As I rev the accelerator, the liquid-cooled twin-cylinder four-stroke engine on the Honda CBR250RR roars like a caged tiger, aching to break free and run like the wind. Born and bred in Indonesia with throttle-by-wire technology derived from the RC213V, the fastest motorbike ever made by Honda’s racing division in Japan, it is a fitting chariot on which to negotiate the hair-raising twists and turns of the Mandalika International Street Circuit, on Lombok, Bali’s lesser-visited sister island.
After settling into the wafer-thin seat, I nod to the pit boss, who waves a black-and-white starter flag. I drop the clutch and speed out of the pit stop onto the circuit, surfaced with a polymer-modified bitumen that provides superior resistance to the extreme stresses and temperatures of the tropics.
It’s the beginning of a white-knuckle ride anyone with a motorcycle licence can take, to test their mettle on one of the world’s most technically challenging race tracks.
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