BQR-Honda unveils the first Moto2 bike

[Cajun]

<img src='http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Mvhjidbvdzc/SYhhOUD6tMI/AAAAAAAANY0/wXuAg09kXOM/s400/moto2+3.jpg'> (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Mvhjidbvdzc/SYhhOUD6tMI/AAAAAAAANY0/wXuAg09kXOM/s1600-h/moto2+3.jpg)

<img src='http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Mvhjidbvdzc/SYhhDhW_EbI/AAAAAAAANYk/jxuUMoGX3IM/s200/moto2+4.jpg'> (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Mvhjidbvdzc/SYhhDhW_EbI/AAAAAAAANYk/jxuUMoGX3IM/s1600-h/moto2+4.jpg)



The Spanish Honda-BQR team has unveiled the very first Moto2 bike, which will make its debut this season in the Spanish Roadracing Championship (CEV) this year. The same bike – with, of course, some engine/chassis developments – will also go on to race in the Moto2 series in 2011, when 250cc two-strokes will make way for 600cc four-stroke machines.

BQR-Honda’s Moto2 bike uses a 599cc, DOHC, 16-valve, liquid-cooled inline-four sourced from Honda. Featuring Honda’s PGM-FI electronic fuel injection, this engine makes 140 horsepower and is mated to a six-speed gearbox. The double beam chassis is made of aluminium, the steering geometry is adjustable and suspension is Show – 43mm USD fork and monoshock, both fully adjustable.

The bike rides on 17-inch forged magnesium wheels, shod with 125/80 (front) and 190/55 (rear) Dunlop slicks. Twin 300mm brake discs with four-piston radial-mount callipers are used at front, and single 220mm disc with twin-piston calliper is fitted at the back wheel. Ready to race, the bike weighs 137kg.

info from here -> http://www.fasterandfaster.net/2009/02/bqr-honda-unveils-first-moto2-bike.html

[codgyoleracer]

Hmmm, I wonder what the cost to run these will be compared to a blue-stroke ?

[cowpoos]

From a press release issued by Blusens BQR



The Honda-BQR Moto2 Grand Prix racebike.
BLUSENS BQR INTRODUCES THE HONDA-BQR MOTO2 IN MADRID

Madrid, 3rd of February 2009. The hotel “Puerta de América” in Madrid was the location where the team Blusens BQR presented this morning the new Honda-BQR Moto2. This 600cc motorbike of 4 strokes will be substituting, from 2011, the 250cc of 2 strokes in the MotoGP World Championship. It will also participate in the Campeonato de España de Velocidad (CEV) this season, which will be a great tryout for the motorbike.

Raúl Romero, owner of the Blusens BQR team, emphasized this morning, during the presentation, the historical value and relevance of this moment for the team; Carmelo Ezpeleta, (CEO of Dorna, the company organizing the GP World Championship and the CEV), compared this event with the introduction of GP motorbikes when they took over the 500. Joan Moreta (president of Real Federación Española de Motociclismo and vicepresident of FIM), José Ramón García (president of Blusens) and Daniel Rivas, the rider who will be driving the Honda-BQR Moto2 in the CEV. These five men removed the cover from the prototype in an act that was called by Ernest Riveras, TVE’s commentator of the GP World Championship, the “baptism of a new category”.

Over 60 people, many personalities of the motor world and the main sponsors of Blusens BQR, as well as 24 journalists from the most important specialized mass media, were present in this very important occasion.

The Moto2 project of Blusens BQR started to become real at the end of 2006, and after 2 years of hard work and development, the team from Cardedeu (Barcelona) has become the first team to finish and present its prototype, which is ready to start its race and compete in the CEV 2009.

If you ask me personally what I think....I reckon its a hash Job!!! no ram air?? a remarkably Japanese looking mass production frame?? etc...Im not convinced this is anything other than an attention seeking press release and a completely non-serious looking bike.

[Skunk]

Ram air through the side of the frame? Odd place for it. 600cc is a crap idea anyway - I'm going back to WSBK.

[Teambwr47]

That BHP figure is about the same as the FIM spec Supersport 600 bikes we had in Europe but the weight is 30kg or so less...:clap:
Full British Supersport spec bikes make near 140 at the rear wheel and factory WSS maybe a touch more.

The cost to build a full spec bike over there as a privateer was in the region of 25000- 30000 UK Pounds ($80K) and full motor rebuilds were needed maybe twice a year if you were doing a full season of about 15 race meetings March to October.

Would be a fabulous class of bike to ride........

Always fancied building a bike of similar spec for open class races in the UK but with a standard frame. We were going to do a ohlins forks, brembo monobloc, mag wheels etc etc lightweight 600 Honda but then I left.....lol

[steveyb]

If you ask me personally what I think....I reckon its a hash Job!!! no ram air?? a remarkably Japanese looking mass production frame?? etc...Im not convinced this is anything other than an attention seeking press release and a completely non-serious looking bike.


I agree. Even a cursory look suggests that this is infact just a CBR600 with different fairings and a few fruity bits chucked on and some weight shaved off.
Methinks some lawyers are going to get rich over this one.

[gav]

Well, with the current rules, how did you expect it to look?

