The biggest technological moments in motorcycling are discussed here by CW Technical Editor Kevin Cameron and Editor-in-Chief Mark Hoyer. What innovations drove the biggest changes? What models are most important? Listen to the CW podcast to take the ride and find out! There will be some you've probably never heard of and other that you'll know well. Join us!
Looking to buy? Get prequalified
https://octane.co/flex/1?a=171
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6CLI74xvMBFLDOC1tQaCOQ
Read more from Cycle World: https://www.cycleworld.com/
Buy Cycle World Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/cycleworld
Looking to buy? Get prequalified
https://octane.co/flex/1?a=171
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6CLI74xvMBFLDOC1tQaCOQ
Read more from Cycle World: https://www.cycleworld.com/
Buy Cycle World Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/cycleworld
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00:00Hey, welcome back to the Second World Podcast. I'm Mark Hoyer. I'm with Kevin Cameron, our technical editor.
00:00:06This podcast is about the five, six greatest motorcycles and the technology.
00:00:15The hinge of fate, as Kevin was saying, that tipped, changed everything afterward.
00:00:23We have a great list and there might be some drinking involved, folks, because there's a few things that we tend to bring up.
00:00:33We'll just let that happen organically. The podcast is brought to you by Octane Lending, our parent company.
00:00:40We appreciate their support. This podcast would not be happening without them.
00:00:45Click the link in the description and you can shop for a motorcycle and potentially get pre-qualified.
00:00:51Go to your dealer with the ability to purchase. It makes it quick and easy.
00:00:58Please check that out. It helps us. Every click on that link is helpful.
00:01:02If you're in the market to buy, think of Octane for getting that financing taken care of.
00:01:08Let's get on with the podcast.
00:01:10It's the five, six or seven greatest. I told Kevin I'm going to slide one in, but we're going to start at the bottom.
00:01:20Do you want to kick it off, Kevin?
00:01:22Sure. The first motorcycle is the new Werner, just after 1900, because it was not clear at first.
00:01:37You're standing there. You've got a bicycle.
00:01:40And in another hand, you've got one of those little De Dion bouton singles with an atmospheric intake valve.
00:01:50And it can run up to 2,000 or 3,000 rpm. It's a remarkable little thing.
00:01:55It makes about a horsepower or a horsepower and a half.
00:01:58And you're thinking, where do I put this in a bicycle frame?
00:02:04And we know that there have been some off-the-wall things that have actually made it to production.
00:02:11Notable among which is the Solex moped that made the streets of Paris slippery for so many years with its two-stroke exhaust,
00:02:21mounted on top of the front wheel, driving it through a little roller.
00:02:27Those are amazing, the Velos Solex.
00:02:30A little package that you put on the front, and like you said, it drives through a roller.
00:02:34You get quite a gear reduction with your little roller on your great big wheel.
00:02:38Sure. Turn that roller down on the lathe, freeze the rubber, and away you go.
00:02:44Also, we remember the Megola, which had a five-cylinder radial built into the front wheel.
00:02:55I have seen one of those run on the stand. It is a thing of beauty.
00:02:59The guy rode it over, not far, but he rode it over to a bike show at our local air museum at Santa Ana Airport, John Wayne, Orange County Airport.
00:03:09We had a little bike show there, and there was the Megola doing its five-cylinder thing, hucking oil off as it would.
00:03:15Yes.
00:03:16But woven into the spokes. Nuts.
00:03:19Such a bold concept. It did not go anywhere.
00:03:25A great many companies, including Honda, in the very beginning, made clip-on engines that attached to one side of the rear wheel.
00:03:36Yeah. Cucciolo.
00:03:38Yeah, and you could buy the engine. You already had the bicycle. Follow the easy steps in the directions, and away you go.
00:03:48There were also motorcycles built with the engine cantilevered out behind the rear wheel.
00:03:56Now, the only reason I can think of for this is to free up the pedals, because all these low-powered early bikes called for what they called LPA, light pedal assistance.
00:04:11And the coming of clutches and three-speed gearboxes came from the violent efforts of athletic young men huffing and puffing at the LPA until they could taste blood.
00:04:26But what the two Werner brothers came up with was to put the engine directly above where the bicycle's bottom bracket, the pivot for the crank wheel.
00:04:46And some people had it against the front down tube. Some people, Indian had theirs sort of climbing the seat post. But in that opening in the frame is where the engine ended up.
00:05:04And so we've talked about how the bicycle and the little internal combustion engines made under auto, O-T-T-O, license by the two Frenchmen, the Count and his machinicien, Georges Bouton.
00:05:27They had built 20,000 of them by 1900, and they went all over the world. And they were the seeds from which so many motorcycles eventually grew.
00:05:40Because if you were someplace working in a machine shop, if you were part of the railroad, if you were involved with bicycle racing, this message was going to reach you.
00:05:53And so that was the beginning of a lot of manufacturing of light motorbikes, which would eventually become proper motorcycles.
00:06:04Well, the De Dion solved a lot of the basic running problems, did it not?
00:06:16If you're a bicycle maker, you're maybe not an engine designer, and you don't really know what this newfangled thing is, internal combustion engines.
00:06:23And to have someone deliver you a compact package that was reliable enough, ready to go, that you could pop into whatever you're making, that was very freeing.
00:06:35It's sort of the way electric parts are now. You can buy control units and battery packs to your specification, however many you want to think you put on there.
00:06:51Plug and play.
00:06:52Plug and play. Bring your cables. None of that CCA stuff. Copper-coated aluminum. Don't do it, folks.
00:06:59It's wonderful.
00:07:02I know. It's crazy to think that you can make CCA, that copper-plating aluminum is somehow viable versus just regular old copper cable.
00:07:13Copper's pretty dear these days. The ore percentages have gone way down. We used to take big chunks of it out, and now we're taking out billions of tons of ore to get a little copper dust.
00:07:25So, keep recycling, folks.
00:07:28Well, that's amazing.
00:07:34You were talking about Daimler as well in that conversation.
00:07:38In that period.
00:07:39Yeah.
00:07:40Well, the thing that the motorcycle did was it allowed people who couldn't afford the equivalent of 200,000 US for a motorcar.
00:07:52Motorcars were built to order, and there was no such thing yet as a Model T or a production line.
00:08:02They were all built by hand, piece by piece.
00:08:07So, the motorcycle or motorbike, the little motorbike, was a whiff of motorized transportation that a great many more people could afford.
00:08:19It turned out in England, where Henry Ford did not make his invention of the production line with interchangeable parts, that motorcycle registrations in the 1920s were frequently higher than those for automobiles.
00:08:38So, the motorcycle was a sort of equalizer. It brought internal combustion into the hands of a lot of people.
00:08:48And they very quickly found out, of course, you take a bicycle, and instead of the one-tenth of a horsepower that the average bicyclist is prepared to push, you put in a horsepower and a half or a couple of horsepower.
00:09:05And pretty soon, hitting bumps is going to interfere with the steering, and it may even break a fork right off.
00:09:14So, they had to reinforce the fork. They had to add front suspension quite quickly. Rear suspension, not needed.
00:09:24Because if you were willing to go through all of this stuff, the thumping that you were getting on your behind and the frequency of having to go to the gents wouldn't bother you.
00:09:39It was all a glorious new undertaking.
00:09:44So, these machines were changing rapidly. One of the applications was for pacing indoor bicycle races.
