BETTER was in inference to more money alloted and spent on a particular bike. i read again that HRC was dumping way more money into their camp as far as bikes were concerned than the yamaha so they would have had a advantage there no?
Again, with all due respect, more money spent on something does not necessarily equate with better anything (just ask George Steinbrenner or the builders of the Titanic). The functional value of money can be greatly diminished if not totally negated if not spent wisely/correctly. In WSBK, the RC45 had more money invested in its development/operation than any bike in the history of production motorcycle racing but it was only able to win one title against the less powerful (but better handling and more tractable Ducatis).
Do you not remember reading tests of the Yamaha and the Honda back then? If memory serves the Honda was more stable, more powerful and easier to ride.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bsess
Really? Rather than impolitely imply you clearly don't know what you're talking about, please explain (in bike terms of course) how Rossi's bike was subpar during his first two years on it and kindly describe the manner in which he rode around every issue. What were those issues? I sincerely look forward to reading your explanation of the Yamaha's shortcomings. I'd be especially grateful if you could also explain how the other teams were better during that time period you are referring to. Thanks!
Do you not remember reading tests of the Yamaha and the Honda back then? If memory serves the Honda was more stable, more powerful and easier to ride.
even rossi said that back then
he is not going to slam the company he just moved to but he did say the Honda made more and better power. watch some of the races again BS, sete had more power and just becuase you dismeiss every rider and writer does not make it so
you are the staunchest haden fan bantering with you is plain silly, you will call foul no matter what.
"Exercise restraint and discipline, only responding to posts from legit customers and those with constructive positive intent, you will find that the handgrenades explode harmlessly. You have many satisfied customers who are happy to have the parts you've made. My suggestion to you is keep making good parts, keep getting more customers, take care of them and let them speak for you."
Those who feel that Stoner is the best rider on the grid should explain-
1- why/how he has been able to instantly vault over Dani, who beat him consistently in 2005 on 250s and last year.
1. For 2007, he was on a bike/tire/team combo that suited him well.
2. In 2005, Stoner did very well against Pedrosa who had the advantages of what one could say was the better bike and the better team. Despite this disadvantage, Stoner still won 5 races to Pedrosa's 8. If you compare them head to head that year in races that they both actually finished, Stoner won 4 races and Pedrosa 6.
3. In 2006, Stoner was with a Satellite team while Pedrosa was with the Factory squad. While the differences in the actual equipment may not have been significant, I think the level of support within the team and from the factory is significant, particularly from the standpoint of a MotoGP rookie.
4. I believe one of the biggest reasons for Stoner elevating his game is that until the off season leading into this year, Stoner never took training and conditioning seriously. In fact, he showed his immaturity and a somewhat flippant attitude during interviews where he proudly remarked that he never did any training and exercise. Pedrosa, on the other hand has always been as focused, serious and determined about his career and his training regime. Stoner woke up and smelled the coffee and for the first time in his career, became an addicted workout warrior last winter.
2- how did he go from 119 points last year to 322+ points this year, if it's not in large part the bike/tires?
1. See #s 1 and 4 above.
2. How did Freddie Spencer go from 72 points in 1982 to 144 in 1983? How did Eddie Lawson go from 78 points in 1983 to 142 in 1984? The ability and performance of any racer is not a constant. In addition to all the other variables that can affect a racer's performance and the outcome of races, the racer's themselves, just like athlete's in other sports, can vary from year to year. How often have we witnessed young athletes in other sports have their talent, hard work, maturity and experience coalesce into dramatically elevated performances? Too many times to mention.
It's impossible to say for sure. One can very reasonably argue that if Rossi, Pedrosa or Hayden had Stoner's ride this year, they would have enjoyed the same results as Casey has. But, then again, maybe not. We'll never know. Last year, I believed that Pedrosa was the closest to Rossi in ability. This year, I believe Stoner is that man because he is the only one of the Ducati riders to consistently do well with it (and contrary to your opinion I don't believe that Loris is anywhere near over the hill and it seems neither do the Suzuki factory team). I also give Stoner the nod because he essentially took the 800cc bike and led the way in its development. On the other hand, HRC's golden boy and heir apparent was not able to do much with the bike that was, for all intents and purposes, built expressly for him. I think its ironic that whatever improvements that were made to the 800cc Honda this year appeared to be led and capitalized upon more by Nicky than Dani.
