A Sport touring motorcycle is a type of motorcycle that blends the performance of a sport bike with the long-distance capabilities of a touring motorcycle, while providing comfort and relative safety to the rider. For the majority of the sport-tourer models on the market, manufacturers use an existing engine and technology from the current or last generation of their sport bikes. The Triumph Sprint motorcycle, for example, shared its engine with the Daytona, Speed Triple, and Tiger models. Similarly, Ducati sourced its 996 motor for its ST4 model. In some cases, whole sportbikes were re-invented as sport touring bikes. The 2000 Kawasaki ZX-6R sportbike became the 2004 ZZR600 with only a change in the front fairing bracket. This is cost effective because the maker can reuse existing tooling and parts, rather than creating a dedicated engine design from scratch.
Engine designs are usually modified from their sport bike origins, the aim being improved mid-range torque rather than peak horsepower. Other differences from the sportbike class may include:
The sport-tourer class has become important and competitive enough that many manufacturers now offer purpose-built engines for their sport touring models. The Honda ST series engines, for example, have never been used in any other models. The Yamaha FJR1300's engine, though closely related to the 1,000 cc R1 sport bike engines in design, is only available in the sport touring FJR models.
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