00:09:57And they built these machines with engines up to four and a half liters.
00:10:03I think Boucher in France built a tremendous parallel twin.
00:10:08And it would pack its way around the bicycle track with presumably somebody on the back to punch him up or whatever they had to do in those days before NASCAR, and set the pace for bicycle races.
00:10:26Chug, chug, chug, chug. Four and a half liters.
00:10:30So, first thing is the little motors from De Dion put the technology in everybody's hand.
00:10:42Everybody had bicycles, hundreds of thousands of bicycles built since 1895.
00:10:48It had been a huge craze.
00:10:51So, the world was fertile ground upon which these seeds of motorcycle growth could fall.
00:11:00We know that, for example, Glenn Curtis sent away like box tops plus 25 cents and bought a set of castings.
00:11:10And then he and Charlie Kirkham went over to Charlie's dad's machine shop, and they machined the castings and built their own little engine, which nearly propelled him into the lake.
00:11:29And his response to this was to order the next larger set of castings.
00:11:37And before long, of course, you know that Glenn Curtis got into the airplane business and was making air-cooled, well, sort of, V8 aircraft engines, and built lots of stuff for the British during World War I.
00:11:54And he just wore himself out.
00:11:56That's what he said toward the end of his life.
00:11:59He said, we burnt the candle, both ends and the middle, and there's not a lot of me left.
00:12:05But it was fun.
00:12:06I'm sure it was a very entertaining madness.
00:12:13So, you're giving the new Werner credit for Eugene and Michael.
00:12:18Michel?
00:12:19Michel, yeah.
00:12:20Michel Werner to position the engine where we have it today, basically.
00:12:25Other people made the experiments.
00:12:27Lauren and Clement in East Europe did a similar series and came up with the same conclusion.
00:12:34And it certainly makes sense.
00:12:36You can't have the thing up high.
00:12:39If the engine has any mass, it's going to be top-heavy.
00:12:42You can't have it hanging out the back because if you aren't much of a scorer on the scales, you've built a teeter-totter.
00:12:53And it just made good sense that the engine should be in the center, where it remains today.
00:13:01What I love about this is that this is 1900, and we've got a little whiffing single going ta-ta-ta
00:13:10with an atmospheric intake valve, which is that the suction of the intake stroke pulls open a very weak springed intake valve.
00:13:22There's no cam.
00:13:23It's just waiting for signal to pull it open.
00:13:27It, I'm told, used to make strange chittering noises.
00:13:30They bounced on their seat and sounded like some small creature was at work.
00:13:38But it was by 1903, I think, it was a Dutch company that added a second pushrod and apparatus to mechanize the intake valve.
00:13:56And so the so-called IOE, or Intake Over Exhaust Combustion Chamber, was born.
00:14:04The cylinder and the valve box and the head were all cast in one piece.
00:14:10And in order to machine the valve area, there was a hole bored and threaded into the valve chamber.
00:14:18And then the tool goes in and cuts the 45-degree valve seat, and you also bore for the valve guide.
00:14:24So then the little cap that screws in to cover the hole has the intake valve in it.
00:14:31And up on the top is this wee little rocker arm.
00:14:35And there were a great many Harleys built that were IOE.
00:14:40And it persisted for many years.
00:14:44It was a workable situation.
00:14:47Well, you could get a Rover until the later 60s that was intake over exhaust, like Land Rovers.
00:14:55Oh, yeah.
00:14:56Rover, I think the P5, so-called P5, was still running inlet over exhaust.
00:15:04And all the motorcycles, of course, you know, Harley was doing JDs and stuff.
00:15:09And then the 45 came out in competition with the Scout.
00:15:15And that was a flathead 750.
00:15:18It was not inlet over exhaust.
00:15:20So it was both.
00:15:21That's a side valve, a proper side valve.
00:15:23A proper side valve parallel next to each other in a great big combustion chamber.
00:15:28But we're wandering off, as often is the case.
00:15:32So where I was going with is that this is 1900 with this little chuffing single.
00:15:38And then the next bike on our list, number two, is the Gilera Rondine, or Rondine as we would say in America.
00:15:46And we had an entire podcast about this recently.
00:15:51It's a transverse inline four of 1923.
00:15:55So just 20 years later, engines transverse four-cylinder across the frame in the place that it is today.
00:16:04This is the blueprint for the inline four-cylinder racing sport bike.
00:16:08Yep.
00:16:09And that that was only 20 years.
00:16:12And that these two, what did you call them?
00:16:15Fresh-baked engineering grads.
00:16:18They must have had some money and access to shop and so forth.
00:16:23They built this thing.
00:16:25And it had some modern features such as a center drive.
00:16:30So there would be nothing overhanging the end of the crankshaft to make the engine wider.
00:16:38The first design was a little hokey, but they built version after version.
00:16:45And they were assisted by some Italian nobleman who saw this vigorous operation going and helped out.
00:16:57And so what really happened here is that the concept of the transverse...
00:17:03Oh, wait a minute. Let me back up a little bit.
00:17:05FN Fabrique Nationale, which is a manufacturer of firearms in Belgium, made a motorcycle with the four cylinders longitudinal.
00:17:16And it was air-cooled.
00:17:18So heat from the first three cylinders was blowing on the fourth cylinder,
00:17:23which, as long as the engine didn't make too much power, it could manage.
00:17:28But that long engine made the wheelbase so great that on the horse manure bespeckled streets of Europe,
00:17:38if it rained and you got the back tire moving sideways, it was very hard to stop.
00:17:45This was at the time referred to as the dreaded side slip.
00:17:51So this was another goal of the two fresh-baked engineers, was to have a proper motorcycle wheelbase.
00:18:02And so the concept went from Jalera to MV in 1950.
00:18:12And then Honda built their RC160, which was a transverse four, in 1959.
00:18:23And in 1969, Honda produced a production transverse four-cylinder motorcycle.
00:18:32So four-cylinder engines for the masses.
00:18:37They sold the daylights out of them.
00:18:40So it was quite a series of intensive developments.
00:18:47And Jalera did a lot of the work, along with Piero Taruffi and the original engineers,
00:18:56plus Giuseppe Jalera, saying constantly, let's see some results.
00:19:04So when they won the European Championship in 1939, beating BMW,
00:19:11with their liquid-cooled supercharged transverse four, it got people's attention.
00:19:24Amazing. So, let's see.
00:19:31You mentioned FN. That was where I was going.
00:19:34You mentioned FN being a weapons manufacturer.
00:19:38And that was kind of a thing.
00:19:41You know, BSA, British Small Arms.
00:19:43Yes.
00:19:44Enfield. They had the accurate machining operations and metallurgy.
00:19:49And why not?
00:19:50And the skilled people operating the machines.
00:19:53So that when a new trend came along, you could just say, we could make those.
00:19:58Yeah.
00:19:59Yeah, pretty cool.
00:20:01Well, it's a beautiful bike, the Rondiné.
00:20:04We have a nice illustration by Jim Hatch,
00:20:08who's done a lot of work for us over the years that we used to illustrate that story.
00:20:12And it's also on the thumbnail of that particular video.
00:20:15So if you haven't seen that video or listened to that podcast, search it out.
00:20:19It's the blueprint by which our modern sport bikes were made.
00:20:25And so we have Yamaha R1s essentially start because of a bike in 1923.
00:20:31Proof of concept.
00:20:33Yep.
00:20:35All right. Next up, we have...
