Sporting motorcycles have changed dramatically in the last decade.  My old ‘96 F3 had a broad padded seat and elevated handlebars that made a day trip reasonably comfortable, even with a passenger.  It wasn’t cruiser comfort to be sure, but I successfully proposed to my wife while riding it, so it must have been acceptable.

The Honda was not unique in this regard, although it was generally the most successful at finding the right balance.  All the Japanese sportbikes of that era were racing platforms that compromised weight, performance, and style to provide some modicum of road usability.

In ‘98, Yamaha radically altered the equation with the R1, an edgy track-inspired design that cut weight and boosted power with brazen disregard to the girlfriends who subsequently got perched on its tiny secondary plank.  Testosterone and sales eventually validated this move, and now every 600 and 1,000 cc sportbike vies to be the sharpest track tool, no matter how peaky and uncomfortable it makes them for Monday commutes.

When the R1 came out, the only ways to test its limits were to risk shredding your body in sanctioned races or to risk shredding your license with public hooliganism.  Both are expensive and potentially hazardous propositions.  In an interesting chicken-and-egg turn, however, there are now a mind-boggling number of trackdays available to let your inner squid run rampant on a closed course.  No pedestrians, no cops, no dogs leaping unexpectedly at your heel.  Just open track, and ambulance support standing by.

There are no fewer than 50 publicly-available trackdays on 5 Texas circuits this year, listed after the jump.  Given the dramatic downturn in sportbike sales, which has led Suzuki to all but abandon importing 2010 models to the US, there may be fewer riders willing to spend the time and money to put themselves at risk. But there are still a decades worth of motorcycles that are better at fun than functionality on the road, and the police aren’t running out of ticket books anytime soon.

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