Up front are 43mm upside-down Showa forks. These offer the full range of damping, rebound and preload adjustments.  At the rear a single Showa Pro-Link shock offers the full range of adjustment.

Similarly, under very hard braking it really takes quite a savage effort to unsettle the rear wheel. I cannot over-emphasise the stability of this bike enough. I simply never imagined that a bike this light and powerful could, at the same time, remain so utterly stuck to the tarmac.

The electronic steering damper seems to work well enough. On public roads, I am sure you would have to go completely berserk to provoke a slap from this machine.

I have never been much of a fan of Pirellis. In my experience they have always worn much too quickly, but the new Diablo Corsas fitted to my test machine performed quite well.

The suspension action is smooth and controlled which certainly helps tyre wear.  I had some serious fun during my time with the bike but the rubber never really tore up and looked as though it would last reasonably well.

Tyres are certainly the biggest operating expense for the modern sportsbike rider.  Most riders spend more on tyres than they do on fuel, even without visiting the racetrack. So the fact that the Fireblade seems quite friendly to tyres could be a welcome hip pocket reward down the track for those that cover a few kilometres.

Through the 70km of tight 20 and 30kph hairpins that is the Great Alpine Way, the rear did slither around a little. However, with the horsepower on tap and some enthusiastic use of the right wrist, I of course am referring to the throttle, any rubber would have struggled to cope.