When I sat down with Claudio Domenicali at the Ducati 1199 Panigale R launch, the now-CEO of Ducati Motor Holding was still just the General Manager of the Italian motorcycle company. Four weeks after our interview though, Gabriele del Torchio would leave Ducati for Alitalia; and Domenicali, a 21-year veteran of both the racing and production departments of Ducati, would take his place at the top of Italy’s most prestigious motorcycle brand. After reading our interview from Austin, Texas after the jump, I think you will agree too.
That Yamaha is working on a seamless gearbox is no secret, with Yamaha’s test riders currently racking up the kilometers around tracks in Japan. Recently, however, Spanish magazine SoloMoto published an article suggesting that Yamaha has already been using its new seamless gearbox since the beginning of the season. My own enquiries to check whether Yamaha was using a seamless gearbox or not always received the same answer: no, Yamaha is not using the seamless gearbox. To test this denial, I went out to the side of the track on Friday morning at Jerez to record the bikes as they went by.
After a very public father/son break-up between Paul Teutul Sr. and Paul Teutul Jr., a steroid-ring scandal involving Paul Sr., and finally a bankruptcy proceeding, it appears that Orange County Choppers is the impossible to kill multi-headed hydra of doom that we all knew it was, as the custom chopper shop is once again headed to the small screen and recruiting some talent, on and off the show. Looking for “someone who will work alongside Paul Senior, running the shop and helping build some of the best custom motorcycles in the world,” OCC says it will be back on television with a new show later this month. Please for the love of god, will someone give this man the attention he craves so dearly??! Or, just shoot us in the face.
We love us some concept bikes here at Asphalt & Rubber, and we have featured more than a few pieces of stunning design and imagination on our pages. Though, we can’t remember the last time one of these works of art were brought to us by a legitimate racing team, but that is what we have here with the Team Alstare Superbike Concept. A nod to the former Suzuki team’s return to the World Superbike Championship as the Ducati factory squad with Carlos Checa and Ayrton Badovini, Alstare has enlisted the help of designer Serge Rusak of Rusak Kreaktive Designworks to ink the shape of its futuristic Superbike concept, while Tryptik Studios handled the 3D modeling prowess.
If you didn’t watch Thursday’s pre-event press conference for MotoGP at Jerez, it is worth a viewing right to the end (assuming you have a MotoGP.com account). Building off the news about the NBA’s Jason Collins coming out as gay in a self-written feature in Sport Illustrated, my good colleague David Emmett had the courage to inquire about the culture and acceptance of the MotoGP paddock for homosexual riders. For the sake of accuracy, after the jump is a full transcript of David’s question, as put to riders Cal Crutchlow, Jorge Lorenzo, Marc Marquez, Andrea Dovizioso, Stefan Bradl, and Scott Redding, as well as those riders’ responses to David’s inquiry.
News that Suzuki plans on returning to the MotoGP Championship in 2014 should be old information for dedicated Asphalt & Rubber readers, and the Japanese company’s inline-four race bike was already spotted doing test laps last year by the eager eyes at Cycle World. Well the American print-mag has another set of eyebrow-raising high-quality photos of the 2014 Suzuki GSV-R to mull over from the Motegi race track, along with some technical insights provided by the venerable Kevin Cameron.
A surprise addition to BMW Motorrad’s 2013 model line-up, zie Germans have announced a new middleweight adventure-tourer, the 2013 BMW F800GS Adventure. Like its larger predecessor, the BMW F800GS Adventure is a more travel-ready and off-road capable build of the recently updated BMW F800GS motorcycle. Featuring a larger windscreen, panniers, and a bigger fuel tank capacity (2.1 gallons larger, for a total of 6.3 gallons of fuel), the BMW F800GS Adventure keeps the same 85 hp, liquid-cooled, 798cc, parallel-twin engine found on the F800GS, as well as the same chassis configuration. Pricing in the US will be $13,550 for the base model BWM F800GS Adventure.
