First Ride: 2022 Honda Fireblade Anniversary

Why was 1992 a special year? Because Honda launched the now legendary CBR900RR Fireblade, of course. A year the sportsbike landscape changed forever.

I remember catching sight of a Blade in numerous magazines – its 16-inch front wheel hoisted joyfully wheel in the air in most pictures – and later at the NEC bike show when I was 16 and just starting my lifelong journey of two wheels. Even then, I could see that this machine redefined what a road-going superbike should be.

While the competition was searching for more power, producing bigger and heavier bikes or purpose race reps for the track, Honda, with Baba-san the creator of Blade at the helm, chose a different path – with lightness and handling the key. The Blade was designed for the road, to work in the corners, and relatively unconcerned with peak power and torque figures. It couldn’t match the grunt of the competition but it rang rings around them in the bends.

That original Blade has rightly gone down in history because it set a new benchmark for road-going superbikes. Over the years Honda was forced to constantly develop the Bade as the competition caught up: increasing its capacity and opting for a more conventional 17-inch front wheel. Over the last 30-years, the Blade has won multiple TT races and a World Superbike Championship, plus domestic championships around the world.

To celebrate 30-years of the Blade, Honda announced a very special anniversary model, which features a ‘Tricolour’ paint scheme designed by Hiroaki Tsukui, who was also accountable for the original 1992 bike’s colours – the same design carried into the Isle of Man TT on the race bikes ridden by John McGuinness and Glenn Irwin, now the fastest ever newcomer at the TT.

The Anniversary Blade