This, race fans, is Danilo Petrucci, one of the brave souls trying his luck on the future of MotoGP hardware, in his case the doggedly underpowered Came IodaRacing Project machine. Not on a (relatively) zippy Aprilia ART, or a Honda-powered FTR, Petrucci qualifies on the same grid as Casey Stoner and Jorge Lorenzo, and brings to this gunfight a knife that packs a whopping 185 bhp, compared to the factory prototype engines that are rumored to be around 260 bhp. As I photograph a race, I see a much different version of the event than TV viewers. I watch the recorded TV broadcast later, and can tell you that there is a lot going on with the Claiming Rule Team bikes that doesn’t make in onto TV.
We are now purely a “suck, squeeze, bang, blow” society, and while that suits many motorists just fine, there are some who enjoy the smell of pre-mix in the morning — you know who you are. You enjoy the sound of angry bees following you from apex to off-camber. You think a displacement for “serious riders” starts at around 250cc. You like your engine compression low, and your powerbands narrow. You sir (or madam), are a two-stroke junky, and we have just the fix you need. Having a bevy of intriguing two-wheeled projects within its walls, the Swiss bike that catches our eye today is the Suter 500 Factory V4: a two-stroke, 500cc, V4, track weapon that puts out over 200 hp and weighs 284 lbs ready to race — no, that is not a typo.
Blurred to protect against spoilers, we’ll just leave things simply by saying that World Superbike’s Race 2 at Donington Park is well worth a watching if you haven’t already seen it. Decided right down to the last few turns, race pundits surely will be discussing the race and its outcome over the next week. Unsurprisingly, geography is playing a major a role in how things are being viewed. Though in a race where a number of questionable passes occurred, it is hard to single out this one event from the plethora of others that occurred during the race, but of course this one had the biggest effect on the race outcome. Click past the jump for the he said, she said, and of course for some slightly sharper photos.
More news from Norton, as the British firm has begun track-testing its V4 road race bike, in preparation of the 2012 Isle of Man TT. Focusing on the bike’s handling, Norton has been working hand-in-hand with Öhlins and Dunlop developing the bike’s chassis. The trio has devised the highly sophisticated “165 mph no hands” test, which supposedly checks the stability of the bike, though we imagine Health & Safety would frown upon it. With the bike’s Aprilia RSV4 motor putting out 195hp at the crank, and with the total race package weighing 419 lbs (195 kg) when it is sopping wet, the Spondon-framed Norton may not be exactly what fans of the famous marques were hoping for after seeing the very appealing Norton NRV 588, though it does seem to be a potent package.
Launching in downtown Los Angeles, the 2012 Brammo Empulse R & 2013 Brammo Empulse broke their cover and officially debuted. Right off the bat from the designations, you can see that Brammo intends for the Empulse R to be a 2012 model, with the base model Emuplse coming out next year (more on that further down). As we expected, the Brammo Empulse R got quite the price bump after its 22-month marination, and will be $18,995 MSRP. Meanwhile when the Brammo Empulse becomes available next year, it will have a slightly more palatable $16,995 price tag.
While the EBR 1190RS race bikes were on the track, their $40,000+ street-legal counterparts were on display outside of the Erik Buell Racing garage. Rocking an American flag livery, I naturally took pictures of this show bike. Eye catching to say the least, nothing says “Made in ‘merica” better than a red, white, and blue color scheme, especially when it is laid over carbon fiber. And while I want to love this bike because of its nuances and outside-of-the-box technical design, I don’t.
If there’s one lesson we can take from Sunday’s race at Estoril, it’s this: “I’ve always said we know Casey’s the guy that’s the fastest guy in the world. Maybe over the seasons he hasn’t put the championships together, but by far he’s the best guy in the world.” Cal Crutchlow is not known for mincing his words, and his description of Casey Stoner pulls no punches. But given the fact that Stoner only managed to win the Portuguese round of MotoGP by a second and a bit, is that not a little exaggerated?
Brammo is back for electric motorcycle racing in the North American TTXGP series, as the Ashland-based company is set to defend it’s #1 plate this year with Steve Atlas on board ( Shelina Moreda is slated to join the team later in the season). Gaining a title sponsorship from Icon, Brammo arrived at Sears Point with some edgy graphics on the 2012 Brammo Empulse RR. Dropping roughly 35 lbs in weight, and gaining roughly 50hp over the bike they ran at last year’s season opener, Brammo is making most of those gains in its revised motor and power inverter for the newest Empulse RR.
As you can imagine, the bulk of the commentary, both from readers and from professional journalists, has centered around the absurdity of the claim, with even jokes being offered about how an aged BMW rider should be thanking the German motorcycle brand for saving him money on Viagra, etc. The situation reminds me of the McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuit. You know the story, right?. A woman buys a cup of coffee at McDonald’s, spills it on herself while in the car, and sues the bastards for her incompetence. True to litigious American form, the unthinkable happened, and a jury awarded this gold-digging woman millions of dollars. It is repudiating, and it stands for everything that is wrong with the legal system, or so we would be lead to believe — especially by the media.
Never say never, but few are expecting Valentino Rossi to hang up his spurs at the end of the 2012 MotoGP Championship. Going out on a career low-point is certainly not the Italian’s style, especially as it casts a particularly dark shadow on a career that has enjoyed the bright-light superlative of “Greatest of All Time” from some of motorcycling’s most knowledgeable sources. Hoping to cast that phrase with an underlined typeface, and not with an interrogatory question mark, there is sufficient evidence to believe that Rossi will want to end his career in a way that will leave no doubt about the nine-time World Champion’s abilities. The question of course is how those final seasons will play out, and who they will be with.
“Motorcross”? Really? You sound like my Dad in 1973.
uhhh, you tell us about an amazing product, yet no link to where to buy or more info? Does anyone know where to get one of these?
