2011 Middleweight Sportbike Shootout - Street [Video]

Ever feel like the odd man out, or the proverbial third wheel? If motorcycles had feelings, we know of three that might answer that question in the affirmative.

Ducati's 848 and Triumph's Daytona 675 have to work harder to get the attention of the modern sportbike buyer than do the 600cc supersports from the Big Four. A dollar to a doughnut says that the non-rider friend of a motorcyclist could, with decent accuracy, tell you what motorcycle company makes the Ninja. Ask that same person about a Daytona and they might reply, "What does spring break in Florida have to do with motorcycles?"

Suzuki's GSX-R750 may not have the same issue of poor name recognition, but it seems as though its glory days are far behind. Once the darling of the sportbike world, the Gixxer 750 is left looking in from the outside to see how the popular kids' party is going. It was all over but the cryin' for the 750 once 180-hp, 1000cc two-wheeled land rockets hit the scene.

So here we have three perfectly viable, high-performance sportbikes seemingly overshadowed by the popularity of 600s and 1000s. This begs the question then: Is this trio of sporting motorcycles, with their odd engine displacements, relevant in today's supersport and superbike world?

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