| Author | Message | ||
     Fast1075 |
Sandbagging. I did not say they ARE sandbagging, I have no idea what they are doing. 4/12/14 after someone questioned "does anyone actually know for a fact why the EBR bikes are so slow in practice?" Court answered "Yes" Back to sandbagging. I sandbagged a LOT in my racing days. I NEVER let the competition know what I had. If there was a minimum qualification time or speed, I cut it as close as possible to the minimum. And I only used enough to win. It is fairly obvious at this point, there is no sandbagging involved here. | ||
| Classax |
So much melodrama. There are may be 100 people in the world capable of running 105% of the leaders in WSBk let alone better than the Sykes who piloted a flawlessly beautiful double. Right now I'd rather be EBR having already SOLD over 125 bikes and struggling to get more power out my race bikes than, Bimota struggling to MAKE 125 bikes with the strongest motor on the grid and still only running mid pack with an experienced rider. The reality is the 1190RX is down on top end and needs to find a solution to fix that. Based on gearing they could theoretically hit 198.6 mph. Looks like they're up against the power/rpm limitations of the motor or the motor still isn't making the kind of power they would expect. Looking at the drawing and design spec' they are engineered to get the 220hp range. The trap speeds suggest based on the loose math, that they're only making/getting in the low 170's. Something's still wrong since we now have at least 5 street bikes confirmed to be throwing down mid 160's at the rear wheel. Is there work to do? Yes Plenty, but its certainly not time to toss the baby because we have yet figured out how to make the most of the pram. (Message edited by Classax on April 14, 2014) | ||
| Fast1075 |
The Bimota uses a BMW engine. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Amen Classax.  I'm not a rules expert, but I think we covered the Evo rules thing before, if you go that route, you can't make significant improvements through the season. Only a fool would start a new bike with a new motor in it's first year of WSBK under rules that restrict their ability to make changes. Either an idiot, or a genius who knows they work for a large corporation that can't make many changes regardless. EBR is neither stupid, nor inflexible. They should NOT be running evo. | ||
| Rex |
It took BMW many years to finally get to where they are today. | ||
| Mackja |
It is amazing, all this pessimism, if anyone will look back at the times both BMW and Kawasaki where running their first year out, you wont see much difference. Even the Panigale was a bust in WSBK its first couple of years, now it is showing real improvement. The 1190rx will improve with time. All you bench racers chill out a bit, we all want the team to do well, but this is a huge learning curve, give them a year or so to get it all together. (Message edited by mackja on April 14, 2014) | ||
| Jaimec |
Yeah... quitting before they ever won the title.  | ||
| Ljm |
A modest proposal: Since with every new day and piece of news we get the same arguments about lack of success and preparation, I propose that rather than having to write them all out, we just assign particular comments a number to save time and the aggravation of reading the same thing ad nauseum. How about this? 1. They are down on speed. 2. They shouldn't have done WSBK yet, this year, etc. 3. The riders are lousy. 4. They don't know racing. 5. I am (fill in the blank) years old. 6. I have been racing (fill in the blank) years. 7. I have sponsored (fill in the blank) number of racers. 8. It is spin-doctoring (press releases). 9. This is all a publicity stunt. The person who wants to make their point (perhaps repeatedly) need only type numbers for which argument they wish to belabor, er, repeat. That way the rest of us who want to know what happened can find out without having to read an exhaustive dissertation. | ||
| Hughlysses |
^  | ||
| Rocket_in_uk |
Well it's a fairly simple number system to follow, except you missed '10'. 10. Discredit anyone who dares to question the lack of results from EBR. In which case.... 10 Rocket in England | ||
| Gaesati |
To be competitive Ducati needed to develop an ultra short stroke, very high revving v-twin and then they were restricted as a v2 far more than the IL4s. It has still taken them years to be truly competitive. The EBR is relatively old technology in its engine architecture and I presume still has to labour under the same restrictions as the Ducati. I think more valid assessments of where EBR is in its development would be to compare its lap times against customer lap times of Duc. 999's of a few years ago or against lap times of ktmRC8s which don't even attempt to race in wsbk in any form. EBR won't do well this year but a lot of development will occur to get them ready for EVO in the future. My guess is that the production EVO bikes for next year will closely resemble the bike developed in open com petition by the end of this year. | ||
| Desert_uly |
but Rocket in England wants results NOW, not next year. | ||
| Ebmachine |
10  | ||
| Ljm |
Another question from the race itself: On race 1, the article on SBK site says Geoff crashed out. The press release for the team says a technical problem. Anyone watch it and know what happened. He wasn't listed as a crash in the live timing. If it was though, he made the start the next race. (Message edited by ljm on April 15, 2014) | ||
| Vagelis46 |
In race 1 , there was smoke coming out from Geoff's bike .........and he retired .... Was it an engine failure ?? | ||
| Riohondohank |
