Car vs Bike

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I am not wealthy, actually very poor ( the bike did that to me ) but the
hooligan part I wont argue with

And yes the R is the naked road bike

 

Ah, well, I did actually go and have a seat on one of them.

In a kind of weird way, I quite liked the looks, but it was far to big
for me, and I couldn't convince myself that I needed (or wanted) a
hundred and seventy something horsepower.

Purely out of curiosity, and assuming closed road/race track, how fast
have you had it going?

regards,
CrazyCam

 

Well going up to Queensland and two of us ( he had a Yamaha something )went
for a spurt ( left the HD's making noise behind ) together and according to
him we had it up to 280

I know at Bathurst going up the Mountain straight I saw 240 when I had a
quick glance and it was still accelerating......


Now both the above would add the word "idiotic" to your hooligan comment
but they dont rate as the most idiotic thing I have done on the bike

 

will_s wrote:

Hang on, I _like_ hooligan bikes, I just find smaller ones easier to
live with.

Far be it for me to cast any stones about idiotic behaviour.

It's just that I know how hard it is to hold onto a naked bike while
being rushed through the air at much over 160 to 180, so I wondered how
hard a big beastie like yours really went.

regards,
CrazyCam

 

Iain Chalmers wrote:

Any motorcycle where the rider's comfort has been sacrificed to either
gain some performance advantage, or be perceived as gaining some
performance advantage.

regards,
CrazyCam

 

Oneupmanship and image building, both closely related to seeing how high up
the urinal you can pee.

Theo

 

Commodore with wing...has it reduced the driver's comfort? No. Thus not
sports car.

Commodore with full trick suspension, so you can run over a hose and
tell if there was water in it or just air. Reduced driver comfort, could
be a sports car.

Something along the lines of the V8 super cars, stinking hot in the
cabin, hard physical work to drive, seriously uncomfortable...
definitely sports car material.

You asked for a definition. I gave you one.

Sorry if it doesn't fit your argument.

A couple of years ago there was a fairly serious race series in Europe,
everyone riding BMW Boxer type "sports" bikes.

In the US there is (or used to be) a race series for pretty stock suzi
or kwaka twin cylinder 500s.

What effect would such odd-ball race series have on Marko's definition?

From memory, Marko's list didn't include Cagiva Mito or Aprilia 125s.
Maybe the Mito isn't available, but the Aprilia is still extant, and
couldn't (with truth) be called anything but a sports bike.


I think I'm more inclined to agree with Theo's thought on the "sport"
bit, rather than a one-eyed, "if it ain't in WSB racing, it's a tourer."

regards,
CrazyCam

 

In aus.motorcycles on Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:03:01 +1100

Don't forget the MZ racing in the UK!

Zebee

 

Sure; if they can make something reliable AND competitive AND sufficiently
identifiable with a "road" bike to actually generate worthwhile sales then
they'll laugh all the way to the bank!
A few very public Edwards/Aprilia-style flaming detonations might be the sad
reality though...

 

....and CT110 racing out past Bathurst.

regards,
CrazyCam

 

Iain Chalmers wrote:

There is another way of looking at the sportsbike definition, using it
as a relative term.

Some time ago, I went on a Ulysses Club ride, down the Old Road, out to
Central Mangrove, then down to Wisemans Ferry.

Anyhow, there I was on the punt at Wisemans, the Z50 surrounded by full
dresser Harleys and Goldwings.

The riders of the big bikes are all moaning about how rough the road was
from Central Mangrove, and I said: "You should try riding it on a
sports bike."

Relative to the mega tourers, the Z50 was, indeed, a sportsbike.

regards,
CrazyCam

 

What do you mean a Goldwing is not a sportsbike?

http://tinyurl.com/383lj3

Nev..
'04 CBR1100XX

 

OK, you got me there... I was too loose on the start-point of the
definition.

It was so much easier back in the old days.....
if the handlebars rose up it was not a sports bike, if they curved
down, or were flat, it probably was a sports bike.

Well, there you go...last time I remember seeing a "celeb" race before
the F1 GP, they were being silly in either BMWs or it might have been
Alfa Romeos, either way, cars with pretensions of sporty-ness.


regards,
CrazyCam

 

In aus.motorcycles on Mon, 12 Nov 2007 13:30:22 +1100

There aren't any rider comfort sacrifices on the Norge[1] so it isn't
a sportbike. Didn't claim it was though

Zebee

[1] it can be named, that's a monster of a references line.

 

In aus.motorcycles on Mon, 12 Nov 2007 18:47:37 +1100

Don't need a cupholder, the espresso cups will fit neatly on the seat
in front of you, and reverse gears are all on the Italian tanks aren't
they?

Zebee

 

Iain Chalmers wrote:

Oh, you got the Monster with suspension?

I remember riding Cath Weisman's Monster and it certainly had sporting
pretensions.

Run over a coin and you'd know if it was heads or tails.

regards,
CrazyCam

 

Aye. :-|

Did I tell you about going for a ride with a couple of mates, neighbours
in fact. One had a BMW R1150S, the other a 900 Monster.

Now, Cath's was the last Monster I had ridden, and I hadn't exactly
enjoyed the experience.

I had also taken one of those BMW's for a test ride from Worthingtons,
and had not enjoyed that either. Really weird, the brand new Boxer just
felt like a heap of shit. I think they had just bolted it together,
without any testing or sorting.

Anyhow, I'm on the Hornet, and Colin, the Monster owner, is one of
those, "lets swap bikes around" folk. Now, I was not too keen, but...
it came as a great surprise that Colin's Monster felt bloody nice it was
comfy, smooth, turned in nice, generally a pleasure to ride.

Then, to compound my confusion, the BMW also felt a million times better
than the demo one. It had had maybe 12 or 14 thousand Kms. on the clock
and was thoroughly sorted out. Engine felt good, gears didn't feel that
they were only loosely contained in the box, and suspension gave clear
indications of what was happening.

regards,
CrazyCam

 

Often test bikes (particularly from BMW) have done the rounds of the
magazines and other test riders before you get hold of them and may be
thrashed. A BMW really needs 25,000 kilometres before they bed in and start
to feel the way they should.

Boxer

 

In aus.motorcycles on Tue, 13 Nov 2007 07:29:16 GMT

Guzzi test bikes tend to be grabbed out of the crate and plated,
pre-delivery, what's that?

Zebee

 

Boxer wrote:

Very true. On one occasion, I had gone to a lot of bother to arrange a
test ride of a BMW at Eastern Creek...one of the K series bikes, IIRC.

Showed up to be told that the bike wasn't available 'cause some journo
had binned it the day before. :-(

That day, they did give me the 650 for a ride, at the time it was the
only one in Oz, and I had a good time on it, but it wasn't really me.

The bike from Worthingtons was, as I said, very new indeed, might have
been 60 or 70 kilometres on the clock.

I also tried one of the 800's at last year's Sydney Bike Show, and it
too was extremely underwhelming. It was also only a couple of hundred
kilometres old. I suspect it would, with some more use, become not too
bad a bike, and I thought at the time that BMW weren't doing themselves
any favours, and should have tried to get the bikes at least slightly
run in prior to handing them out for testing.

regards,
CrazyCam