00:20:39The third pick is a little obscure, unlike a new Werner or Rondiné.
00:20:46That's what Kevin said. It's a little obscure.
00:20:48It's the Benelli 250.
00:20:50And this was very interesting.
00:20:52This is pretty good.
00:20:54Set us off here, Kevin, because this is good stuff.
00:20:58On the one hand, we're all familiar with how Britain developed its great singles between the two World Wars.
00:21:07It's a wonderful story.
00:21:09And it brought us the Max Norton, the BSA Gold Star, which did so many things so well in U.S. racing.
00:21:22The Matchless G50 and AJS 7R and the many Velocette racing singles.
00:21:31And interestingly enough, when Velocette decided to quit with their two-stroke, which had been the backbone of their production,
00:21:42and move in the direction of the market, they decided if we're going to make a four-stroke, let's give it an overhead camshaft.
00:21:51Because that is the current state of the art.
00:21:55Now, motorcycles throughout their history have tended, because motorcycles don't cost as much as cars,
00:22:04to be a little late in adopting technologies like a free engine clutch, which allows you to stop and restart without restarting the engine.
00:22:14Kind of handy.
00:22:16On the Magola, with the five-cylinder radial inside the front wheel, there was no clutch, and the instruction manual said,
00:22:23circle at the stop.
00:22:27Wonderful, yes.
00:22:28Yeah, there's no neutral.
00:22:30It'll come down and you'll be able to cross.
00:22:32No neutral.
00:22:33Yep.
00:22:36Overhead cam had been present in automobile racing since before 1910.
00:22:44So all these things were well-established in the automotive area,
00:22:51but motorcycles, depending on their cheapness to appeal to a lot of people,
00:22:59were slow at adopting things like a magneto in place of a battery and a condenser and all those things.
00:23:09I looked at an Orient motorcycle that was made in Waltham, Massachusetts, ages and ages ago,
00:23:16and the condenser, to prevent its contact system from arcing, was two pieces of glass with aluminum foil between them.
00:23:28Amazing.
00:23:29No, two pieces of aluminum foil with glass between.
00:23:33You know, a normal paper capacitor is just that same concept, but rolled up into one of those little drum shapes.
00:23:44Well, I've marched into the future on SU fuel pumps, British automotive fuel pumps, diaphragm-type,
00:23:53with a solenoid, basically a linear motor that goes bang, makes pressure, and then the spring...
00:23:59Pushes the fuel.
00:24:01Yeah, the motor shaft pulls it, and then the spring regulates your fuel pressure, and it goes click, click, click, click.
00:24:08And if you use a lot of gas, it goes click, click, click, click.
00:24:11On the end of that shaft, going on the top of the windings, is dual points.
00:24:17It's four contacts, basically.
00:24:22And they came with capacitors which age out, and I have marched into the future by using a transol,
00:24:29which is a transient voltage suppressor, and if you find the right values, you can use this transol, and it cuts it off.
00:24:37As soon as the voltage goes, it chops it off, and it can't get through.
00:24:41It's beautiful.
00:24:42I ran that by an electrical engineer, and he said, great find, man.
00:24:46Yeah.
00:24:48So we wired that in.
00:24:49Anyways, you said Velocet earlier.
00:24:52I'm not sure if I say Velocet if people have to drink, or if you say it, do they have to drink?
00:24:57I'm not sure.
00:24:58But I'm going to slide my Velocet comment in here, because you were talking about them adopting overhead cam and the four-stroke and all that.
00:25:04Velocet is credited with the positive stop gear shift.
00:25:10Yes.
00:25:11Which is used on everything, because before, it wasn't like that.
00:25:14And so positive stop foot gear shift.
00:25:171927.
00:25:19We owe that to Velocet.
00:25:22There were a lot of riders who made their shift into foot operated, but the lever didn't return to the middle position.
00:25:32It went neutral, one, two, three, or whatever, inverted.
00:25:38And so it was Harold Willis at Velo who came up with this.
00:25:47The lever returns to the center position, and you simply notch the shifting element, a shift drum in modern engines, a shift plate in a lot of British stuff.
00:25:58You notch it one position.
00:26:00It has a series of detents that will hold it in these discrete positions.
00:26:05So yes, that was a great contribution from Velocet.
00:26:11Harold Willis was an aviator, and he enjoyed the language.
00:26:16He was always coming up with wonderful ways to describe natural phenomena.
00:26:22Did he name Whistling Clara?
00:26:24Yes, he sure did.
00:26:27It was an attempt at supercharging, and when it stopped, there was a hiss that could be heard for some seconds as the pressurized intake slowly returned to atmosphere.
00:26:44Well, we should get back on the Benelli 250, I suppose.
00:26:47The big principle here is that on the one hand, the British refined the single cylinder engine by improving its breathing, tuned length intake, its exhaust, tuned length exhaust pipe, later with a megaphone to strengthen the return wave.
00:27:11They also improved combustion.
00:27:14They found that by making the charge in the cylinder whirl around, they could store the intake energy, which the intake rushes in the engine at several hundred feet a second.
00:27:26They could store that energy until the moment of the spark, the ignition spark, whereupon the piston coming to top dead center, all that velocity would be turned into a tumbling mass of turbulence, which spreads the flame by shredding it and carrying it to all parts of the combustion chamber.
00:27:49So, the British were super aces at building these very refined singles that turned around 7,000 RPM.
00:28:00But the formula, the outline of the formula for horsepower is displacement times RPM.
00:28:10RPM tells you how many times you perform the power producing cycle per minute.
00:28:16And then the stroke averaged net combustion pressure, that is, how hard is the piston being pushed?
00:28:27And that's a result of efficient combustion, the high compression ratio, which, of course, the higher you raise the compression ratio, the more you become cheek to jowl with detonation.
00:28:40But the Italians chose, in the form of this Benelli 250, to explore higher RPM.
00:28:49And small bore Italian singles, like the 125s that Mondial built, they developed their engine to run to 13,000 RPM.
00:29:06Now, that doesn't sound like a lot today, but in the 1950s, it was enough that they had to put in a new crankshaft each weekend.
00:29:17So, the technology of running an engine at higher RPM, controlling the valves at a higher cyclic rate, and so forth, these were problems that the Italians tackled.
00:29:33And where the British chose to drive their overhead cams with a tower shaft and bevel gears, or with a chain, as in the case of the 7R or G50 singles,
00:29:46the Italians had a train of glorious spur gears running up one side of the cylinder.
00:29:53And at the top, the two big circles are the drive gears on the individual camshafts.
00:30:00So, those motorcycles look archaic because they're cycle parts, they're ages old.
00:30:07But if you look at that tower of gears, and then you look at the same tower of gears on the 2025 Ducati MotoGP bike, same, same.
00:30:22So, all these things have roots in the past that I find fascinating.
00:30:29You may just want to shut this program off and go riding, in which case, you're quite welcome.
00:30:35But, here we are.
00:30:38So, those little singles, 125s and 250s, were the backbone of Italian high-speed engine technology.
00:30:52And in fact, the Jalera and later the MV four-cylinder 500s were just four of those little 125s stacked up.
00:31:03And when Jalera finally decided to quit at the end of 1957, their engine was producing very close to 70 horsepower at 10,500.
00:31:17So, a little more conservative specification than the little Mondial single,
00:31:24but they wanted to run more than one race before having to rebuild the engine.
