Riders? Who needs them?

[Red Herring]

Unfortunately though not everybody survives the terrifying bit..... One of the more recent fatals I attended was caused by the rider spinning up the rear over a white line when going for an overtake.

Originally Posted by sunshine

a rant about not being needed? wow there going to get rid of Rossi that might make the racing less interesting

Rossi hates electronics. He wants to take it back to the big capacity era with very limited electronics.

http://www.superbikeplanet.com/2010/Aug/100830anpos.htm

tbh watching the last race at indinapolis the riders have alot to do with the riding, walk on the track and tell me you could ride a bike round it like they do, indianapolis is not smooth or even. Pedarosa going round Spies was amazing on how the bike is handled and ridden. the moto2 class and is where the action is at, same engine everything else is upto the teams.

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by TazDaz

Rossi hates electronics. He wants to take it back to the big capacity era with very limited electronics.

http://www.superbikeplanet.com/2010/Aug/100830anpos.htm

Back to 500GP I say!!

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by Red Herring

Unfortunately though not everybody survives the terrifying bit..... One of the more recent fatals I attended was caused by the rider spinning up the rear over a white line when going for an overtake.

I don't want to sound callous, but still, I wouldn't want traction control. You ride a bike for the purity of purpose, the knowledge of complete control of your own destiny... If I wanted electronics to nanny me about it I would buy a car.

[Red Herring]

At the risk of inflating your ego YC you might know a thing or two about riding a bike. Your average R1, Blade, latest biggest toy rider hasn't a clue and they just buy something because it the latest thing to have and then twist the throttle.

[yorkie_chris]

With that attitude, they deserve to get hurt, or at least sh*t themselves silly.

IMO, new poncy ones like BMW with all electronics are going to make the inevitable crash far worse. Better highside at 50 because of not knowing how to open throttle than to hit a wall at 150 from not knowing when to close one!

Originally Posted by orose

For me, theres still a lot that the rider does to get it round a track, so you couldn't do it just yet...

The scary thing is, you *could* do it now. OK so the bike wouldn't have that extra 3% that the rider adds in terns of adjusting his weight and trailing the brake to increase the footprint of the front tyre etc but without a rider the bike would be lighter and hence faster therefore wouldn't need to. The rider is actually the *weak* point of the bike now. 60-100kg of excess baggage! Take the rider away and we already have the technology on the bikes to go faster than with the rider on board. Throw in a GPS linked Gyro cam and we'd be able to see the action too. The bike would know where it was and what to do based on settings already aquired. Make it closed loop and it would learn in the same way riders do. Repeat, adjust, repeat, adjust, repeat. The bikes could teach themselves to go faster! With current technology!

Take away all electronics. Bring back the 50cc, 80cc, 125cc and 250cc 4 stroke bikes and supercharge them.
Or direct injection two strokes like the Lotus Omnivore Engine


No one and I mean NO one needs a 1000cc bike for the road.

Why produce something that is at the end of its development cycle? where does that lead? Whats the point of an engine that produces 190bhp and then has a button to take away 50% because you can't use it all? Its pointless in terms of performance and economy. Its a nonsense.

Time to go back to two wheels, some brakes and an engine. The bloke on top should be the brain, not the box under the seat.

C

[yorkie_chris]

Speaking of forced induction and randomness with small and somewhat inappropriate bikes

http://www.feralinjection.com/gri.html

Have a read of that whole site, it's funny as ****!

[flymo]

Not sure I get the point, technically no it isn't necessary for there to be a rider to make a bike go around a track quickly. But this isn't radio controlled racing is it?

The rider has an enormous influence over what happens. Just jump aboard an M1 and attempt to get anywhere near a MotoGP rider even with all the electronic aids under the sun. I'm sure these bike aids level the playing field to some extent but nowhere near enough to make it easy.

MotoGP, like F1, isn't about just driver or rider skill, it's about developing an entire package within the rules to win. The rules will constantly be adjusted to keep things sensible and engineers will develop equipment to balance that, that's part of the game.