[k14]

I agree. Even a cursory look suggests that this is infact just a CBR600 with different fairings and a few fruity bits chucked on and some weight shaved off.
Methinks some lawyers are going to get rich over this one.
Well isn't that the same as saying the RC212V just looks like the CBR1000, or the M1 looking like an R1. They aren't going to be dramatically different because a bike is a bike afterall. Would be nice to see something really radical but I doubt we will from the Japenese. Be interesting to see how they go in the CEV champs.

[CHOPPA]

The forks look really diff... Do they just have a massive amount of travel or are they conventional? Yeah Right! I think its just a super skinny top tube

[cowpoos]

Well isn't that the same as saying the RC212V just looks like the CBR1000, or the M1 looking like an R1. They aren't going to be dramatically different because a bike is a bike afterall. Would be nice to see something really radical but I doubt we will from the Japenese. Be interesting to see how they go in the CEV champs.
look harder at the detail...not just how it basically looks.

[R6_kid]

It's still only the first one, lets not forget it still has a years worth of development before it actually needs to be ready, and even then it will continue to get developed. How many modern race bikes were perfect from the very beginning?

[Sully60]

It's still only the first one, lets not forget it still has a years worth of development before it actually needs to be ready, and even then it will continue to get developed. How many modern race bikes were perfect from the very beginning?

Honda seem to have got very close with the RC211V.


To me the bike in question does appear to be a hotrod, road based 600 rather than a purpose built GP bike of the ilk it's replacing.
It would seem nothing is safe from the advance of Corporate monopoly and the behind the scenes nepotism that ensures the way forward can only be paved with dollars:no:

[k14]

look harder at the detail...not just how it basically looks.
I'm looking but can't see what you're getting at :)

To me the bike in question does appear to be a hotrod, road based 600 rather than a purpose built GP bike of the ilk it's replacing.
It would seem nothing is safe from the advance of Corporate monopoly and the behind the scenes nepotism that ensures the way forward can only be paved with dollars:no:
May I ask as to how you came to that conclusion? To me it resembles a RSW250 GP bike more than any road bike. The engine is a 4 cylinder 600cc, probably very similar (if not the same as) to the CBR600 engine. But who wasn't expecting that? The CBR600 has dominated world supersport for the last 5 or 6 years so obviously it is a damn good starting point. Why would they start from scratch if they already have a good starting point?

[Sully60]

I'm looking but can't see what you're getting at :)

May I ask as to how you came to that conclusion? To me it resembles a RSW250 GP bike more than any road bike. The engine is a 4 cylinder 600cc, probably very similar (if not the same as) to the CBR600 engine. But who wasn't expecting that? The CBR600 has dominated world supersport for the last 5 or 6 years so obviously it is a damn good starting point. Why would they start from scratch if they already have a good starting point?

Well the bike in the first post looks alot like this... (http://pds.exblog.jp/pds/1/200802/10/70/d0134370_6183428.jpg)
And I assume you mean the Honda RSW (http://www.motorbike-search-engine.co.uk/05_pics/16.10.054.jpg)
Not the best image for comparison, it's hard to actually find good pics of those.

My point is that we are lead to believe the bike in the OP is a prototype chassis, we all know the 600 thing has been coming for some time but do you think the factories or satellite teams for that matter are going to be that far along with tooling that you'd have something that's finished like a typical Honda road bike?
And I don't think that you could shoe horn an inline 4 of any capacity into the RS chassis they're just too narrow even if you modify or replace the frame rails.

I don't doubt for a second Honda will at least base the new engine around a CBR engine, fair enough why reinvent the wheel eh?
It just stinks a little bit to me as MotoGP has quite clear rules around that sort of thing, just ask Peter Clifford.

[gav]

Peter Clifford raced in MotoGP, this is new class, with new rules to try and cut costs. Even a claiming rule isnt there? THis is not suppose to be a prototype class like MotoGP.

[cowpoos]

I agree. Even a cursory look suggests that this is infact just a CBR600 with different fairings and a few fruity bits chucked on and some weight shaved off.
Methinks some lawyers are going to get rich over this one.

Heres a more likely looking bike the new moriwaki moto2 gp bike.... http://hellforleathermagazine.com/2008/07/moriwaki-debuts-first-600gp-pr.html

[Ivan]

were can i get a moto gp muffler for my sv

I love that stumpy out the side by rearset

The Moriwaki bikes are always awsome funny to see its a CBR600 engine and yes I did read the reason behind it being because the rules wernt finalised but by the looks both so far are gonna be inline 4 no crazy inline 4's yet wait till Ducati make one a thumping V twin probly awsome

[Sully60]

Peter Clifford raced in MotoGP, this is new class, with new rules to try and cut costs. Even a claiming rule isnt there? THis is not suppose to be a prototype class like MotoGP.

That's why I think it stinks, they've gone and rehashed one the the purest road racing classes with some muddied concotion of something that resembles a cross between Friday night at the Indy mile (claiming rule!?!) and 600 Supersport (cool class, do we really need Dorna in on that act?) Everybody running the same ECU, paaalllleeeease?

As for cutting costs how about some of the ideas floated for doing this in MotoGP? Requiring engines to last a set number of meetings and limiting the number of bikes a team can use during the year.

Make it cheaper, sure but don't make a junk formula like the yanks did with car racing in the twenties.
I just think it would be cool if the smaller non corporatetypes could participate and innovate in the new class.
I can just see all the bikes evloving in the same direction with the limitations of the class, 600SS will be a far more interesting and diverse so I think I know who's advertising dollar will be better spent.