00:31:31Mind you, lots of street bikes were inspired by all of this high-end racing activity,
00:31:39because motorcyclists are more conscious of mechanism.
00:31:45They're more involved with their machines than the average automobile driver.
00:31:50Automobile drivers, oh, it started, good, now I can get to work.
00:31:55But, with the motorcycle, the symbiosis between the rider and the machine is a very rewarding one,
00:32:05and people like to know more about it.
00:32:08That's why we're here.
00:32:12Now, Benelli weren't the only ones.
00:32:16Mondial, MV, also explored these high-rpm singles.
00:32:23And NSU in Germany in the early 50s built very high-rpm singles and twins.
00:32:31And when Mr. Honda went on his tool-buying expedition in Europe, I think 1954,
00:32:40he bought a Mondial and he bought an NSU and brought them home for his experimental department to analyze.
00:32:51Now, as we know, Honda motorcycles of today are not NSUs.
00:32:59Some of the early ones with their valance fenders and their short-leaning link forks and pressed steel frames
00:33:06were indeed using NSU features.
00:33:10But as their market research became more sophisticated,
00:33:14they realized that motorcycle buyers, especially in the U.S.,
00:33:19had an image of what a motorcycle should look like, and that wasn't it.
00:33:24So, presto change-o.
00:33:27But the idea of using high-rpm to make power was absolutely central to Honda's demonstration to the world,
00:33:361959 through 1967, that you could turn four-stroke engines about as high as you could name.
00:33:48Their testing went out to 26,000 or 27,000 rpm, and their five-cylinder 125 revved to 22,000.
00:34:00How do you make time for combustion in that?
00:34:05They were very interested in that.
00:34:08There was a group of people who said,
00:34:12well, you're going to have to advance the timing more and more until finally you're lighting it during the previous cycle.
00:34:19But it turns out that as you work towards higher and higher rpm,
00:34:27you were using smaller and smaller pistons, so the flame travel distance was shorter,
00:34:32and the turbulence trapped in the cylinder became more violent as everything speeded up.
00:34:40So, combustion did not have any trouble keeping up with 22,000 rpm.
00:34:49And so that was the basis.
00:34:55High rpm, lots of little cylinders, or even somewhat bigger ones,
00:35:00was the basis for the late great sport bike era,
00:35:09which ran from the late 80s until basically the insurance companies raised their rates
00:35:18so that they became comparable with your payments.
00:35:21And after 2008, people had other uses for their money.
00:35:30Well, 600s did get pretty expensive.
00:35:34Getting in there for $12,000, $13,000.
00:35:38Yeah, it was getting pretty expensive.
00:35:41We do have a great crop of middleweight, sporty motorcycles.
00:35:46Things have gone a different direction, and it's not all bad at all.
00:35:51No, not at all, because at first the manufacturers thought,
00:35:57oh, we've got to have novelty to restart our business.
00:36:01We'll have huge lockable storage. That'll bring them in.
00:36:05How about urban mobility platform? Exciting.
00:36:09And they sold some of these things, maxi scooters, so on.
00:36:14But what people really wanted was motorcycles of the usual categories, just less expensive.
00:36:23So, that's the direction in which it has gone.
00:36:26The classic way to reduce cost is to reduce parts count.
00:36:30So, today's 270-degree parallel twins are strong, excellent, smooth-running engines,
00:36:41providing motorcycling that we could all enjoy.
00:36:48So, that's my spiel on RPM.
00:36:57Our next item on the list is the 1950 Max Norton.
00:37:05And this is the motorcycle that had the so-called featherbed frame,
00:37:10which was designed by the Irish McCandless brothers.
00:37:14And what they did was to gather together the most progressive elements
00:37:22in motorcycle chassis and suspension and put them into one package.
00:37:27Telescopic fork up front, a swing arm with a broad and stiff mounting base,
00:37:36in this case, two frame loops, and hydraulic rear suspension damping,
00:37:43so that the damping was smooth and steady,
00:37:47not subject to stick slip as the old dry friction dampers were.
00:37:52They called them scissors dampers.
00:37:55And because engines had become more powerful,
00:38:00McCandless moved both the engine and the rider forward between two and three inches,
00:38:07so that they obtained greater stability.
00:38:14Stability begins with the front wheel.
00:38:17Stability comes from the footprint.
00:38:20The footprint gets bigger when you load it up with weight.
00:38:24Hence, you move those things forward.
00:38:26There's a great photograph showing Jeff Duke on one of the later racing Gileras.
00:38:34And he's consulting with his pit people.
00:38:38And behind his rear, taped rather crudely to the seat stop,
00:38:46are three thicknesses of rubber padding.
00:38:50They have pushed him forward on the motorcycle.
00:38:54And the very same thing happened when Matt Maladon rode a test at Willow Springs
00:39:04with his new crew chief, Peter Doyle.
00:39:11Doyle watched Doyle, a very experienced man,
00:39:14watched Maladon ride around the circuit.
00:39:17And when he came in, he just went over to the bike
00:39:20and taped three inches of padding to the seat stop to push Maladon forward.
00:39:26So what was good in 1956 or 57 was also good in U.S. Superbike in very recent times.
00:39:37So these are principles that exist in the minds of all experienced crew chiefs.
00:39:46What if we loaded the front a little more?
00:39:48What if we wanted to, what if, what if, what if?
00:39:52And they've got things to try in their minds.
00:39:56So another thing about the 1950 Manx was that since it was so much more capable,
00:40:04so much more quick responding and confidence inspiring,
00:40:13Duke would have won the world championship first time out, 1950,
00:40:18if he had not suffered tread separations at Austin and Spa.
00:40:22Spa is a very high speed circuit.
00:40:26However, he came back the following year on a different make of tires
00:40:30and did take the world championship, after which he in turn was taken by Jalera.
00:40:38So in a way, the 1950 Manx put an end to the cotton carcass tire
00:40:46and introduced a new era of probably nylon tire structure.
00:40:54Nylon is harder to make it stick to rubber, you have to put a primer on it.
00:41:00It's just a slippery rod of this polymer, but it's wicked strong.
00:41:08And with the primer on nylon fibers or rayon in other cases,
00:41:16they were able to make tires of a higher speed capability.
00:41:19So that 1950 Manx also was involved in advancing tire technology.
00:41:29Well, it is the ultimate integrated system.
00:41:32Yeah.
00:41:33Make improvements places and that's where you see your other weaknesses start to show.
00:41:40Yeah, you fix one problem and that allows you to advance to the next one.
00:41:46Yeah, firsthand experience, 1975 Leverta 3CL with a LaFranconie factory exhaust system on it
00:41:54that was the diameter of a pencil coming out of the two mufflers and a little tiny collector.
00:42:01And I bought this expensive system and put it on there and re-jetted the Delorto carburetors
00:42:08and went from about 50 horsepower to 70.
00:42:12And that's when the clutch started slipping.
00:42:18Yeah, the featherbed, riding a featherbed, you hear these kinds of discussions
00:42:25and everyone talks about McCandless and, oh, the bike, it rides, it's like a featherbed, it's so smooth.
00:42:34And then you actually try a featherbed frame, which I did in a Norton Cafe Racer.
00:42:40And I'd had a lot of time on a Norton Commando, which is a good handling motorcycle.
00:42:44Norton Commando is ice elastic, which probably could be a program in itself.
