[bsess]

3) Negative... the RC45 handled better than the Ducati...

Quote Alan Cathcart a respected racer who has the privilege of being able
to test all the top race machines for public consumption. This highly envied
position allows him to give readers an insight into the real differences
between makes, and even between years. This is revealed in his articles for
Motorcycle Racer magazine, among others. Below are some of the salient
comments on Colin Edwards' 1999 World Superbike RC45, when Alan was
given the chance to test it at the end of the 1999 racing season."

"The next day shone, and it was time for a track test I'll always remember.
That's not just because I ended up doing a lap time that brought smiles and
compliments from HRC race staff, but because of the qualities of the bike I
did it on - arguably the finest Superbike I've yet ridden. And, yes - this was
less than a month after I'd ridden Carl Fogarty's world champion Ducati, so I
do have a valid basis for comparison."

Please read my post above. While Alan Cathcart is and has been one of the most respected motocycle journalists alive, he is not nor has he ever been a world class racer and this is an essential consideration when trying to make an objective appraisal of a bike's characteristics. Under the right conditions and with the right set up for those conditions, the RC45 was a tremendous, if not unbeatable bike. Unlike, the Ducati, however, the set-up parameters under which it would run to its potential were extremely narrow and often difficult and elusive to locate (just ask Colin Edwards, Aaron Slight, Carl Fogarty or Doug Polen whose career and reputation were largely destroyed by his inability to come to terms with the RC45.)

Unless they were written by a racer with recent top level (i.e. MotoGP) experience, they (race bike reviews) are basically useless because bike journalists and retired ex racers have nowhere near the necessary ability levels to explore and evaluate the performance characteristics of prototype equipment at or near the limit. That is a plain fact. Even the opinion of someone like Kevin Schwantz would be essentially valueless because he is no longer capable of top level pace.

Back when he was the top dog, Mick Doohan would frequently complain/ reject chassis/suspension equipment being developed by HRC and its development riders. While HRC would give him new parts that they assured him would offer measurable improvements to his current set up, Doohan, more often than not, would reject the new equipment/mods by saying that since the development riders were incapable of matching either his pace or his style, the value of their recommendations were more often than not a waste of time. His arguments were always supported by his own testing of said recommended equipment/mods. Doohan once politely buried a retired Schwantz's year end appraisals of bikes on the 500 grid for the same reasons stated above. At the time, Doohan specifically stated that if someone couldn't ride within a tenth or two of his pace, their evaluation/analysis of a bike would hold little, if any, credibility/value for him (and Schantz, btw, completely agreed.) He reinforced his point by saying that certain bikes whose designs/set ups he felt were were fundamentally flawed could be absolutely pure and smooth sweethearts when running a 1:25.00 second a lap pace but dangerously unpredictable and unrideable at a pace even a tenth or two quicker. He also stated that the converse could be applicable whereby a bike that was deemed unrideable at the limit of a development riders abilities could become sweet handling at a higher pace that only he could achieve. When Doohan swapped his Big-Bang engines for the old style screamers, the development riders became even less relevant than they already were because they lacked Doohan's rare ability to manage the shortcomings and exploit the strengths offered by that engine's configuration.

Rossi's M1 was also proclaimed by many journos as the sweetest handling bike on the grid but, once again, this means nothing as well. The M1s that Rossi rode to two championships were specifically developed in accordance with his particular abilities and preferences. During his championship reign, he endlessly praised the M1's performance so for you or anyone to deride that bike as being inferior is pointless and irrelevant. The results speak for themselves. In Rossi's hands, the M1 was an exceptional handling bike with more than enough power and acceleration to dominate the other bikes on the grid. Even on the big horsepower tracks where the V5 Hondas were expected to dominate.