Do you not remember reading tests of the Yamaha and the Honda back then? If memory serves the Honda was more stable, more powerful and easier to ride.
I repeat a portion of my post earlier in this thread:
With all due respect, I'd love to read those articles as well as to see who wrote them. Unless they were written by a racer with recent top level (i.e. MotoGP) experience, they 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.
In WSBK, the RC45 had more money invested in its development/operation than any bike in the history of production motorcycle racing but it was only able to win one title against the less powerful (but better handling and more tractable Ducatis).
1) True... Honda's RVF / RC45 cost more to develop because HRC tailored
their latest 4 stroke after their NSR 500 2 stroke... in short the RC45 is a
4 stroke GP racer...
Quote HRC boss Yoichi Oguma:
"Lately, Honda riders always complained about RVF feeling," said Osuma
san, ''but of course (they) only race a four-stroke just once a year, in
Suzuka Eight Hour. So, even though they began their careers racing
four-stroke bikes developed from street machines, now they are used to
500cc GP bikes. So, it's natural they ask us to make them an RVF racer
that feels like an NSR. For some years, we tried to produce a compromise
machine, but this year (1992) we gave into their wishes, and made a 750cc
four-stroke GP bike, just as they asked!" Or rather, just as Mick
Doohan asked. Beforehand Honda had consciously been tailoring their
RVF750 development to suit Wayne Gardner's four-stroke-inherited
tactics, but by last season he'd been supplanted at the top of the
Honda totem pole by Mick Doohan. That convinced HRC to change the
bike's design to Mick's quite different style. So in 1992, the year
that Honda's Big-Bang NSR500 brought 170 bhp- plus GP-winning
performance within the mastery of the common man, thanks to its
user-friendly power delivery, the four-stroke RVF went clean in the
opposite direction. It's hard to convey in print just how dramatically
responsive the RVF is in every way to ride. It's a nervous, taut,
highly strung stallion of a motorcycle that at anything above the fast
3,000 rpm idle is just raring to go, barely restrained in its eagerness to be
out there savoring the thrill of the chase.
2) True the RC45 won only a single WSB Championship but it won more
Championships than the RC30 or RC51 and that fuel injected V4 architect
still lives on in MotoGp...
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."
Do you not remember reading tests of the Yamaha and the Honda back then? If memory serves the Honda was more stable, more powerful and easier to ride.
The real point is that what's "better" for you, me, an ex racer, a bike journalist, an experienced MotoGP bike tester or a MotoGP rider is not necessarily better for Rossi. I certainly buy the argument that the Honda was a bike that was more user friendly and generally easier to ride fast than the Yamaha but the real question is was it "better" than the Yamaha for Rossi and his style/level of ability? That's the real question and the only one that counts when discussing which bike is better than the other. I personally don't believe so. In 2002, the year that the 4-strokes were introduced, Rossi won the title by 140 points on a Honda against a field that consisted mostly of 2-stroke 500s. in 2003, Rossi and Honda beat Gibernau and Honda by only 80 points. In his first year on the Yamaha in 2004, Rossi took the title by 47 points. In 2005, Rossi and Yamaha defeated Honda and the rest of the field by the largest margin of his career in the premier class: 147 points.
In 2005, the result of the combination of Rossi/Yamaha/Michelin, Burgess was essentially the same as this year's combination of Stoner/Ducati/Bridgestone except that in 2005 Rossi won the title by a greater margin than Stoner can this year. [Even if Rossi fails to finish the final two races and Stoner wins them both, the margin will only be 142 points.]
you are the staunchest haden fan bantering with you is plain silly, you will call foul no matter what.
You're not making sense. This discussion has nothing to do with Hayden, my points had nothing to do with Hayden and I am not the one crying foul. You are. You are the one who is insisting that the Yamaha was grossly inferior to the Honda during its championship years but have failed to generate any credible support for your position. By simply stating that the Hondas made more power is empty and insufficient by any rational and objective measure of logic. Ducati's have made more power than Hondas and Yamahas from the time they entered MotoGP until now and yet they only won their first title this year.
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.