00:42:50But, you know, rubber mounted engine cradle with a swing arm attached to it that can move in a circular plane.
00:42:58And then it's shimmed or veneered.
00:43:00And so it handles good.
00:43:03It's a nice handling motorcycle, but it isn't as incredibly sweet and wonderful as a featherbed.
00:43:11And so I rode all this other vintage stuff before I tested a Norton featherbed, rode a Norton featherbed
00:43:18with a 750 twin in it, a ton of vibration, which is what you isolate on the ice elastics.
00:43:28But I rode that up a winding road and I was so impressed.
00:43:35There's nothing like the firsthand truth of riding a motorcycle that had good shocks on it
00:43:40and it had a road holder Norton fork, which was a pretty good reputation.
00:43:46And it worked amazingly well.
00:43:49And I've said this on other programs, you know, the early swinging arm, like basically 1950 ish,
00:43:55you started to see swing arms getting to street bikes or any rear suspension at all.
00:44:01Could it be, you know, Garden Gate where the shock is kind of in a big C shape and they put the shock in there and then the wheel is attached.
00:44:10Sliding pillar, sliding pillar, sticking pillar.
00:44:15Yeah. So, you know, we were starting to get suspension travel at that time and it wasn't really that well worked out.
00:44:23The featherbed really worked it out.
00:44:24The featherbed did a very good job of taking the swing arm pivot and connecting it firmly to the steering head and giving it a reasonable swing arm.
00:44:33And that was, that was a problem with bikes of that era.
00:44:37Like if you look at a Velocette, which is, you know, a swing arm Velocette is a pretty good handling motorcycle.
00:44:44But it still has a swing arm essentially attached to what you would describe as a seat tube.
00:44:48It's a single vertical pipe and then the arms, you know, there's a cross pipe and it, you know, it's sort of, it's like a kind of crucifix issue.
00:44:56It has two pipes and then your pivot goes through the pipe and then the arms of the swing arm clamp onto it.
00:45:02And it, my rigid Velocette was a beautiful motorcycle to ride because the axle and the steering head, there was no suspension.
00:45:11There was no wobbly seat tube.
00:45:13You had a good, just a good strong connection.
00:45:15You didn't have suspension travel, but the featherbed kind of took that rigidity and gave it supple, supple rear wheel travel.
00:45:23And I rode that, I rode that featherbed in, you know, 2005 or something after a long career of testing many different kinds of motorcycles.
00:45:33And you're like, no, this is great.
00:45:36This is a, this is a great sporting motorcycle, really fun.
00:45:39But if you look, you look at a picture of a featherbed frame bear, and you'll notice that the steering head sort of sticks up.
00:45:47And you're saying to yourself, what braces the top of the steering head against being tucked by hard braking?
00:45:56Well, there's a tube that runs down to the middle of a cross tube.
00:46:01So if there's a pull force, it's going to just, this tube is going to bend in the middle.
00:46:08Well, originally it was attached to the cylinder head of that great big single.
00:46:13But people who vintage race those Norton's say that front wheel misbehavior is possible because of that flexibility in the steering head.
00:46:27Suzuki began to correct that in 1976 with their race bikes by running a pair of tubes from the top of the steering head all the way back to where the down tube went down to the swing arm pivot.
00:46:42So that the steering head was now firmly, if you, if you braked really hard, you weren't going to, the front wheel wasn't going to come back and, and kiss the crankcase.
00:46:56And ultimately that bracing became the two side beams that so many motorcycles today have, and the tubes that went down under the engine atrophied away.
00:47:09So now the engine takes their role as a stress member in the frame.
00:47:16So this brings us to Yamaha TZ750.
00:47:23Everybody drink.
00:47:25This, this is another case where we could have said Kawasaki H2R750, Suzuki TR750, Water Buffalo.
00:47:39Because none of those motorcycles initially was a good handling confidence inspiring ride and they ate up their tires.
00:47:52So that just as in the 1950 McCandless frame, those fellows joined a number of elements together and made a new synthesis.
00:48:03So Yamaha, in the case of the D model, they added monoshock suspension at the rear in place of the original three inch travel, horrible individual shock absorbers.
00:48:19And by allowing longer suspension travel, they could prevent bottoming and they could absorb a lot more energy without disturbing the motorcycle stability.
00:48:35So that in the old days, if you were riding out of the Daytona infield at turn five and hitting the 31 degree banking, you would say, well, let's have all the unpleasantness at once.
00:48:47I'll make the upshift there.
00:48:50But once they went to longer travel and the greater ability to absorb chassis energy into the suspension, they could gas it through there.
00:49:03And this is what we want from our motorcycles.
00:49:06Not a lot of horrible little quirks.
00:49:08Oh, no, don't do that.
00:49:09Only on Thursday, which a lot of early motorcycles were like, you would like an overall reliable and confidence inspiring behavior.
00:49:23And the riders who were frightened, frankly, by TC750A in 1974, which wobbled and shook and did all kinds of terrible things.
00:49:39By 1977, when the D model came out with the advances that I've just described, those riders breathed a great sigh of relief because rather than ride the A model, they went back to their 350 twins, which were stable and confidence inspiring.
00:49:58The 77 D model fixed that.
00:50:03Imagine, I mean, imagine, you know, you pointed this out in our conversation, but imagine designing and delivering your 750 two stroke that makes 100 plus horsepower and like, we're going to dominate the world.
00:50:16And then you're being beaten by your own 350s.
00:50:21Yeah, sorry, guys.
00:50:24But to have it, that's why the motorcycle was so defining or why those motorcycles were so defining is that they forced everything else to change, to compensate for that amount of power that they were able to make.
00:50:36100 horsepower could not be transmitted through K81s of the 1960s.
00:50:42It required a step forward in tire design.
00:50:47And from Dunlop came the Speedway Special, which had what looked like little squiggles for tread grooves and was broad and had a large radius so that it wasn't just a little hard rubber wheel.
00:51:04It was up to the work.
00:51:08And for 1974, well, of course, Agostini won the Daytona 200 on that tire.
00:51:15And for 1974, Goodyear introduced slick tires to motorcycle racing.
00:51:24And the effect of the slick tire on production tires was that they became, they became, they were given larger footprints.
00:51:33They were wider and they were belted, which prevented them from expanding at speed so that they rubbed on little bolt heads holding fenders and so forth on.
00:51:46And they conferred pretty decent handling on those new 100 horsepower bikes.
00:51:55And on the production side, using this new technology, they were able to keep up with the growth of production bike horsepower.
00:52:04Say, H2 with, yeah, with 74 horsepower and then Z1 with something in the, what, mid 80s?
00:52:14And so that sort of reset the relationship of tires to motorcycles, just as had happened with the 1950 Manx.
00:52:30So, so you would say TZ750 was a heavily modified featherbed.
00:52:40Essentially, it was still pipe, you know, it's a pipe frame.
00:52:44Yes.
00:52:45But it was to a great extent saved from the tire forces of these new tires with a lot more grip by the fact that you could run a softer spring rate on a longer travel suspension.
00:53:00So instead of having three inches of travel from your old black girling shocks, which, by the way, were so much better than certain other shocks we won't mention,
00:53:10they were able to save the frame from forces that would make it auto steer, tail wagging, twisting, things like that, that ultimately caused the abandonment of the plain old, old style tubular frame.
00:53:35It's possible to make tubular frames that work really well, but they don't have as many curved tubes in them.