"To be competitive Ducati needed to develop an ultra short stroke, very high revving v-twin" Something that EBR will be unable to do with their spring operated valves. | ||
| M2typhoon |
It's obvious Rocket has no idea how R&D works or racing for that matter. I've been involved in no less than 7 forms of racing for the last 14 years and when you start form scratch, its always the same story. When you know you have a machine that is well built, it's always the details that produce results. Doing massive changes will keep you at the rear of the field permanently. The expectation of EBR rolling out the barn with a new bike, team, riders that have never seen the tracks, riders who are slated as development riders, a bike with no data and tracks that seem to favor the I-4's bring together a perfect storm for EBR to forge through. This is the motorcycle equivalent to climbing Everest in the worst possible conditions but it has been done and it will happen again. | ||
| Rocket_in_uk |
Oh yeah Rocket knows feck all. 10  Rocket in England | ||
| Classax |
^ I think Rocket and I know Trojan understand. Like the rest of us they're committed EBR fans. In their part of the world, WSBK is as passionately followed as the NFL or MLB. Trojan has endured a lot of pain for campaigning Buells until he finally won. I think he isn't wanting to relive all that. For all the reasons you state its amazing they're(EBR) in the show at all. Anyone who's ridden a Panigale will tell you it may say Ducati on the sides but the motor is different. May as well be an i4 with a twin sound. EBR's still have a traditional Vtwin feel and engine character. That alone is going to be tough technical hurdle to overcome. | ||
| Rocket_in_uk |
To be competitive Ducati needed to develop an ultra short stroke, very high revving v-twin and then they were restricted as a v2 far more than the IL4s. It has still taken them years to be truly competitive. The EBR is relatively old technology in its engine architecture and I presume still has to labour under the same restrictions as the Ducati. I think more valid assessments of where EBR is in its development would be to compare its lap times against customer lap times of Duc. 999's of a few years ago or against lap times of ktmRC8s which don't even attempt to race in wsbk in any form. EBR won't do well this year but a lot of development will occur to get them ready for EVO in the future. My guess is that the production EVO bikes for next year will closely resemble the bike developed in open competition by the end of this year. A most excellent observation and perhaps the closest to the truth yet. I always wonder why Buell can't just be open enough to his fans to keep them in the loop. After all. What's not to tell? Rocket in England | ||
| Trojan |
Right now I'd rather be EBR having already SOLD over 125 bikes and struggling to get more power out my race bikes than, Bimota struggling to MAKE 125 bikes with the strongest motor on the grid and still only running mid pack with an experienced rider. The Bimotas were on there first track outing (having had their only test pretty much washed out) and are EVO engined bikes, not full fat factory spec. The EVO engines are superstock spec and although they are only allowed six engines per year they designed to last the year with that many pretty easily. If a team wants to use more engines they can, but have to start from pit lane. i still think that EBR would have been better off entering as an EVO team this year despite the engine restrictions. Compare the Bimota qualifying and race times to other EVO engined bikes and they actually performed very well. They may have been behind most of the factoyr bikes but they were certainly competitive amongst the other EVO machines in their class. (they were only excluded from the results because they are not homologated yet). Nobody believes that Bimota will have problems building the 125 required bikes this time around as they have wealthy backers (for a change). The comparison between the KTM RC8 and EBR bike is very good given the similarity of their results in AMA racing. However, KTM tend to choose their fights very well and don't enter a competiton where they think they won't be successful. This is why we see the RC8 perform relatively well in AMA and German Superbike racing, where the rules suit it, but doesn't even enter BSB or WSB where they know they are simply not competitive enough. The expectation of EBR rolling out the barn with a new bike, team, riders that have never seen the tracks, riders who are slated as development riders, a bike with no data and tracks that seem to favor the I-4's bring together a perfect storm for EBR to forge through. This is the motorcycle equivalent to climbing Everest in the worst possible conditions but it has been done and it will happen again. I admire your optimism, but it is harder than climbing everest simply because you have another 20+ people climbing it at the same time as getting in the way. The team could have minimised a number of the points you raise simply by hiring riders who know their way around the tracks and by doing more testing. They have made it harder for themselves than they needed to before they even started the season. It isn't the tracks that favour IL-4 bikes but the rules and the development of sophisticated electronics (which allows the 4 cylinder bikes to behave like a twin in corners and reduce tyre wear amongst other things). Ducati seem to have solved their problems form last year (not all machine related) so there is no reason a twin cannot compete under the current rule structure. | ||
| Court |
You'll never be able to walk in and buy a Bimota . . . likely won't make homologation since they have already missed the initial | ||
| Reepicheep |
