Stoner

I think Ducati are very smart contracting Casey, sure he has had a dismal
year of DNF's, almost always pushing the front too hard and crashing out,
but the guy has serious pace and a real can do attitude and never gives up.
He may have been better backing off and just going for the finish but thats
not his style, he's win or bin, maybe not a sensible attitude but possibly
one that may one day win him the title. He stands out, makes an impression
and with the right team developing the right bike I really think he will
shine. The new breed of bikes next season the 800's I think will fit
perfectly into his hand and I'll be very surprised if he isn't a star
contender next year and for years to come.

Paul

 

I think Ducati should swap Baylis for Stoner. Let Casey win the WSBK before
he's given a top MotoGP ride.

 

Bayliss had his chance with Ducati in MGP and was unable to get the results
he would have wanted, he's at the end of his career now, still a champion
but probably only a year or 2 left before he retires. Stoner is on his way
up, ready to learn and develop and hone his skills, the fact he hasn't won a
world championship is irrelevant, most of the Moto GP riders haven't won any
world championships. As we have seen most Superbike riders don't take their
superbike pace to MGP and I think that will be more the case from now on
with the 800's, these bikes may well suit riders with 250 experience i.e
Stoner, Pedrosa etc so Ducatis choice is probably a long term decision.

Paul

 

I'd be more impressed by a win or bin attitude if there were some wins
to balance the bins. I think Ducati should have left Stoner out to
germinate a bit more before taking him on. I guess that they were
worried that someone else might snap him up.

I predict that Capi will have the upper hand next year. He doesn't seem
to be slowing down just yet.

 

reminds me of a young norifume "norick" abe when he came into 500cc.

w

 

why is that?

seriously...what is it about top-class, be it 500cc or 990cc or 800cc,
that make it soooo difficult a transition from superbikes?

w

 

Some people state you have to ride them differently.
More of a point and shoot type ride compared to carrying big corner speed.

All I know is they look like they're carrying plenty of corner speed to me.

I've been playing with the idea of getting an SM lately. I rode one on
the track for a few sessions in the rain a few weeks back. A Husky
SM510R. Brutus came up for a visit and met us at the track that day.
It's pretty amazing the corner speed you can carry on 250lb bike. You
become a monster when you rarely have to roll off.

That's about the most fun you can have with your leathers on.
--
Andrew
00 Daytona
00 Speed Triple
71 Kawi H1
05 Infant

 

that makes sense. although, i do recall edwards talking a bit about
the differents from WSBK to mogogp. was it on "faster"?

something about the motogp bikes not behaving like "regular" bikes,
giving different, or much more subtle feedback to the rider.

he said something like, on a superbike, when you brake, the front end
dives. when you accellerate, the rear squats.

he suggested that with the suspension and mass-location of motogp
bikes, those behaviours are much less pronounced...with the feedback
coming to the rider being alot more subtle, requiring more of the rider
to sense and respond.

w

 

Actually, when you accelerate the rear end raises up.

 

Homework: Place your front tire perpendicular to a sturdy wall. Give a bit
of throttle to prevent stalling. Ease off clutch. Observe action of rear
end. Report.

 

And is that any different in 250? I don't think 250 has been 15 deep,
and in fact one of the problems with 250 is that they keep losing their
top guys as they move up, the concept of the very fast, cagy veteran
has been gone for more than a decade. So the kids that move to the top,
particularly the top guys from 125, are instantly front-runners, racing
against kids just like themselves. So it's kind of the same story
everywhere in this regard.

Shrink-wrapping your agrument for the moment, and putting it in almost
Pabloesque terms, I think you have internalized the 2nd-ratedness of
British riders, who come from SB Island after all, to the point where
you drag the whole class down with them. This includes the failure of
Bayliss, the ultimate adopted Brit, and the need to drag down his WSB
rival Edwards with him. And then of course there's your anti-American
bent, which does Edwards and Hayden no good at all (the world champion
has just "done all right"?).

In fact the SB guys have found their "natural level" due to the same
reasons they've been finding that for the last decade or more - they
don't get enough time to learn the ropes, they don't get the equipment
to do so, and the focus of the equipment design is on making the stuff
rideable for ex-250 riders. If you look at Vermeulen, as I pointed out
before he toasted de Puniet in very similar circumstances regarding
equipment, and where we really saw him shine was at the tracks where he
had raced before - on pole and 7th in the race in Turkey (where he
raced for Pons last year), on pole, leading and eventually 5th with
equipment problems at Laguna (where he raced once in WSB), on the
podium at home in Australia, even his pace and qualifying position at
Valencia (where he raced in WSB). If you look at his results compared
to Stoner - 11th in points with 98 to 8th with 119, both one podium,
two poles to casey's one, 17 laps led to 21 - and then factor in
Casey's advanatges in terms of bike and tires and the track experience
advantage overall, it's very hard to make the case that Stoner was more
impressive this year. Pedrosa, whio had a rookie year similar to the
best ones of Rossi, Biaggi, Beattie, Schwantz and Rainey, is a tougher
case, but it's hard to overestimate the advantages Dani had this year,
from an even better bike and tires compared to Stoner, the coaching of
Puig, the confidence of three straight championships, etc. It's as if
Chris and Dani were competing in different classes.