00:53:43Curved tubes bend more easily when you push and pull on the ends than do straight tubes.
00:53:53So I look upon TZ750, which is a motor, they were, they built something like 575 of these bikes.
00:54:02No such number was built of Kawasaki 750 racer or Suzuki's.
00:54:08So that's the reason I chose this motorcycle, because it exposed so many people to how much better a 750 could be if it had long travel suspension.
00:54:20And it was a leader in persuading designers of street bikes to travel the same path toward improved handling.
00:54:37I think of Harley Davidson touring bikes, because they have two to three inches, the slammed ones, the baggers have like two to three inches of travel that they're working with.
00:54:55And everything that you describe is concentrated in that suspension travel.
00:55:02They have to do that for the look they want.
00:55:04The buyer definitely wants this hunkered down, long, low look.
00:55:10And so they're forced to engineer something that works really damn good.
00:55:17Like the three inch of travel that they had on, they introduced on, I think it was a, yeah, it was three inches.
00:55:22That was a 50% improvement in travel because the previous model was two inches and this is now three.
00:55:27The rule is that the energy that the suspension can absorb is proportional to the travel squared.
00:55:43So if you increase the travel by half, that's 1.5 squared, which is two and a quarter times more energy can be absorbed there.
00:55:56And it was a great point because it's a huge improvement and they work really well within those confines.
00:56:06I mean, I think of Harley is sort of a, I always think of Harley like haiku in a weird way.
00:56:12Like it's poetry within the form.
00:56:14You have certain limitations, which is the visual signature and the look, sound and feel.
00:56:20You know, you really want the bike to give you a certain feeling, either when you're looking at it, when you're sitting on it, looking over the headlight or over the fairing.
00:56:28And that's the poetry within the form.
00:56:30And it's, they do a really great job of it.
00:56:32And the three inches of travel is remarkable.
00:56:34But what do you get from five inches?
00:56:36You know, I'm doing this and you're, you did it mathematically.
00:56:39You said, Oh, it's the square of the whatever.
00:56:41I'm here to tell you that when you have five inches or four and a half inches, that you can a have some sag so that you have more extension.
00:56:51So that when you're going over the top of something, the tire stays in contact and you can control your rebound and you can control your compression damping.
00:57:00And you have a proper spring and you have five inches.
00:57:02That wheel is able to stay on the pavement and give you what you want.
00:57:09Which is control.
00:57:11Yeah.
00:57:13So we thank the TZ750 for turning all of our riders pale white.
00:57:19Yes, it was.
00:57:21It was a demon from hell with a sharp stick.
00:57:26And it really gave the engineers a poke.
00:57:28Those engineers have been snoozing.
00:57:30Designing 1960 stuff worked fine.
00:57:3240 horsepower.
00:57:34No problem.
00:57:36Everything's good at 60% pretty much.
00:57:38The rule is all slow bikes handle great.
00:57:40Yeah.
00:57:42You just.
00:57:44That's our job is to.
00:57:47Just as when TZ750 arrived in 1974 in its first relatively crude form, it was not possible to gracefully feed 100 or 125 horsepower at a time.
00:58:02And they had to get busy right then and make it possible.
00:58:04And it involved cooperation from the tire manufacturers and the suspension world.
00:58:07And they were able to do it.
00:58:09Later on.
00:58:12When the second generation of super bikes in the United States, the first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:58:14The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:58:16The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:58:18The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:58:20The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:58:22The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:58:24The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:58:26The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:58:28The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:58:30The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:58:32The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:58:34The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:58:36The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:58:38The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:58:40The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:58:42The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:58:44The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:58:46The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:58:48The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:58:50The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:58:52The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:58:54The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:58:56The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:58:58The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:00The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:02The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:04The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:06The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:08The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:10The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:12The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:14The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:16The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:18The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:20The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:22The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:24The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:26The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:28The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:30The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:32The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:34The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:36The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:38The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:40The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:42The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:44The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:46The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:48The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:50The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:52The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:54The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:56The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
00:59:58The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:00The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:02The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:04The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:06The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:08The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:10The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:12The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:14The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:16The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:18The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:20The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:22The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:24The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:26The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:28The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:30The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:32The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:34The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:36The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:38The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:40The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:42The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:44The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:46The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:48The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:50The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:52The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:54The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:56The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:00:58The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:00The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:02The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:04The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:06The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:08The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:10The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:12The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:14The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:16The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:18The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:20The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:22The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:24The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:26The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:28The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:30The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:32The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:34The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:36The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:38The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:40The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:42The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:44The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:46The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:48The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:50The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:52The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:54The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:56The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:01:58The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:00The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:02The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:04The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:06The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:08The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:10The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:12The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:14The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:16The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:18The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:20The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:22The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:24The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:26The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:28The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:30The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:32The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:34The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:36The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:38The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:40The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:42The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:44The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:46The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:48The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:50The first generation of super bikes in the United States.
01:02:52The point of the story is,
01:02:54you know,
01:02:56we got 191 miles an hour at Cycle News.
01:02:58Cycle World got 194.
01:03:00Cycle World got 194.
01:03:02The radar gun is just in the next room that we used for that.
01:03:04The radar gun is just in the next room that we used for that.
01:03:06And 194 miles an hour,
01:03:08986 and a quarter,
01:03:10at 146 miles an hour.
01:03:12And an incredibly well-balanced chassis.
01:03:14And an incredibly well-balanced chassis.
01:03:16And a motorcycle that was capable of incredible hop-up.
01:03:18I had that bike.
01:03:20I rode it roughly 12,000 miles as my long-term test bike.
01:03:22I rode it roughly 12,000 miles as my long-term test bike.
01:03:24I put some pipes on it.
01:03:26I took it to track days.
01:03:28I didn't crash it.
01:03:30I did run it off at one track day.
01:03:32Then I rode up to Thunder Hill.
01:03:34Then I rode up to Thunder Hill.
01:03:36I left at five, got there.
01:03:38It's like an eight-hour ride or something.
01:03:40Went to bed, did two days at the track
01:03:42with a Jason Pridmore star school.
01:03:44with a Jason Pridmore star school.
01:03:46And then rode it back Sunday night
01:03:48after the track day.
01:03:50And that's what I did with that motorcycle
01:03:52for the year, year and a half that I had it.
01:03:54for the year, year and a half that I had it.
01:03:56And then we're wrapping up the test
01:03:58and we take it to Carlsbad along with the ZX-12R
01:04:00and we take it to Carlsbad along with the ZX-12R
01:04:02which was the sign-up kind of Kawasaki's
01:04:04which was the sign-up kind of Kawasaki's
01:04:06big bore sport bike answer.
01:04:08It was harder, taller.
01:04:10It was more sport bikey
01:04:12and less like a big cruise missile.
01:04:14So we were testing that bike
01:04:16because I was writing the road test on that
01:04:18and I met Don Kanae down at Carlsbad
01:04:20and we were still using that
01:04:22for drag strip testing.
01:04:24And I rode the Hayabusa down
01:04:26and said, hey, can we run this?
01:04:28I'm wrapping it up.
01:04:30And he did a 989 at 148
01:04:32And he did a 989 at 148
01:04:34after 12,000 miles.
01:04:36And it just idled.
01:04:38It did not burn oil.
01:04:40I never added oil to that motorcycle.
01:04:42And we ring the daylights out of it.