Former 500cc World Champion Kevin Schwantz has certainly been in the news a bit these past few months, mostly for his involvement and falling out with the Circuit of the Americas and the Americas GP, but also more recently for his comments regarding Dani Pedrosa — we also sat down with Mr. Schwantz in Austin, and the Texan gave us some sobering insight into the future of American road racing. As if all that wasn’t enough, Schwantz is making a return to two-wheeled racing, and has entered the prestigious Suzuka 8-Hours endurance race with Team Kagayama racing alongside Noriyuki Haga and team owner Yukio Kagayama.
An interesting development on the aftermarket side of things has graced our desks, as Öhlins has released a “suspension control unit” (SCU) that upgrades the electronically adjustable suspension on the Ducati Multistrada 1200 S so that it becomes a semi-active suspension system. Whhhaaaat??! So, if you’re the proud owner of a pre-2013 Ducati Multistrada 1200 S, and you think that your electronically controlled Öhlins suspension is no longer boss, now that Ducati has released its Sachs-powered “Skyhook” semi-active suspension pieces on its new batch of Multistrada sport-tourers, there is a remedy for your motolust.
In case you missed our exhaustive coverage of the Grand Prix of the Americas, those fools at Dorna gave me pit lane access this MotoGP season. So while the whole paddock waits for the Spaniards to come to their senses, I don’t plan on wasting the opportunity to share with our readers our extreme access to motorcycling’s premier racing class. Accordingly, here comes another installment into our ever-continuing “Up-Close” series, featuring the very finest Iwata has to offer: the Yamaha YZR-M1. Thirty 2000px-wide photos are waiting for you after the jump.
I’m in the group that wanted to know more after the Kawi crt article. Thank you Jensen! Knowing is half the battle!
We’ve got a new column in the works that I think you’ll really enjoy John. ;)
Thanks Jensen! for your upcoming column can you answer the following:
1. It seems obvious when explained this way – but why has no one done this till recently – pure engineering challenge or other reasons (cons to this approach) – what is holding mass adoption across models and manufacturers
2. Can you compare the engine characteristics of I4flat & crossplane to Twins (Ducatis), V4s(aprillia)
3. What kind of bikes will best benefit – only sport or tour /street as well?
The first one is easy, this is not the first time a crossplane crank has been used. I saw Michael Czysz tweeting earlier about how the MotoCzysz C1 used a crossplane, and of course GP bikes in the two-stroke era played with crossplane configurations.
This is actually turning into an adult discussion………..and I like it! I too am interested in the answers to these questions as well, why only Yamaha, what are the cons? From a purely esthetic point of view………..the R1 sounds AWESOME!!!!!
I’m sorry, but after watching that video “explanation”, I’m convinced the official line of why cross plane is better… is just so much BS.
At the end of the day we want our bikes’ motors to produce tractable power delivery.
If it’s a continuous series of pulses, then the rear wheel will constantly be hooking up and breaking free with every power pulse.
If the power comes in a shorter series of pulses, the motor has a chance to “overpower” the rear wheel but then has a longer period of time to hook up and regain traction.
Until someone can present me with a non-bs filled video that doesn’t talk about “shifting the paradigm” I’m going to stick with my theory.
This video was necessary Jensen, also for me, thanks.
What the crossplane does (I assume Attack is similar to Yamaha) is allow the cylinder pairs to transfer their kinetic energy to one another (i.e. as one piston/rod assembly is slowing down, its neighbor is speeding up.)
A typical inline four has all reciprocating mass at the same velocity for a given crank angle. Pistons reach max velocity at the same time and reach zero vertical velocity at the same time.
The downside of the crossplane crank is a bit more difficult to manufacture (and maybe a bit heavier), and the engine should require a balance shaft or some other clever way of balancing the engine.
@John O
What that video just explained was that the crossplane crank reduces the magnitude of the “power pulse” and increasing it’s frequency, smoothing the rotational velocity of the crank and creating a much smoother torque delivery. Which increases tractability. Just like they claim.
Your idea of the flatplane crank allowing the tires to hook up better (at a rate 500 pulses/s for the flatplane at 15000 rpm) isn’t practical and can be tested by looking at an engine dyno chart.
sburns2421 explanation was better than the video.