You're not making sense. This discussion has nothing to do with Hayden, my points had nothing to do with Hayden and I am not the one crying foul. You are. You are the one who is insisting that the Yamaha was grossly inferior to the Honda during its championship years but have failed to generate any credible support for your position. By simply stating that the Hondas made more power is empty and insufficient by any rational and objective measure of logic. Ducati's have made more power than Hondas and Yamahas from the time they entered MotoGP until now and yet they only won their first title this year.
wait, are you for real?
i never said "GROSELY" inferior, you say i said that i said it made less power and was not as easy to ride so i would consider that a disadvantage, no
i can't post credible support as you have already dismissed it as hogwash and nanny panny because you feel the poeple testing, riding, writing about the bikes are not qualified to make a opinion you feel is justified
you simplify, dismiss, and side step anything but saying it is not allowed and hogwash and then throw the far bone going fetch, silly really.
you are a huge hicky fan and not a fan or rossi so there ain't no unbiased posts by you and i repectfully agree to disagree with you and will gladly post the year and mag name for the article/s for those who would really like to read them
"Exercise restraint and discipline, only responding to posts from legit customers and those with constructive positive intent, you will find that the handgrenades explode harmlessly. You have many satisfied customers who are happy to have the parts you've made. My suggestion to you is keep making good parts, keep getting more customers, take care of them and let them speak for you."
The real point is that what's "better" for you, me, an ex racer, a bike journalist, an experienced MotoGP bike tester or a MotoGP rider is not necessarily better for Rossi. I certainly buy the argument that the Honda was a bike that was more user friendly and generally easier to ride fast than the Yamaha but the real question is was it "better" than the Yamaha for Rossi and his style/level of ability? That's the real question and the only one that counts when discussing which bike is better than the other. I personally don't believe so.
Then you disagree with Rossi. This is getting stupid. In his book Rossi claims the Honda was clearly superior to the Yamaha in every way, going so far as to claim the Honda was "perfect." Anyone claiming the Yamaha was as good as the Honda is showing they care more about proving their argument than about the truth. One of the main reasons he moved to Yamaha was to prove that his success wasn't dependent on the bike i.e., he could win on an inferior bike.
Dani's Honda 250 was not superior to Stoner's Aprilia 250. The (rotary valve) Aprilia's have had power over the Honda 250s for the last few years. And they were both on the same tires. Dani beat him handily.
Last year Dani and Stoner were both on RCV211Vs with Michelins, which was a very, very good package. Dani beat him handily.
Quote:
Originally Posted by XFBO
Lets see if I got this right:
You want to put Dani above Stoner for the past two yrs ('05&'06) cuz Dani outranked him........each time, mind you, on superior machinery.
Then you disagree with Rossi. This is getting stupid. In his book Rossi claims the Honda was clearly superior to the Yamaha in every way, going so far as to claim the Honda was "perfect." Anyone claiming the Yamaha was as good as the Honda is showing they care more about proving their argument than about the truth. One of the main reasons he moved to Yamaha was to prove that his success wasn't dependent on the bike i.e., he could win on an inferior bike.
prove it! BS don't believe anything written or know as fact unless there is viable DNA on record LOL
Rossi book is not really rossis book, it is all a conspiracy
"Exercise restraint and discipline, only responding to posts from legit customers and those with constructive positive intent, you will find that the handgrenades explode harmlessly. You have many satisfied customers who are happy to have the parts you've made. My suggestion to you is keep making good parts, keep getting more customers, take care of them and let them speak for you."
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.)
I have a Colin Edwards quote and he sounds elated...
"I was at Yamaha so long I didn't know any different. I rode the RC45
at Suzuka in December. As I rode from pit lane I thought 'no wonder I
can't beat this...' It's super smooth, so much power and no big hit,
no jolt, just seething--the fastest thing I've ridden and totally
accommodating. You can carry corner speed or point and squirt--feels
like there are a number of ways to ride it"
I have a Colin Edwards quote and he sounds elated...
"I was at Yamaha so long I didn't know any different. I rode the RC45
at Suzuka in December. As I rode from pit lane I thought 'no wonder I
can't beat this...' It's super smooth, so much power and no big hit,
no jolt, just seething--the fastest thing I've ridden and totally
accommodating. You can carry corner speed or point and squirt--feels
like there are a number of ways to ride it"
With all due respect, he was basing this comparison after years of struggling on the YZF750 which was vastly underpowered vs. the RC45. Edwards was always a very positive, enthusiastic racer and he predicted numerous championships for himself on the RC45 which never materialized.
I'm not saying the RC45 was a bad bike. I was stoked when JK won the title in '97. It just never delivered an equitable return on its cost/investment as compared to the Ducatis of that era which were less powerful and less sophisticated.
i said it made less power and was not as easy to ride so i would consider that a disadvantage, no
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