Regarding the Brits, I think that was an overly dramatic picture you
paint. Hodgson didn't have his career ruined by a year in GP, he had it
ruined by two decidely mediocre seasons in the AMA on factory Ducatis.
After 2004 he apparently had the choice of returning to the factory
team in WSB, which is where he would have been had he not left for GP.
Byrne took a shot, but then got a top ride upon his return to BSB, and
for whatever reason didn't do quite enough with it this year, who knows
why. Ellison was pretty much a nobody before he went to GP, right?
Today he's a bit less of a nobody, that's all. I think the Brits get
screwed aas much as anyone in the GP world, right up there with the
Americans and Aussies, but to some extent there probably just isn't
anyone out there today who can do the business at that level.

And as for Xaus, he got more notice for a few of his results in 2004
year in MotoGP than he really ever has otherwise, and his 2005 year, as
#1 at Tech 3 on Michelins, has to be blamed on his lack of real talent
or drive more than his "totally uncompetitive bike". Not a great bike,
but hardly a turd.

Circling back to Edwards, which is inevitable in this discussion, who
knows why he hasn't delivered enough to satisfy the SB crowd. It may be
because he made the move too late in his career and is now a family man
setlling down for mid-life, it may be because he just dowsn't quite
have the ability, it may be because he just wasn't in the right
circumstances to quite make it happen, and that may have taken a hit on
him psychologically as well. What we do know is that being #2 next to
Rossi is always a big drop in status, we know he travelled with the
Michelin chatter and mismatch problems for Honda to Yamaha, and we know
his situation at Honda was much less than ideal, quite similar to
Bayliss' a year later.

If you look at Edwards at Assen and Elias at Estoril, they were in
extremely similar situations going into the last few bends of the last
lap, and then Colin gets it slightly wrong after having Hayden beaten
and Toni manages to eek out the closest win in GP history after Rossi
had apparently beaten him. Run those again ten times and it probably
comes out the opposite more often than not, and how much difference
does that make in people's opinions? Lady luck strikes again. Colin in
'04 was sort of similar to Ellison this year, stuck with the chatter
chassis almost all year, and what really hurt Honda that year pretty
much killed him. In terms of tires, I read that Melandri wanted to move
to Bridgestone because he thought he'd move up the pecking order there
compared to Michelin, so that indicates that Colin may have been
suffering by being downstream on that front as well. But in the end
he's finished 5th, 4th and 7th the last three years and has been on the
podium six times in a very competitive era, so it's not like he hasn't
done anything.

So my opinion is that the guys who have come into MotoGP from 250
haven't really done better than the guys who have come in from SBs,
particularly when you factor in their built-in advantages. And given a
few breaks here and there, they may have shown that in some obvious
ways, in the way that Bayliss did at Valencia, or the way that Hayden
became the first guy to knock off Rossi. And in the end it's Rossi who
everyone gets compared to, which is really unfair to everyone with the
exception of Pedrosa.

 

Homework - look up definition of *accelerate*

Bruce

 

Thanks for the patient reply.

Weight transfer I can understand contributing to squat. But the pull on the
top run of the chain trying to pull the wheel _upward_ surprises me. Ok, I
can see it from the effective direction of force related to the area of the
chain wrap, although I don't think the upward force would be minimal at
best. If the force pulling upward was significant, the rear end would be
hopping under acceleration. What happens is that as the front sprocket
pulls the chain, in lieu of spinning freely, the chain would try to draw the
sprockets _closer_, in effect pulling the swingarm downward. This would be a
much greater force than the chain pulling the wheel upward. (I'd be
surprised if this hasn't been hashed out on here before.)

 

Point taken

 

Yeah, I couldn't believe he passed. Just like Hislop.

http://www.vf750fd.com/motorbikes/abk.jpg

 

You have no understanding of the passionate rivalry between Poms and
Ozzies when it comes to sports. Yanks are nowhere on the meter by
comparison. I like TB because he seems like a good bloke but he is
still the fruit of Botany Bay.

 

Looking at things from a larger perspective, the net result of
everything the bike does is that the bike moves forward. That motive
force must be transmitted to the bike through the rear axle. It would
stand to reason that the chain must exert an equal or equivalent force
on the sprocket. The link below illustrates my understanding of it.

http://www.gasproducts.com/chris/pictures/chain.gif

Thinking about it a little since I scanned the picture I think maybe
the force through the rear axle isn't equal to the force through the
sprocket, but the basic idea is correct I believe. The force acting
through the axle must balance the force acting on the sprocket as both
produce opposing torques about the swingarm pivot. Balancing the
torques would appear to be the desired result.