| Author | Message | ||
     Hughlysses |
Finished 2nd despite several issues: Blog post describing his run and lamenting his friend Carl's death earlier in the week: http://747rider.blogspot.com/2015/07/well.html?m=1 | ||
| Ezblast |
Wow! | ||
| Figorvonbuellingham |
Makes a lap around the Isle of Mann look like a walk in the park. | ||
| Hughlysses |
Makes a lap around the Isle of Mann look like a walk in the park. I'm not sure which would be worse, taking a 1000 plus foot plunge to oblivion off the side of a mountain or smacking the side of a 150 year old building at 100+ MPH.  BTW- this was a great effort by these guys, but it sure seems like a stock but race-prepped 1190RX would have been even better. I don't see any way the Ronin girder front fork could work as well as a BPF, the small muffler on the Ronin is bound to make less power than a proper race exhaust, and the blog post by the rider notes that they had overheating issues, I'd guess caused by that single small radiator. They even started with a cold engine to try to skirt the problem; the bike ran crappy when cold and still got too hot part way up the mountain. Maybe next year... | ||
| No_rice |
why did he drop it at the end... after the finish line, when he should have been stopped? you can see him wobble a little bit and put his fott down to straighten it out. seems to get it straight, then whacks the throttle. spins the tire, and drops it... there was no reason for any of that to happen. he had all kinds of room to get stopped and slowed down at the finish line. | ||
| 1313 |
why did he drop it at the end An excerpt - spelling errors and all - from the linked article in the original post: "I lofted the front wheel in every shift and made my way to Carl's Corner. It took everything I had to not completely let off the gas. Two corners left. Everything I had was given. I crossed the line. The last dirt on the mountain is in the summit parking lot. I pitched that thing sideways to celebrate but this beast has no steering. I hit the locks and dumped it over the highside. The camera crew interviewing the HRC honda who finished a mer 14 seconds in front of me for 1st caught it all. I did not know whether to laugh or cry. Feel ashamed or honored." Now you know from the riders perspective, 1313 | ||
| Tootal |
He should have used the triple trees off an 08+ Uly! | ||
| No_rice |
So my thought that he was messing around and dropped it was pretty much correct... lol. That always sucks worse. | ||
| Hughlysses |
I guess he was trying to do a spectacular finish to honor his bud who was killed earlier in the week. You kind of have to appreciate the effort. | ||
| Buelliedan |
The Ronin folks are really great people and we need to applaud them for their efforts at taking an EBR powered bike to the event and doing an awesome job!! To the folks who are poo pooing them and stating they should have used different parts on their bike all I can say is you are more than welcome to field your own team next year with a bike set-up to your specs. Ronin wanted to race a bike set-up to their specs and they did an outstanding job IMO. Sorry for the rant but I just get so pissed off at armchair quarterbacks who are always spouting off on the internet about how a race team could do things better yet they do not race. (Message edited by buelliedan on July 15, 2015) (Message edited by buelliedan on July 15, 2015) | ||
| Hughlysses |
No poo-pooing here. I specifically said great effort by these guys and I'm glad somebody fielded an EBR/Buell related product. 2nd place is pretty damn impressive. It just seems like the changes they have made on the Ronin are mainly for cosmetic reasons and may have detrimentally affected the performance compared to a stock 1190. | ||
| Hootowl |
I agree with that. The rider said its poor handling led to the crash. They piled the radiator and coolant on as sprung weight. That can't help. Looks cool though. | ||
| Snacktoast |
It just seems like the changes they have made on the Ronin are mainly for cosmetic reasons and may have detrimentally affected the performance compared to a stock 1190. Agree, 100%. Doesn't mean I'm knocking or poo-pooing the effort though. I think anyone that races there, Macau, or the Isle of Man is crazy.  | ||
| Buelliedan |
"I agree with that. The rider said its poor handling led to the crash." That is not at all what he said. | ||
| Sifo |
They piled the radiator and coolant on as sprung weight. That can't help. I've never seen a bike or a car where the radiator, and it's coolant isn't sprung weight. Making it unsprung weight would be difficult and be detrimental to the suspension performance. That's not so say that their choice of mounting the radiator isn't without it's issues though. | ||
| Hughlysses |
I have wondered about the radiator mounting on the Ronin as well. Maybe Dan knows: is the radiator mounted to the headstock/frame, in which case it would be sprung weight (preferred), or is it mounted to the forks, in which case it would be unsprung weight? | ||
| Tootal |
mounted to the forks, in which case it would be unsprung weight? Unless it was mounted to the axle it would still be sprung weight. The oil tank on the XB's is unsprung weight but something on top of the forks is sprung weight. Anything moving with the axle, front or rear, is unsprung weight. Anything supported by the suspension is sprung weight. | ||
| 99buellx1 |
On a standard motorcycle suspension setup this would be correct, but the Ronin uses a girder style fork. The radiator def looks to me mounted to the front fork legs which would make it unsprung weight on the front end. | ||
| Sifo |
After taking a real look at the Ronin set up, it does look like the radiator is unsprung weight. I think Hootowl simply got the terminology backward. I never really took much of a look at what Ronin did. I guess I now have to take back what I said about never seeing the cooling system as unsprung weight. Certainly not ideal. It is a nice place to put the radiator as far as cooling goes. As long as the radiator is big enough.  And you can make the coolant lines work as the forks turn. | ||
| Tootal |
On a standard motorcycle suspension setup this would be correct, but the Ronin uses a girder style fork. The radiator def looks to me mounted to the front fork legs which would make it unsprung weight on the front end. Well you have an excellent point however my wonderful work computer is still running XP and they won't even upgrade the Flash Player so I can't even look at the bike right now. When I get home I'll have to take a closer look. Thanks! | ||
| Sifo |
The oil tank on the XB's is unsprung weight but something on top of the forks is sprung weight. Technically true according to the strict definition. In the real world, the oil tank is way at one end of the swing arm, at the pivot on the frame. This has the mass of the oil tank following the movement of sprung weight more closely than following the movement of unsprung weight. It would be far worse if the tank extended back near the axle. The Ronin fork doesn't share that same benefit as you get farther from the axle though, because the entire girder will move exactly like the axle does. | ||
| Sifo |
Tootal, here's a nice side view of the Ronin fork.  | ||
| Hootowl |
Sorry everyone, I misspoke. I blame the gin. I meant unsprung weight. | ||
| Hootowl |
"That is not at all what he said." Sure it is. "I pitched that thing sideways to celebrate but this beast has no steering" | ||
| Reepicheep |
My guess is that he meant steering lock to lock range. And I prefer Bourbon to gin. | ||
| Hootowl |
Had I been drinking Bourbon, I'd also have cussed at all of you when I said. | ||
| Hootowl |
5 parts gin, 1 part sweet vermouth, 4 dashes orange bitters. Shake. Serve up. Best drink ever. | ||
| Hootowl |
And it doesn't make you curse at people on the Internet  | ||
| Hughlysses |
Yea, I'm pretty sure the radiator is mounted directly to the girder fork:  I was drinking an RJ Rockers "Son of a Peach" brew when posting last night, and it didn't make me swear either. | ||
| Reepicheep |
I didn't swear either, but that doesn't mean anything, because I have been out of Bourbon for about a month now and keep forgetting to stop and get more. |