Wow, these are fantastic!
Don’t know how cumbersome they are (though, at first glance, they don’t look to be bad at all), but, if they indeed are negligibly restrictive, the possibilities for amazing videos are truly exciting.
What’s really impressive is how secure (rigid) the connection to the helmet seems to be – any flex between the camera and the helmet is virtually undetectable. You would expect a mounted “stalk” that is designed to be light enough to be unobtrusive to have some flex (bobbing motion relative to the helmet), but there is essentially none of that. Very impressive.
Initially, it actually appears that the riders’/skier’s head movements may be somewhat impeded/limited by the existence of the mount/camera, but, upon reflection, that could easily be just due to the simple fact that the camera’s movement rigidly follows the head movement, i.e., independent head movement is undetectable, as any such movement directly results, due to the rigidity of the mount, a corresponding movement in the camera. You can see the body move around below, which obviously indicates that the head/body interface is behaving rather naturally; yet, due to the unusual nature of the POV, this doesn’t appear very natural. Again, it sort of gives the impression – falsely, I think – of unnatural (hindered – sort of like a person walking with a book balanced on top of her head) motion, but that may just be due to the “new” POV, particularly due the rigidity of connection between the helmet and the camera.
Anyhow, again, impressive.
Ugh, if I knew where to buy one, we’d already have a sportbike video made.
Please put me on the list, because I would like to buy one as well.
Thats F&%king awesome put me on the list I want one… thanks for sharing
fishing pole with a gopro on the end. im on this…
My impression is very different from yours when it comes to these “high quality” consumer video cameras. I have friends with GoPros, and I own a Contour 1080p. I was really excited about the Contour when I bought it, and therefore deluded myself for quite a while that it was actually a decent camera. Eventually I just had to accept reality.
I ride offroad, and grew increasingly disappointed in the quality of the footage the camera was producing. The shaking was horrible, even with the camera mounted to my head. Suspecting that the problem was slop in the mount, I even went so far as to buy an excellent machined aluminum helmet mount from Xtreme Vu, but this only barely helped.
After hours of research into the technical side of things, the problem with these POV cameras became plain as day:
1.) Rolling shutter. Look into it. ALL POV camcorders (and nearly every digital camera and camcorder nowadays) have ditched CCD sensors for CMOS sensors with rolling shutters. Rolling shutters create awful distortions in any clip with lots of motion. PERFECT choice for an “action” camera, right?…
2.) Low bitrate encoding. I get that they want the videos to fit on smaller, more affordable cards, but it’s exactly in fast motion scenes where low bitrate encoding falls flat on its face. Muddy video, macroblocking, pixelation, whatever you want to call it, is all you’re going to see. I fail to see the point in recording a video at 1920×1080 resolution when the results are so muddy and lacking in detail every time there’s motion in the scene that it looks no better than SD video anyway. (When the camera is held still, the detail looks decent.)
3.) No B frames. These cameras encode with just I and P frames, which are less efficient than B frames. So, although it allows for a cheaper processor to handle the encoding, it also leaves less room at a given bitrate for image quality.
4.) .MOV container. Ugh.
Technical issues aside, it was also unfortunate that the camera didn’t even last a year before it went dead and wouldn’t turn on anymore…
Maybe this isn’t the forum for this whining about this issue, but perhaps the POV crowd is reading. I’m far more concerned with being able to buy a decent POV camera than being able to buy novel and interesting mounts for current cameras that suck. If GoPro or Contour read this blog:
Global shutter. At LEAST 24Mbps. B frames. .MTS or .MP4 container. Choice of focal length (maybe replaceable lenses?). Canon currently sells a camcorder out of Costco, the M301, that’ll do all of this except global shutter (although I find my VIXIA’s rolling shutter is WAY less intrusive than the Contour’s), has a ton more features than any POV camera–including touch LCD, easy photo mode, and manual controls and adjustments. It’s hardly bigger or heavier than a Contour and costs only $350. The video it produces DESTROYS anything any POV camera can produce. Ruggedize it and I’d buy one.
Then I’d look for cool helmet mounts!…
I almost yacked in the first couple of minutes.
Is It me, or did I see essentially a bar of a couple of feet in length attached to a mount on the helmet… Is that even safe in case of an accident…?
@ GeddyT
Do you ahve any links to an example of the video quality you are referring too? I am looking into both the GoPro and the Contour, and have not really come to a conclusion which is better, or if at all…
[Recommend] RotoR Camera System – We Can’t Wait to See a Sportbike Movie with One of These…: Asphalt & Rubber wa… http://bit.ly/qbgF4M
Westward, got an email address? I don’t want to bitch too much about a company’s cameras on a totally unrelated blog TOO much! I can fill you in in more detail off this board if you’d like.
Short version, though, is that I haven’t fought this battle in a long time, so don’t have any example clips off the top of my head. You’ll do just as well searching as I can. Just search for “GoPro rolling shutter” or “Contour rolling shutter” or substitute “rolling shutter” with “shaky” or “blurry” in Google. You’ll see what you need to see.
My impression that GoPro has slightly better image quality is purely my observation from looking at clips online. And by slightly, I mean SLIGHTLY. They both suffer from the same issues mentioned above. I think the form factor of the Contour blows GoPro’s out of the water. GoPro cameras just look silly when mounted on a helmet, whereas Contour cameras are very sleek and “tactical.” I didn’t like that there is no LCD on the Contour to set the camera up with (I don’t think the lasers were aligned that well), but sounds like they’ve fixed that with the Contour+. In fact, I’d buy the Contour+ in a heartbeat (even at the high asking price) if they upped the bitrate to 24Mbps at High/4.1 level/profile (B frames). This would require completely new internals, though.