes are all going away
 
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bigpoppa said:
Pretty much everything that brian said.

The era of hyper focused niche bikes is largely over and versatility is king, want a comfortable bike to rip around on, do a bit of touring and some commuting? Get a naked bike. Want to do all that AND track days?
Get a European naked.(or spend money upgrading the japanese suspension and brakes)

Want a comfy do it all bike that can do mild offroad and long distance touring as well? Get an adventure bike.

In addition, the superbikes might be going away, but we have the supernakeds now so 🤷‍♂️

I will say though, I doubt the RSV4 and the Panigale V4 are going anywhere, they're just too good, too sexy, and their architecture is shared across multiple platforms that I think they are here to stay.

but your run of the mill ,plain-jane inline 4 japanese superbikes are all going away
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+1 I don't see the beemer going away soon either because of the platform sharing. Kawi might keep updating theirs to stay in WSBK, same could be said for the other japanese brands as well.

One reason they might stay and get updates is that the 1000 class is much better at platform sharing than 600s as well, detuned, better midrange and use it in a naked, sport tourer and ADV.
 
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