Fast Rd Ride.

There's another FB vid where they flip a ZX9 then crash in a similar
way later on.
Nutters. But great to watch.

 

Yah... that's true... but a road going 916 is only just over 100ps, not
150+ and rear wheel steering probably isn't the best way of riding it

Yah... high horsepower is killing really nice looking riding (even if
it's reducing lap times


G-S

 

That is why the 125's are the best remaining racing class


G-S

 

X-No-archive: yes
Tim Moran wrote in message ...

~
Was it a live recording?

 

You want reality live?

Theo

 

Slower in some places... faster in others.

Gary

 

Errm the 916 had to have had more than a 100 ponies, surely, my much
lower tech vtwin is 126 crank/110 rear wheel. The Mille had 125 at the
rear wheel IIRC


JL

 

I know I did! Over four years later, never heard a squeak.

Gary (bar the video)

 

Yeah basically, although it's also about the way you get onto the power
to maximise drive out of the corner <paging Daron>

JL
(although both the Raptor and Bandit were quite capable of spinning it
up it's not optimal cornering style for either of them so it's not
something Ive done much of - the first because it's quickest on more
classic lines and the second because it's porky)

 

X-No-archive: yes

Yeah that's basically it.
It was born when the 4cyl two-strokes were becoming rapidly more-powerful at
the end of the seventies and into the 80s. If they spun-up while leant-over
they'd generally highside the rider into orbit as the tyre stepped-out and
the spring unloaded, but if the bike was more upright when the rear spun it
would be far less savage and just "walk" out, so the method became to
artificially finish cornering early and then gass it up and let the back
tyre finish the corner while you're accellerating onto the straight (and
while your opposition is still heeled-over finishing the corner and unable
to accellerate.)

 

You'd be surprised John. The VTR had nearly the same hp as a plain road 916
did. Then there are so many special models and capacities after that.

Al

 

What did people say when riders started hanging off the bikes? Was that
progress? Isn't the idea to sit on the bike rather than sit next to it?

Nev..

 

Indeed this is true....

G-S

 

In aus.motorcycles on Fri, 09 Dec 2005 15:50:42 +1100

THey said back when they first started doing it long before King Kenny
"that works".

From an old mailing list post:


Motorcyclist Godfrey DiGiorgi spelled out the answer when he wrote on
an Internet newsgroup:

"Me old buddy aka Chris Conn, a GP racer from '58 to '68 who in '65 was
third man home behind Hailwood and Ago in the Senior at the IoM.

One night, we were sitting around at his place watching the Castrol 'History
of Motorcycle Racing' videos. They have film clips from as far back as
the early 'teens.

As the years progress, you see people hangin' off, not hangin' off, hanging
off again, etc. So I asked Chris about this and he rewound the tape so
we could watch things again.

To paraphrase:
"<BEGIN> You see in this segment, the tyres don't grip well enough to
really lean the bike over very far. This means that you can't really
corner all that fast, so the riders stay on the bike, tidy, to keep out
of the wind and not upset the grip.

<FF> Now, we see that the tires have improved, they stick quite well,
and the bike can lean over pretty good. So the rider has to hang off
a bit to get the cg in line with the contact patch or he'll ground stuff.

<FF> This next bit shows that the chassis has gotten better faster than
the tyres ... the bikes are leaned over to the tires' limit, still plenty
of ground clearance, so the rider stays in place.

<FF> Note the big Dustbin fairings ... they compromised ground clearance
so the riders try to hang off but must also try to stay behind the fairings.
Bloody dangerous in the wind, I tell you!

<FF> Here we go, getting into some serious power from Honda, MV, etc
.. The frames can't handle the power anymore, the chassis are wiggling
all over the place, and while tyres are improving, the riders try to
stay still as much as possible so not to upset the chassis, which is
jumping all over the place beneath them. Notice, though, that they're
adding a bit more body movement to the bike: controlling the steering
by moving the bars from their hips rather than their shoulders. Notice
also that the seats are way back on the bike so the rider can get enough
weight on the rear wheel so the tyre doesn't spin so much.

<FF> Ah, here we see your man Roberts and Sheene ... The tires are much
improved, the power is way up, the chassis are, well charitably, awful.
The engines are wide so they run out of ground clearance, the tyres are
sticking well so the poor blighters have to hang off like crazy to keep
the buggers on the track. They've got enough power that having their
knee and body in the air on the corners isn't going to cut their speed
any.

<FF> In this last segment, notice that the fast bikes, the 500s, have
all the power to spare so what the rider does in the corners with his
body is more how he feels comfortable keeping the ground clearance, cg,
and such aligned. His knee is in the wind to help turn the bike going
into the turn. He sits forward because that big sticky back tyre has
all the traction he wants and he can get the front wheel working better,
the chassis is stiff enough to flex only as much as the engineers deem
necessary. The less powerful classes, the 250 and 125, have plenty of
ground clearance, plenty of stick, plenty of traction so the riders tend
to stay more tucked in so they can eke a smidge more speed out where
ever they are... <END>"

 

Rider most likely started doing it without knowing what they were
doing, then discovered what they were doing after the fact, learned the
science of it, and went about perfecting the technique.

Nev..

 

Well this answer is easy; Kenny Roberts.

Kenny (Sr) is pretty-much universally credited with bringing power-sliding
to GPs.
The USA had a series with some races on bitumen and some on dirt (on
speedway-like bikes) and his dirt-track skills suited the road-bike
tyre-technology of the time and he won the championship.
One of the bike he raced was a TZ700 (two TZ350 GP-bike engines
side-by-side) engine in a dirt-track frame (and with no brakes).

Kenny took his revolutionary (outside USA) style to Europe and blitzed them
for 3 seasons until the others caught up (and Yamaha slacked off).

Wayne Gardner apparently had a dirt-track background too and Garry McCoy
was a Speedway racer (as if you couldn't guess by watching him!)

 

Never mind that, who the hell ate the first olive? And why did he eat
another one?

I do understand why people like anchovies.

Theo

 

Jeez. That's disappointing !

JL
(it's still pretty, but it's like finding out Ms Universe intends to
remain a virgin till she dies)

 

Not true, it was the flat trackers (Kenny Roberts et al) who rode the
way they were familiar with and then everyone else realised it worked
well...

JL

 

In aus.motorcycles on 9 Dec 2005 06:35:28 +0100

Here's to Uncle Uglug, the first heroic human.
The first to eat an oyster,
the first to marry a woman.

Cursed be he who utters
as the banquet waxes moister
"Had he only eaten the woman, had he only married the oyster!"
- Ogden Nash


Zebee