Why sports bikes

While I have been riding ~40 years, I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination. But, I do use my rear brake on both my street bike and dirt bike to trail brake as well as to induce over-steer when I come into a corner too hot and need to rotate the bike around the corner. It's a soft touch procedure...too much and you slide, too little and under-steer pushes you off the road or trail. Try it. it works and feel good...

 

Do the MotoGP bikes still have separate front and rear braking systems? I was under the impression they're linked and you can adjust the brake bias. If Rossi just uses the front brakes on entry, holy crap...

motorcycle motivational posters: http://www.headgear.org/~cloyce/moto-motivation/

 

If you decide to put together an effort let me know what you'll be campaigning. I may have a complete set up already, or at the very least some goodies that can help ya out.

 

I'm not aware of a linked braking system on any modern race bike. Those riders you see can manipulate the bike is ways most of us can just dream about.

 

Yeah, if you change out every single part of the braking system, the brakes rock!!
(according to your writeup)

 

Hard braking is one of the skills seldom found in street riders and only slightly less so among most track day riders. I have participated in many braking drills at riding schools and when you see how poorly the brakes are used by most riders, you quickly realize how many millions of dollars of wasted technology is riding on the front of modern sportbikes these days waiting on a learning curve that is probably not forthcoming. Coupling those skills with proper braking point and turn in point and speed excercises only displays the greater lack of coordination of these skills.

It is of course amazing to me to then find so many upgrades of brakes performed where riders are only using 50-70% of their current capabilities on a good day. Put a average to relatively skilled rider on the back of a modern sportbike with an expert racer and let them feel the braking being done and they will come back totally astounded at the forces the professional rider can extract from a decent set of binders found on a stock machine available these days.

 

I think you read the post incorrectly. If a brand new RC and a brand new 1098/1198 where ridden back to back i feel the RC has better stock for stock brakes. In fact they have some of the best oem systems put on a production bike. Not really sure what makes them work so well on this particular bike, but they do it well. This is based on my personal experience and plenty of others whom have either the RC or Duc....or both.
All that other stuff mentioned is if someone cared to upgrade bits and/or pieces of the oem system they could do so with little expense and have even better brakes. With the oem rotors and calipers left alone they would still out perform a vast majority of fully upgraded systems be it late model or older.

The oem calipers on the duc are not miraculous claws. They oem stuff from brembo about the same as the Nissin or Tokico. Even the HP line is only marginally better than oem, and that has a lot to do with the brake pads used. Its not until you get into the much more expensive stuff until you see a marked improvement.

 

It's purely performance, or even better performance per dollar.
Basically it's like having a Formula 1 car with blinkers and a horn for $10k.

0-60 in 2 secs
1/4 mile in 9
200 mph top end
Knee down on the track at 160 mph.

Either you get it or you dont...


- BTW I never use my rear brake on track.
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I'll have to swap rides with a buddy of mine and check that out then. He has an RC and I have the 1198S. I had a 1098S earlier, and the brakes on both Ducs are amazing for a stock bike. Just hard to believe the old RC could be better, especially given all the rave reviews of the journalists on the Duc brakes. Not that they are infallible, but they ride a lot of bikes. I've never heard the RC brakes mentioned as any kind of braking benchmark in the recent past.

 

The mags will print anything the manufacturers pay them to print.

And the RC is going on a 10 year old design....pretty sure you wont find much on these in any regard from recent print. Although, there have been a couple mags that have done throwback editions which the RC is mentioned in more than favorable light.


Not saying the RC the be all to end all as its got its faults(though some see them as positives), but the brakes are certainly nothing it lacks in. If you and the other rider are comfortable with swapping rides for a little bit i'd say go for it and come to your own conclusions.

Can't recall if the S model uses a more aggressive pad than the 1098/1198 base model, or if its the calipers. The only way to do a fair comparison is to go apples to apples but still should be a fun go at playing around with a different style v-twin.

 

I bled my RC's brakes last weekend, still don't compare to my 1098's brakes. The Ducati's huge Brembos absolutely blow away the RC's Nissens.

This is only my experience on my 2 bikes. Other bikes may be different...

Greg

 

I'm into sport bikes...been riding for 10 years now, and don't see myself changing to a Harley any time soon.

I like tall women with big boobs.....you like short women with a big ass.

Both will give you a great feeling, but the ride is totally different....

 

Well put!

 

I ride slow.
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I had a 2002 RC51 for 6 years and loved it. I had the HRC front pads, and with one finger you could bottom the forks. Holy crap good brakes.
Why did I like it? Stable sure footed handling at every speed, cornered like on rails, great power at all rpms, no maintenance, plenty fast for me also. I felt safe even at 140 mph in a 30 mph zone.
I raced motocross for 22 years and half of that was on 500cc 2 strokes.

To the original poster: no helmet for you??? Why?

 

Some gratuitous race pictures because I can..

1. Busted bringing it back from tech in my squidly flip flops.. Texas World, June 2003. Now you know the source of my user name

2. Turn 1-2, TWS 2003. Second (and last) yellow shirt race, CMRA.

3-4. Waiting for my endurance stint, then getting cold water poured down my back after it. TWS, July 2005. Freaking hot. At 105F I too wonder why we wear these ridiculous outfits. Then I look at the scar on my elbow and remember why (don't ask lol)

5. Owned my first endurance team with this fellow. Another reason we love sportbikes.. you've never met a better bunch of people as those who race them.

6. Barely fit in Doug Polen's leathers. Didn't realize he's not that big of a fella..
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Nice sv.... nice pics.

 

...now get rid of the rookie shirt and yellow plates and you will be proper. i'm sure you are into your white plates by now. looks like ur bike has a gixer upper and lower?

here is a pic of my 888 sp5...the true answer to the "why sportbikes?" question.
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Pete, I got rid of that rookie shirt back in 2003 Bike was an '99 SV650 with Sharkskinz race bodywork and superbike motor.

Great pic, btw! No twisties to speak of anywhere near Houston..

 

Come on out to where I'm at in LA, I'll show you some great roads. I consider them E ticket rides

 

we have pretty insane roads here in san diego too but they are very dangerous. when you earn your white plates in wera or ccs...the canyons look less like a fun place to ride and more like a good place to get killed. once up to speed on the track, race weekends and open track days are the only thing that is appealing.

be careful on the canyon roads in LA. i lost a fellow rider on labor day weekend riding the old hwy 94 in san diego. we were running tooo hard for the street and he lost it at about 120 mph and it was over instantly when he hit the armco.

it was over for him but another friend and i held his hand til the rescue team came to cover his body. i have raced for years and seen bad get offs but this really was tough.

sorry to be a downer.

pcb

 

solution.. move to florida... there are no turns/twisties here... UNLESS you're on a track.



i miss being up north.

 

There are 2 supposedly nice and twisty forest rides north of Houston, between Conroe, Montgomery, and Navasota. Haven't tried them yet, dying to, though!

Greg

 

Pally?

 

Gotta agree with ya here.

94 is dangerous because riders can do 120+mph and then over cook a turn or panic. Telegraph Cyn ("Telecrash") is the same way. I've ridden with a group there and the first rider (Yamaha R1) went wide by the lake and saved it. I decided to "pick it up" and pass him...