01:04:44I mean, we don't abuse
01:04:46the motorcycles, but we use them
01:04:48hard.
01:04:50I don't know what
01:04:52else to say. It was perfect.
01:04:54It did exactly
01:04:56what it was doing.
01:04:58We'll get back to
01:05:00the last bike, I promise.
01:05:02I was leaving the drag strip because I was writing
01:05:04the test on the ZX-12.
01:05:06I'm like, I'll take this bike. I was in the
01:05:08South County area and there's some great roads
01:05:10down in eastern San Diego County
01:05:12and you can go out to Lake Henshaw and all this stuff.
01:05:14I'm like, hey, I'm going to ride
01:05:16the ZX-12 away and
01:05:18start my
01:05:20road test procedure and all that.
01:05:22And I'm tuned
01:05:24up because I run at the drag strip
01:05:26and then I'm leaving the track
01:05:28and a Corvette, a GS,
01:05:30a gold strand Corvette with the little stripes
01:05:32on the fender pulls up and
01:05:34throws me revs. And I'm like, oh, buddy,
01:05:36you picked a terrible day to do this
01:05:38because I was already tuned up
01:05:40to launch the bike and all
01:05:42that. And I was on something
01:05:44that was pretending to
01:05:46the throne of the highest performance
01:05:48motorcycle on the market.
01:05:50And so I smoked them and they gave me a
01:05:52hat tip.
01:05:54Lights went green and
01:05:56I was gone.
01:05:58I would have liked to tell them that story. Anyway,
01:06:00let's move on to the
01:06:02sixth of the five greatest
01:06:04motorcycles.
01:06:06We were debating how many we should
01:06:08pick and we just decided
01:06:10that this was good. And
01:06:12it's the Honda RC211V.
01:06:14That's the bike that they built
01:06:16for the beginning of MotoGP.
01:06:18And
01:06:20Mr. Ikenoya
01:06:22announced at the outset
01:06:24MotoGP will
01:06:26use normal technology,
01:06:28nothing exotic.
01:06:30Superbike level. And it will
01:06:32be
01:06:34very
01:06:36reliable and excellent.
01:06:38And of course
01:06:40they had their
01:06:42990 cc
01:06:44engine
01:06:46and in the early testing
01:06:48the rider, the test rider
01:06:50gave it a rating of
01:06:522 out of 10. He said
01:06:54the motorcycle is
01:06:56unrideable. Well, it was
01:06:58unrideable because now
01:07:00they were trying
01:07:02to put twice as much power
01:07:04through one tire
01:07:06as the TZ750A
01:07:08had done.
01:07:10Actually more than twice.
01:07:12And
01:07:14when you tune engines,
01:07:16their power becomes narrower
01:07:18and their torque curve
01:07:20develops features. There are places where
01:07:22the torque is increasing rapidly.
01:07:24And it's very
01:07:26hard to accelerate off a corner
01:07:28when the torque is accelerating
01:07:30as well as the motorcycle.
01:07:32Because
01:07:34suddenly the horsepower at the rear tire
01:07:36doubles and you're
01:07:38sideways, oh I'm in the gravel.
01:07:40So they had to do
01:07:42a lot of work on the motorcycle
01:07:44to civilize it, to make it
01:07:46human rideable.
01:07:48And the other manufacturers
01:07:50of course were going through the same thing
01:07:52but we do have information
01:07:54about Honda's trajectory
01:07:56through this morass of
01:07:58problems.
01:08:00What they
01:08:02discovered was that they
01:08:04could smooth
01:08:06the power band by creating
01:08:08what's called a virtual power band.
01:08:10If the real power band
01:08:12has a sub-peak and then
01:08:14jumps up to peak
01:08:16torque and then
01:08:18falls off gradually,
01:08:20you don't want that
01:08:22strange characteristic.
01:08:24So what you do is
01:08:26you program in
01:08:28a
01:08:30movement of
01:08:32the throttle that is not commanded
01:08:34by the rider. So the throttle
01:08:36plates are moving constantly
01:08:38to
01:08:40take out that dip
01:08:42because when it starts to dip
01:08:44the throttle's open and fill the dip in.
01:08:46When the peak is too
01:08:48steep
01:08:50the throttles close.
01:08:52And this is programmed into the system
01:08:54so that every time the engine accelerates
01:08:56through those RPM
01:08:58that those throttle movements will be performed.
01:09:02The idea comes from Formula
01:09:04One and it's a
01:09:06wonderful concept because it allows
01:09:08you to go on tuning for
01:09:10greater power within
01:09:12certain limits knowing that
01:09:14you can go back and smooth
01:09:16the torque curve
01:09:18electronically. Now
01:09:20the old gentleman, I'm one now,
01:09:22the old gentleman
01:09:24at that time
01:09:26hated it.
01:09:28Rip the electronics out,
01:09:30we're going to go back to
01:09:32the way things
01:09:34were.
01:09:36And they didn't
01:09:38because there wasn't a way to do it.
01:09:40Now
01:09:42certain
01:09:44riders have said that
01:09:46they rode with no electronics
01:09:48but that means
01:09:50they turned down the anti-wheely
01:09:52and they turned down the
01:09:54torque control somewhat.
01:09:56But nobody rode them
01:09:58naked
01:10:00with the 100%
01:10:02natural power band of the
01:10:04engine unleashed.
01:10:06And today of course
01:10:08power has
01:10:10risen toward 300
01:10:12horsepower instead of the
01:10:14200 or 220 horsepower
01:10:16of those early days,
01:10:182002.
01:10:20So
01:10:22to keep feeding more
01:10:24and more power into that
01:10:26same size tire
01:10:28requires that
01:10:30you eliminate
01:10:32the suddenness,
01:10:34the parts of the torque
01:10:36curve that are going to yank the tire
01:10:38loose and cause it to spin,
01:10:40cause you to slip
01:10:42sideways, cause you possibly
01:10:44to high side.
01:10:46And this is what is behind
01:10:48the electronic controls
01:10:50that now
01:10:52so many motorcycles have
01:10:54in particular the more powerful ones
01:10:56because
01:10:58this is how you can
01:11:00transmit 220
01:11:02horsepower, 250
01:11:04horsepower, 300
01:11:06horsepower through a single tire
01:11:08and not have
01:11:10created something that
01:11:12rates a 2 out of 10.
01:11:14Well you want as a rider,
01:11:16you want that predictable
01:11:18response, you want the
01:11:20torque, you're looking
01:11:22at a target torque for I'm moving my
01:11:24hand this much and I know exactly
01:11:26what I'm going to get and it isn't going to surprise
01:11:28me the way the 500 two stroke would.
01:11:30Spooling up and just
01:11:32doubling its horsepower over 500
01:11:34RPM or something insane that
01:11:36is why they, that's why everybody
01:11:38got high sided because they
01:11:40were trying like crazy
01:11:42to be that torque
01:11:44predictor, you know.
01:11:46I asked
01:11:48Loris Capirossi during the time that he
01:11:50rode Suzuki MotoGP
01:11:52bike about
01:11:54this and he said
01:11:56if you switch off the electronics
01:11:58this motorcycle
01:12:00is unrideable, worse
01:12:02than a 500 two stroke.