John O.,
You are forgetting, those power pulses are happening hundreds of times a second. The smoother the power delivery, the more “smeared” the power, which enables a slide to be propagated for longer once its initiated. With the herky jerky power delivery of a crossplane crank, a slide is less likely to happen, as its harder to propagate.
I am not sold on crossplanes though. As orgasmic as the R1 sounds, it’s significantly heavier and less powerful than its competition. Still really not of concern to me, as its still a 150WHP bike, but that speaks to the inferiority of the technology in the real world. The hideous face of it ices the cake.
Kawi’s CRT bike is NOT a crossplane though. From its sound I am more inclined to believe it is a big bang in the vein of the 2005 ZX-RR. It sounds like a raspy parallel twin… which also makes sense, given the connection to its long standing line of Twinjas (250R, 300R, 500R, 650R etc). Def not a glamorous MotoGP sound, but if it doesn’t shake itself apart at 15000 RPM it should make for similar power with better delievery. I’m looking forward to it.
Hey John Oh……
You don’t have to be sold on the R1; as you suggest “speaks to the inferiority of the technology in the real world”. My counter point. Why are we then talking about it? If you review Motorcycle USA article found here—> http://www.motorcycle-usa.com/9/13481/Motorcycle-Article/2012-Superbike-Smackdown-IX-Track.aspx your points are not clearly valid. 1st, If you take the high and low weight of the bikes they compare the R1 is 11lbs within the mean not considering the Ducati. Factoring in the Ducati the R1 is within 15lbs of the average weight. I’m sure you’ll agree the MV Augusta is a beautiful bike (to die for some would say)…..well it’s 475lbs……11bls heavier then an R1. Also using this article if you look at superpole numbers the R1 is under 2seconds from the best lap time! Maybe it’s me but are you trying to impose an opinion or fact? I’m sorry man but talk to Josh Hayes and Josh Herrin about what goes around faster around a track in the AMA circuit. You may not like the bike or even the crossplane technology however your opinion doesn’t have merit.
…it fires 1-3-2-4 just like my car. What’s to it?
@Bruce J. +1
It’s key to know that adjacent pairs’ pins are 90 from one another, not each consecutive pin.
The music in the video comes across as improv jazz, i.e. all over the place, which is opposite to a “linear” explanation
This still needs explaining ?
The explanations offered here (smoother torque application, less likely to enter a slide, easier to control a slide) make far more sense than the marketing mumbo jumbo offered by that video.
If it didn’t work… Why is MotoGP (or old-school 500 GP) using variants of this tech?
More succinctly: I’m not claiming the crossplane doesn’t work. I’m just claiming Yamaha’s overly wordy explanation for how it works… doesn’t work ;)
Kevin Ash’s explanation of this subject was very good I thought – http://www.ashonbikes.com/cross-plane_crank
Basically the crossplane configuration smooths out the inertial force of the crankshaft. Interestingly Kevin disputed the common explanation that it’s the firing order of big bang engines that produces better traction (as in each power ‘pulse’ being spaced further apart, giving the tire time to regain traction).
Smoothing out the inertial torque of the crankshaft does smooth out power delivery however, so it could be said that the big bang firing order is more of a side effect to the actual aim of using a crossplane crank.
Forget the Crossplane… some here need to be put in the cross-hairs… :)
It’s a great thing, for sound, if you have ridden one you’ll admit to the smoothness that the bike revs… almost rotary like… it feels wierd at first, but it’s very alluring in how it works. Faster, no, but 150 hp is cool for me.
I think Yamaha said it best recently… out side of racing where you capatlize on strengths and cut the weaknesses; in the manufactured bike you have a little heavier motor and of course due to design, you have a much wider motor.
For the common candidate… US; we would be fine and if you like it, you like it. I do agree with the ugly face syndrom, but the new one is much better IMHO.
Ride one and take it for what it is… there is only one choice and it’s allowed Yamaha to compete pretty well in Moto GP and AMA and WSB and BSB…