Tag

weight

Browsing

Last week, the debate over the role of rider weight was reignited by a post on Instagram by BMW WorldSBK rider Scott Redding, comparing his own weight to that of Aruba.it Ducati’s Alvaro Bautista, and asking whether there needs to be a minimum combined rider/bike weight in WorldSBK.

To back up his claim, he posted some video clips and sector analysis from the San Juan Villicum circuit in Argentina. “I just think it should be as fair as possible for all of the riders,” Redding wrote.

Though the sentiment is admirable, the thing about motorcycle racing is it is fundamentally unfair.

Somebody else’s bike will always be better than yours. Some other rider will be lighter, stronger, have it easier than you in one way or another. That is of little comfort to those racing in a particular class at a specific event, but it remains true nonetheless.

The way this has traditionally been dealt with is through what is usually called “the package”. The combination of bike, team, and rider is different for each competitor, and rule makers have attempted to create space in each class to allow riders and teams to find multiple ways to be competitive.

It is by pure happenstance that the featured story at the top of the Asphalt & Rubber homepage is about the new Ducati Hypermotard, which also coincides with today’s story that highlights more info about the 2019 model. Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.

With that said, more information about the new Ducati Hypermotard has leaked, though it will depend on who you ask what those specifics are when it comes to this new machine. This is because we have conflicting reports from the British site BikeSocial and Italy’s GPone.

Both sites have proven themselves to be reliable in the past, which makes it difficult to decipher their differing opinions on the new power and weight figures of the Ducati Hypermotard. So, let’s dive into what we know, and what we don’t know.

After leaking twice yesterday, Honda has officially dropped details and photos on its highly anticipated adventure-tourer, the 2016 Honda Africa Twin. A continuation of the legacy by the same name, the new Honda Africa Twin is an off-road focused machine that will go head-to-head with the big ADV bikes already on the market.

Built around a 998cc parallel-twin engine, which makes 94hp and 72 lbs•ft of torque, the Africa Twin tips the scales at the curb at 503 lbs (standard model, first photos after the jump) / 534 lbs (DCT/ABS models, shown above).

Spec-sheet off-road racers are likely not going to be happy with these numbers, though they measure well against the KTM 1190 Adventure R and BMW R1200GS Adventure.

What we think ADV riders will come around to is Honda’s off-road built dual-clutch transmission, which will have the benefit of making shifts while out of the saddle much easier, and giving clutch-free operation, much like a Rekluse clutch.

Last night we brought you a leaked video of the new Honda Africa Twin, which revealed the off-road oriented adventure bike in all its glory. Today, we get to see the leaked specs of the Honda CRF1000L (the model designation of the Africa Twin), along with what looks like an official high-resolution photo.

The spec-sheet for the Africa Twin has long been something of interest for ADV fans, with the obvious questions being 1) how much horsepower will it make? and 2) how much will it weight. The answers are 94hp, and 458 lbs dry (467 lbs with ABS, 489 lbs with DCT).

With the Honda RC213V-S debuting at Catalunya last week, much has already been said about Big Red’s road-going GP bike…especially in terms of how it compares to other halo bike motorcycles that have been 0r currently are on the market.

So, in the interest of exploring solely the most basic attributes from a motorcycle’s technical specification sheet, we have compiled a spreadsheet to see how the Honda RC213V-S stacks up against its most analogous street bikes.

As such, we have compiled the horsepower, dry weight, and cost of the the Ducati Desmosedici RR, Ducati 1199 Superleggera, Kawasaki Ninja H2R, MV Agusta F4 RC, EBR 1190RS, and Yamaha YZF-R1 motorcycles — you can see the easy-to-read chart (after the jump), and make your own comparisons to the RC213V-S.

The news that 340mm carbon brake discs are to be allowed once again in MotoGP has rekindled a debate that has been going on behind the scenes for some time.

The move to allow the discs at all tracks, and not just Motegi where they are already compulsory, has come as both power and weight of the MotoGP machines has grown over the past three years. But the real solution lies in reducing the minimum weight.

There was a certain irony in the moment chosen by the Grand Prix Commission to ban carbon discs larger than 320mm. The move – made for reason of cost savings and rationalization – came just as MotoGP was to return to 1000cc, meaning the bikes were about to reach higher top speeds.

Compounding the problem, the minimum weight was also increased. The initial proposal was to raise the minimum from 150kg, the weight of the old 800cc machines, to 153kg. However, to make life easier for the CRT machines, the weight limit was raised even further, in two steps, to 157kg in 2012 and 160kg in 2013.

In the space of two years, engine capacity had been increased by 25%, leading to a power increase of around 10%, while weight had also been increased by nearly 7%. It was a recipe for brake problems, and that is precisely what occurred.