01:12:06And that is not because
01:12:08four strokes aren't naturally smoother
01:12:10than two strokes, it's just that all
01:12:12engines, as you
01:12:14tune them towards more power
01:12:16begin to show
01:12:18more
01:12:20roughness, more character
01:12:22little flat spots
01:12:24zones of sudden torque
01:12:26increase and
01:12:28if you can't win
01:12:30championships with
01:12:32power that's turned
01:12:34down to the point that the rider
01:12:36can't control it, then
01:12:38you have to have something other than
01:12:40the rider to control it
01:12:42and that was
01:12:44the role of the
01:12:46RC211V was that
01:12:48it put the question
01:12:50can a
01:12:52human being
01:12:54connected to the throttles by means
01:12:56of a traditional
01:12:58steel throttle cable
01:13:00control 220
01:13:02horsepower
01:13:04and the answer
01:13:06that they discovered was
01:13:08no
01:13:10and that's
01:13:12why this motorcycle is
01:13:14one of the hinge points in
01:13:16the development of motorcycling because it
01:13:18essentially said if we're
01:13:20going to build these very powerful
01:13:22bikes
01:13:24we're going to have
01:13:26to provide
01:13:28systems that will make them
01:13:30rideable by human riders
01:13:32so
01:13:34both of average talent
01:13:36both of average talent
01:13:38and of world
01:13:40level talent
01:13:42I had a
01:13:44wonderful conversation with a Honda
01:13:46engineer who said when
01:13:48we planned the
01:13:50904
01:13:52Fireblade
01:13:54originally we thought so much
01:13:56power in a lightweight motorcycle
01:13:58maybe this will cause
01:14:00trouble for riders
01:14:02who have average skills
01:14:04so
01:14:06they decided to develop
01:14:08a rideability index
01:14:12and a set of questions
01:14:14by which
01:14:16to
01:14:18quantify the rideability
01:14:20or lack of it
01:14:22and when they had
01:14:24a satisfactory scheme
01:14:26they
01:14:28presented it to both
01:14:30street riders and to
01:14:32racers
01:14:34both of them
01:14:36preferred the high rideability
01:14:38engine
01:14:40now what this exposes is
01:14:42that we have
01:14:44become accustomed to the idea
01:14:46that race bikes are really
01:14:48hard to ride, the engines are so
01:14:50powerful they'll just
01:14:52run away with you
01:14:54the fact is
01:14:56they are
01:14:58yes they are
01:15:00and that is not desirable
01:15:02that is working
01:15:04against the rider
01:15:06so when those
01:15:08professional riders rode the high
01:15:10rideability motorcycle they went
01:15:12around the circuit more quickly
01:15:14because they knew
01:15:16what the engine was going to do that it wasn't
01:15:18suddenly going to do a
01:15:20a TZ750A
01:15:22the torque doubled at
01:15:249300 RPM
01:15:26my recent experience
01:15:28on a BMW M
01:15:32two different BMW
01:15:34M1000RR
01:15:36one was just a street bike
01:15:38you know had the top rack
01:15:40livery on it
01:15:42the other was Nate Kern
01:15:44who races in Super Hooligan
01:15:46and has a M1000R
01:15:48like an alpha racing
01:15:50stock 1000 bike
01:15:52so highly developed
01:15:54great electronics and they had
01:15:56loaded Jason
01:15:58Uribe who was second in the championship
01:16:00they had loaded his
01:16:02end of season control
01:16:04scheme
01:16:06bringing in the cylinders
01:16:08one at a time on the side
01:16:10of the tire
01:16:12and I rode that alpha bike
01:16:14the turn in was better than
01:16:16the stocker
01:16:18it was a race bike, it was on better tires as well
01:16:20what was remarkable about
01:16:22it is I was riding this at Barber
01:16:24and you know you go in the
01:16:26last corner, you do
01:16:28kind of a slow right and then you're
01:16:30rolling it over to the left and then you're driving
01:16:32onto the front straight and you're
01:16:34leaned over well and you
01:16:36roll into the throttle and it
01:16:38you can hear the motorcycle
01:16:40adding a cylinder and the motorcycle
01:16:42does not move so you're just
01:16:44you're leaned over and you're
01:16:46rolling it in and you're adding
01:16:48I'm asking for this but the bike
01:16:50I had the
01:16:52control set kind of
01:16:54more moderate than somebody like Jason
01:16:56Uribe or Nate Kern would have
01:16:58but you could hear it and as soon as you started
01:17:00to pick up
01:17:02it was perfectly smoothly
01:17:04adding power and incredible
01:17:06drive and they are still hard
01:17:08to ride in the sense that
01:17:10you have to be, especially with all
01:17:12the forces, you just have to have a base
01:17:14level fitness of being
01:17:16able to hang on, being able to brake
01:17:18not having carpal tunnel
01:17:20hands disappear
01:17:22all that but it is
01:17:24such a remarkable thing
01:17:26to have that now because the bike
01:17:28was rideable and
01:17:30incredible and the electronic
01:17:32schemes as we talked about with
01:17:34Albanese
01:17:36what's his first, Romano?
01:17:38Yeah, Albaceno
01:17:40Albaceno
01:17:42Romano Albaceno
01:17:44yeah, formerly
01:17:46of Aprilia MotoGP
01:17:48and talking about
01:17:50the throttle pickup
01:17:52mapping was
01:17:54to take the slop out of the gear
01:17:56so that if you're decelerating the throttle
01:17:58is closed and you're coming back
01:18:00one of the first things that they would do
01:18:02was take up in the opposite direction
01:18:04get rid of the slack
01:18:06put all the gear train
01:18:08and all the slack
01:18:10take that away
01:18:12with perfect smoothness so that it doesn't
01:18:14upset
01:18:16that very fine
01:18:18traction that the rider is maintaining with that
01:18:20lateral force and a lot of lean angle
01:18:22and often there's only three dogs
01:18:24on each gear
01:18:26so there's quite a backlash angle
01:18:28from the engaging dogs
01:18:30so there's room for the thing
01:18:32to give a fair size clunk
01:18:34you don't want a clunk
01:18:36you want to load the tires
01:18:38consistently. We give credit to the
01:18:40RC211V for kind of
01:18:42beginning that revolution for us
01:18:44controlling the massive amount of power
01:18:46we have available. We went to 800s
01:18:48that didn't last and now
01:18:50what's our next round? I think we're
01:18:52kicking down to the displacement again
01:18:54850
01:18:56but they're keeping the same stroke
01:18:58so the hope there is that
01:19:00unlike the 800 thing
01:19:02that began
01:19:04what 2006
01:19:06end of 2006
01:19:08RPM went right to
01:19:1020,000
01:19:12and everyone's saying
01:19:14oh my god it's an expensive RPM race
01:19:16this is terrible
01:19:18so they've kept the same stroke
01:19:2048.5mm
01:19:22as with the 1000s
01:19:24that have ruled since 2012
01:19:26and this is
01:19:28hoped to be the rev limiter
01:19:30that
01:19:32Honda's Shuhei Nakamoto
01:19:34would never let them have
01:19:36pick one he said
01:19:38rev limiter, Honda
01:19:40your choice
01:19:42in those
01:19:44days Honda had clout
01:19:46yeah
01:19:48alright well that was
01:19:50five of
01:19:52six of the five greatest
01:19:54motorcycles that change technology
01:19:56thank you for listening folks
01:19:58we appreciate the comments
01:20:00and everything it's always cool
01:20:02a lot of good conversations going out there
01:20:04and topics coming in so we'll see
01:20:06in the comments thanks for listening
01:20:08and we'll catch you next time