Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Long live the two-stroke

Michael Scott's "In The Paddock" column in the new Cycle News, (pg 60, July 2, 2008) is all about the two-stroke motorcycle engine, its past, present, and future. Some interesting stuff there. Mostly Scott talks about road racing and the death of the 250 GP class, which DORNA has killed effective 2010. But he also interviews Jan Witteveen, legendary Aprilia two-stroke engine designer and gets his views on the state of the two-stroke, plus discusses possible changes at the FIM to bring the two-stroke back to MX.

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Sunday, June 22, 2008

Big balls, American style. MotoCzysz C1.

I've been watching a two-hour documentary from Discovery Channel on MotoCzysz (pronounced moto-siz), the 100% American-made, from scratch, MotoGP machine. Yes, you read that right - one dude from Portland, OR (who isn't even an engineer) decided he could take on the world and build a world-class MotoGP prototype racing machine from scratch. It's taken him 3+ years and approximately $5 million, but he's gotten damn close. Here's a Cycle World web article from this past March, and there's a full story in the July '08 issue of Cycle World.

Of course, there's a little problem that DORNA changed the MotoGP rules last year to require 800cc bikes and the MotoCzysz C1 is a 990 like the rules required when he started, but Michael Czysz is not giving up. He recently had a breakthrough test at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and now lists among the believers several GP-caliber road racers.

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Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Why has only one company successfully entered the MX market since 1985?

To my knowledge only one (1) company has successfully entered the motocross market since 1985 - the small Hillsdale, MI firm of Cobra Motorcycle Mfg. What did Cobra do? They brought innovation to a market the Big Four were ignoring. They met a need. They built good products - right here in the USA.

Once - in almost 30 years - has new blood successfully entered the motocross market. And they only did it in minibikes - 50cc-85cc. Ask yourself - is this really the best it can be? It's difficult to make a credible claim than an industry (any industry) is healthy and competitive when it's consisted entirely of the same five (really four) suppliers for more than 25 years. Are we really that naive? Or, like the Soma pills in Orwell's 1984, have we swallowed the company marketing sedative so long we no longer care to see reality?

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Sunday, March 16, 2008

Fairytales and Myths About Modern Racing

I just saw a boisterous rebuttal of an earlier article – The Long-term Effects of Production-based Racing – over on the TMSuzuki Yahoo! group. I can't post it here because I don't have permission but I hope the author will stop by and do it himself. The author takes great exception to my assertion that a current race-tuned 4-stroke is more complex and costly to maintain than a comparable two-stroke, and my assertion that the complexity and ongoing cost of the modern 4-stroke is not appealing to a significant portion of 30+, 40+, and 50+ riders.

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Sunday, March 9, 2008

Update on the "Cone-head" Helmet Liner

From Don Morgan, inventor of the cone-head motorcycle helmet liner technology, comes an e-mail update on this interesting approach to helmet safety. According to Don, the response to his appearance on "The New Inventors" (which named the cone-head 2007 Invention of the Year) has been huge, with interest from around the globe. A helmet using the technology will be released later this year into the Australian and NZ markets. He has signed a license agreement with an overseas helmet manufacturer which allows them to determine when and where helmets become available.

I hope Don's licensing agreement is not exclusive, or at least provides for limited exclusivity. It would be a shame to see this development get only limited testing and exposure due to a tie-up in licensing. For a bit more background on the technology see this transcript from an ABC-TV interview and Cone-head helmet not a bonehead idea in the Brisbane Times.