| Author |
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Court
| | Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2012 - 10:29 pm: | 
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>>>IMHO the teams should be forced to run stock traction control.
Actually EBR does.
The bikes you see Messrs. May and Eslick riding are little changed from the bikes leaving East Troy.
Erik Buell has long been committed to moving USABLE and PRACTICAL technology from the mind's eye to the road's surface in the quickest and most efficient way.
It'd be fun, perhaps for one race a year, to have the AMA go to the local dealer, buy a random bike(s) for the teams, give it to them on Tuesday and have them race it Friday and Saturday.
That, of course, is impractical. My point is that EBR is one manufacturer who could live with that rule. |
Reepicheep
| | Posted on Sunday, March 25, 2012 - 08:58 am: |
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I'd love to see an EBR marketing campaign that shows comparative conversion kits to turn the stock bike into a top 10 AMA superbike.
The Zuk's would have, who knows what. A pile of parts and an army of technicians. Have a table with a description of each and the costs.
The EBR bike would have a torx driver, a box to store the turnsignals, a headgasket (or base gasket, I forget which EBR changes to bump up compression) and a 25 pound block of lead (cause we want to keep it fair for those poor inline fours  ). |
Bob_thompson
| | Posted on Sunday, March 25, 2012 - 10:27 am: |
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Court: "My point is that EBR is one manufacturer who could live with that rule"
And win by it remarkably well. |
Dano_12s
| | Posted on Sunday, March 25, 2012 - 11:20 am: |
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+1 Court+Reep! But I think it is actually a block or two of carbide! |
Xb1125r
| | Posted on Monday, March 26, 2012 - 10:21 am: |
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there should be a cap of 20k in anythign added to the bike after it walks the dealership.
keep it simple |
Hybridmomentspass
| | Posted on Monday, March 26, 2012 - 11:22 pm: |
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"there should be a cap of 20k in anythign added to the bike after it walks the dealership.
keep it simple"
Would only lead to some very expensive bikes on the showroom floor
Nothing would change on the racetrack |
Reepicheep
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - 08:43 am: |
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I think it would make things more transparent, and open up the field for talented privateers.
As a fan, I'd like to know if the Suzuki beating the Kawasaki is $150,000 more expensive. |
Xb9er
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - 09:16 am: |
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i dont think the price of bikes would go up on the showroom floor because the showroom floor is where the bikes would stay. No one can afford to spend more than $17,000 for a motorcycle.....well want to afford one |
Xb1125r
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - 10:15 am: |
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if you think about it, motorcycle in many cases is more of a luxury unlike europe.
more peopel in america own a car and then add a bike.
its amazing how many cars we have in america. i was comparing prices.
and 03 buell averages 3500 on ebay and craiglist, for 3500 there are tons of cars competing for it. a ford focus is under 3500. can you believe that. only in america |
Hybridmomentspass
| | Posted on Thursday, March 29, 2012 - 07:50 am: |
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i dont think the price of bikes would go up on the showroom floor because the showroom floor is where the bikes would stay. No one can afford to spend more than $17,000 for a motorcycle.....well want to afford one"
Let me rephrase my comment, I shouldve said "there would be some expensive motorcycles on the showroom floor"
I am sure there would still be $13k gixxer 1000s for sale, but possibly a special edition one for a crazy amount that is close to race legal etc. Sort of like the XBRR was back in 04/05 (whenever it was).
Hell, there are still some of those out there for sale.
If there was a new rule that said you could only add 20k to the bike after the showroom floor, you can bet that suzuki and yamaha would figure out a way to keep what they have now and remain legal |
Court
| | Posted on Thursday, March 29, 2012 - 09:51 am: |
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There has always been a vibrant and viable market for upscale motorcycles.
They won't sell in large numbers but some models, including the EBR 1190RS/CF were never intended as a mass market offering . . .but rather a means to and end, playing a role in an executory strategy.
http://www.ncrfactory.com/eng/index.shtml
http://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN/News/newsresults /mcn/2007/December/december-10-16/dec1207ducatides mosedicisellsout/
I doubt it's ever been the intent of EBR, or any of the folks making >40K offerings to appeal to median market.
But for a new company, not wanting to spend a minimum of $2M-$5M in marketing and media . . if might be a shrewd move to build a "best you can build" offering . . sell it in limited number and use racing as a venue to showcase it. To do that you'd need a very special kind of rider who could execute a mission statement with as strict adherence as a Naval Aviator flies a mission . . put the bike in the top 10 as frequently as possible and finish every race.
Do that and you WILL (very few have accomplished that) get noticed.
You sell $8,000 motorcycles to attract customers . . you sell $50,000 to attract attention, investors, top riders, media and buzz.
When you are starting a motorcycle company you need to see the "company" as much as the motorcycle.
Companies, and Motus is a good example, were started before EBR. Let's, as a data point, see how many units each of the two sell in 2013.
Court |
Bob_thompson
| | Posted on Thursday, March 29, 2012 - 10:44 am: |
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Great points Court and just possibly, with Hero aboard now, someone in the mix "will" produce an EBR superbike for the masses, soon. Maybe I'm just having daydreams and maybe not.............continued. |
Glitch
| | Posted on Thursday, March 29, 2012 - 12:18 pm: |
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Companies, and Motus is a good example, were started before EBR. Let's, as a data point, see how many units each of the two sell in 2013.
I don't see how comparing an internationally known motorcycle engineer selling race bikes to a yet unknown by most selling boutique sport tourers, a good example. |
Crusty
| | Posted on Thursday, March 29, 2012 - 12:38 pm: |
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Well, you could always look at Excelsior/ Henderson. Or Indian. |
Court
| | Posted on Thursday, March 29, 2012 - 01:55 pm: |
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>>>I don't see how comparing an internationally known motorcycle engineer selling race bikes to a yet unknown by most selling boutique sport tourers, a good example.
It's admittedly not a perfect congruence of conditions.
The point here is that starting a motorcycle company . . . in this environment of hyper regulation . . . takes much more than a motorcycle.
I said, in 1995 and stand by it today, that once a company gets a REALLY good motorcycle designed and 100% ready for production, that they are about 3% on the way to starting a motorcycle company.
It would have been, for example, very easy for EBR to roll out some new product over the last 12 months. But, until the depth of corporate support existed, it;s be like fly casting under a power line.
They wisely sought to leverage some valuable resource, one that they have unique and acclaimed expertise in, such as engineering to expand the revenue base to support what it takes to amortize todays start up costs in a the instant climate.
Not many folks will get it . . .consumers tend to be inflicted with myopic focus on the product and fail to see the corporate iceberg below the surface.
John Britten so struggled. |
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