There was this guy in my high school who had a Suzuki Katana. The 1,075-cc four-powered super bike that, at the time, looked like something from the future. I was in awe of the bike for its incredibly broad performance envelope, which was elevated above more plebeian two wheelers the way a P51 rises above a Cessna 172. I also respected its owner for his apparently equally generous checking account. That admiration was short-lived however as he promptly stuffed the bike into the back of a car stopped at a light, sending it to the junk yard, and him to the hospital. After that he was the first person I had ever met with a steel plate in his head. 

The Katana’s performance, back then, was probably not something that an 18-year old male should have been given responsibility to steward, but that’s how things typically go. And they’ve been going this way for the more than a century. Before the Katana, before in fact the Japanese even were building bikes of hypersonic potential, there were the British. The Vincent Black Shadow served the hooligan brigades of that island nation, giving the mantle of the ultimate sport bike to jolly olde.

Continuing our global tour, there are also Italian bikes to consider. Ducati, Moto Guzzi, and the more recent Moto Morini and Bimota all have produced sport bikes worthy of not just riding, but writhing on, their performance and innate beauty proving incomparable. And along with those, there are Bikes from Germany and the U.S. that could contend for the Sport Bike crown. There can be but one, however, and it’s up to you to say which sport bike that one will be. What do you think is the most mythical sport bike in history?

Image: [motoinfo]