After an almost interminable period of discussions and debate, agreement has at last been reached over the technical regulations to be applied in MotoGP for the 2014 onwards. The agreement has been a compromise, with both sides of the table being given something to satisfy them.

The new rules see the introduction of a compulsory spec ECU and datalogger, and the ECU now acts as a divide between the two classes of teams in the paddock. MSMA members will be allowed to use their own software for the spec ECU, but the punishment for doing so will be a reduction in the fuel limit from 21 to 20 liters for a race.

Teams electing to use the spec software supplied by Dorna will be allowed 24 liters. The MSMA members will also be limited to 5 engines a season, while the rest will be allowed 12 engines. The reduction in fuel and engines was made at the request of the factories, to give themselves an engineering challenge to conquer.

Moto2 paddock rumors has it that the intermediary prototype class could put in place a minimum weight requirement that would combine both the weight of the motorcycle as well as the weight of the rider. If the rumor pans out to be truth, the move would benefit riders like Britain’s Scott Redding, whose size and weight have served as a hindrance in the tightly contested class.

With the Moto2 class comprised of machines that use nearly identical 600cc Honda engines, which have been said to produce between 130-140 rwhp, the racing results have been heavily influenced by rider skill, as well as subtler differences like chassis manufacturers. However, some in the Moto2 paddock believe some of the series’ results have been affected extraneous factors, most notably by rider dimensions, with taller and bigger riders at a disadvantage.

World Superbike is expected to announce after the Magny-Cours round next week that the Ducati 1199 Panigale will not incur the same 6kg weight ballast penalty as the current Ducati 1098R Superbike. A part of WSBK’s fluidic formula for Superbike racing, World Superbike rules allow for the air intake to be restricted and weight ballast to be added to twin-cylinder motorcycles on an prescribed basis, to compensate for the 200cc displacement capacity advantage the twins have over the four-cylinder machines.

With Carlos Checa handily winning the 2011 Championship, the recipe was set for Ducati to continue to incur a 6kg disadvantage this season, which has sent the Spaniard to fourth in the World Superbike Championship standings this season. Mathematically out of the hunt for the Championship in 2012, Checa is expected to re-sign with Althea Ducati for the 2013 season, where he will campaign the Ducati 1199 Panigale, which will race without the 1098R’s restrictions.

The weight increase in the MotoGP class introduced for 2012 – from 153kg, as originally agreed when the 2012 regulations were drawn up back in August 2010, to 157kg – has had many repercussions. The addition of 4kg to the 1000cc MotoGP machines has been blamed for causing the chatter that Honda’s RC213V suffers from, and for complicating the pursuit of the ideal weight distribution for both Honda and Yamaha, which the two Japanese factories had spent most of 2011 perfecting ahead of the 2012 MotoGP season.

The decision was taken in a Grand Prix Commission meeting held on December 14th of 2011 in Madrid, and though it drew little comment at the time, once the MotoGP paddock reassembled at Sepang for the first test of the year, some intriguing details started to appear. Crash.net’s Peter McLaren has an excellent reconstruction of the decision process, from which it is clear that the path to adoption the proposal faced was far more complex than usual. It also reveals some of the underlying tensions in both the Grand Prix Commission and the MSMA which will go on to play a major role in the rule-making process for 2013 and beyond.

Ducati has released pricing and power specs for the 2012 Ducati Streetfighter 848 here in the US, and the fighter’d version of the Superbike 848 is interestingly priced at $12,995 MSRP, the same price as the Superbike 848 EVO “Dark” or $1,000 less than the colored Superbike 848 EVOs, which retail for $13,995. Making 8hp less than the current Superbike 848 EVO, the Ducati Streetfighter 848’s motor makes 132hp and 69 lbs•ft of torque on Ducati’s dynos, just 23hp shy of the current Streetfighter 1098. Additionally, the Ducati Streetfighter 848 will tip the scales at 373 lbs dry (439 lbs wet), the same weight figure quoted for the current Ducati Streetfighter 1098.

As we stated when the Ducati Streetfighter 848 first broke cover, the positioning on the smaller Streetfighter was going to be critical and difficult for Ducati. The Bologna brand not only has to balance the the Streetfighter 848 against the Superbike 848 EVO, but also against the Monster 1100 EVO as well, which retails for $11,995. With the Streetfighter 848 getting lower-spec suspension and brakes compared to the Superbike 848 EVO (along with a presumably smaller airbox resulting in less power), Ducati seems to be hoping that the standard traction control on the SF848 will help distinguish the Streetfighter from its Superbike compatriot, which has no Ducati Traction Control (DTC) option.