I have less respect for KTM for only picking fights they think they can win, not more. But I appreciate that this is a matter of personal taste and that there room for other opinions for people that think winning is the only important part of racing. | ||
| Hughlysses |
It seems extremely unlikely that EBR jumped into WSBK without a VERY good idea of what would be required to be competitive. Either they knew with a reasonable level of certainty that the existing platform can be made competitive with further development work, or they knew the existing platform can NOT be made competitive with any amount of development work. Given that, EBR's participation in WSBK this year is either intended to develop the current platform to be competitive, or to gather data for the design of a new or greatly revised platform which WILL be competitive. So far, we've only really gotten 2 data points to use to try to divine EBR's long-term plan. That's not enough information to make a reasonable guess. | ||
| Hughlysses |
This week's Cycle News has coverage of the race at Aragon and a sidebar with a little info on EBR's efforts: http://cyclenews.uberflip.com/t/24308 (Message edited by Hughlysses on April 15, 2014) | ||
| Trojan |
It seems extremely unlikely that EBR jumped into WSBK without a VERY good idea of what would be required to be competitive. Either they knew with a reasonable level of certainty that the existing platform can be made competitive with further development work, or they knew the existing platform can NOT be made competitive with any amount of development work. Or...the decision was made last minute and whoever made the decision underestimated exactly what was required to run at WSB pace rather than AMA race pace. Strange as it may appear, if you look at how late the announcement was made in conjunction with the actual setup of the team (Basically a private Italian team running bikes supplied by EBR) then that is a distinct possibility don't you think? Whichever the case may be, they need to step up a gear for the next round. You'll never be able to walk in and buy a Bimota . . What a silly remark. of course you can buy a Bimota. It is actually easier at the moment to buy a Bimota in Europe than an EBR. You can even go to the factory and pick it up if you want to. There is every chance that they will make the required amount of bikes too. I have less respect for KTM for only picking fights they think they can win, not more. I didn't say win, but be competitive. However pretty much every factory in racing only races in classes they think they can be competitive in surely? Other wise what is the point of any factory spending millions on advertising their bikes riding around at the back? But I appreciate that this is a matter of personal taste and that there room for other opinions for people that think winning is the only important part of racing. Wasn't it an American who said that 'winning isn't everything, it's the only thing' ....and of course.... 'second is the first loser' (or does that only apply when you are winning). Don't kid yourself that any factory will put up with racing at the back of the field just to do development work on a bike/car/boat whatever they are racing. The negative implications are far worse than not racing at all in that scenario and certainly wouldn't please sponsors and cheque book holders. | ||
| Court |
>>>What a silly remark. of course you can buy a Bimota. That's patently inaccurate. I just spoke to the largest Bimota dealer (he's sold over 600 units) and he indicates that no Bimota has been successfully homologated since 2010 and "even if you wrote me a check for $1,000,000, I couldn't get you the new Tesi 3D . . .the factory simply can't deliver". I'm going to keep calling the listed dealers to see if I can find one. Another fellow I just spoke to has just returned from the factory and spending quality time with the new owner and indicates that they "talk a good game but couldn't deliver product if their life depended on it". He wound up saying that MAYBE he could get me a Bimota for closed course competition but no way you can import one (they aren't homologated yet) that could be registered. As a racer . . . I'd say you're good to go. You can put your faith in a company recovering from bankruptcy and that had to recall it's entire product line for a major design flaw or you can walk in . . . browse the EBR line on a showroom floor, have rapid factory support, a financing network and hundreds of experienced engineers supporting the product. If you are tooling about the USA you can get your EBR serviced in a growing number of networks and don't have to have your bike flown to one of the 3 places in the country. Nice try , . . . but Bimota are total and complete amateurs. EBR is racing for a reason and it's not . . . as you suggest . . some hazily thrown together plan that grew out of a night in a pub. By the way . . . . my new friend, who I just met via phone . . . just became an EBR dealer. He and I are having lunch Wednesday to get acquainted. I'm kinda looking for a bike | ||
| Court |
Hey . . . I'm curious. Badweb has something on the order of 25,000 folks, mathematically a valid sample population. How many folks here own Bimotas? How many plan to purchase a Bimota in the next 12 months? | ||
| Reepicheep |
I bet all Americans always stereotype also.  | ||
| Noone1569 |
Well, Court, I don't have a Biomata, but I sure as hell easily walked into my local EBR Dealer (Dreyer Powersports, Whiteland, Indiana) and purchased an EBR 1190RX without any problem. I also just scheduled the first service, easy as pie. I for one, congratulate EBR on even making it into WSBK, let alone completing races. Every round and every test is another chance to improve the bike. |
