As impressive as all this is, nothing tops Yamaha’s contribution to the segment. Why? Because Team Blue technically perfected the superbike idea with the YZF-R1 in 1999 (more on that in a bit).

The Yamaha YZF-R1 is one of our favorite liter-class motorcycles, primarily because it was a class leader multiple times. There’s the original R1, which took the lessons of the Honda CBR900RR ...