Chris Blankenship's Ramblings

Well after many, many years I have finally got back into the saddle.  About two weeks ago I purchased a 2003 Honda RC-51 Super Bike motorcycle.  Thanks to low mileage and an obsessive previous owner this little gem looked like it came off the showroom floor. 

The picture you see is of me on my Ducati 748s while riding with a friend who owned a Honda RC51.  Who knew several years later I would end up owning that exact same model/year bike…

If you aren’t familiar with the RC51, also known as the RVT1000R, you can read all about its heritage in Wikipedia…  The short version goes something like this:

The RC51 was designed as the motorcycle to be used by Honda’s racing teams in the Superbike World Championship.   In 2000 Honda released the RC51, powered by a 998 cc liquid-cooled V-twin engine. That year, it won the World Superbike Championship with Colin Edwards riding for the Castrol team.

One of the more unique things about this bike is the fact that it’s a Japanese V-Twin Super Bike.  There is a distinct difference between an inline-four and a v-twin engine.  The main point would be the difference of where the power is delivered.  The v-twin’s traditionally have their power band between 40%-80% of the RPM redline, where as the inline four’s power starts at about 60% and increases until redline.  So accordingly I have become a fan of the v-twin power delivery.

Before my Ducati I owned several inline four Japanese bikes.  But after owning the v-twin Ducati I decided that I prefer the v-twin motors.  So when I found this particular bike with low mileage and a reasonable price I just had to jump on it…  I will be posting articles in the future about various adventures on my bike so if you are interested in following feel free to subscribe to my new category called Motorcycles.