My view is the fun in riding bikes is in thrashing the pants off them. You can thrash a sub 100bhp bike on the road without going too stupid. I know no one who can thrash a 1000cc sports bike and I know some very fast riders. Maybe they (and I) are all getting older but most of them have stepped back from the edge and bought slower bikes so they can carry on thrashing them. One guy spent thousands building a harris GSXR1280 with a near 200 bhp motor and he hardly rides it – preferring a speed triple as he can actually use its performance.

I used to really thrash my BMW – Full throttle to the redline -no way could I do that on a faster bike. Fastest bike I rode was a GSXR 7/11 steetfighter – geared for 120mph. It wheelied in third at 6000 rpm – nearly scared the pants of me. I could only ride it on the torque – never got to the top end of the power at all.

So buy an R1 if you want – but unless you ride on the track don’t expect to be able to thrash it on the road and IMO that makes for a less satisfying ride.