Honda's new Moto-3 customer race bike

[merv]

So unless any of you that are swearing about this are not riding scooters on the road what are you riding that's such a fantastic two stroke on the road? Or is it only the race track you are interested in? I am sure that more than 90% on this forum would ride 4 strokes most of the time.

I sold my last 2 stroke in 1973 and never missed the days of clouds of smoke after too much town riding when you tried to open it up.

To me I can't see it is that exciting watching a single cylinder 125cc two stroke race on the track and therefore can't see that this new racer will be any less exciting. We aren't seeing the glory years of the 60's repeated with multicylinder, zillion gear gearboxes or anything because the powers that be have rules that won't allow it any more.

[Crasherfromwayback]

To me I can't see it is that exciting watching a single cylinder 125cc two stroke race on the track and therefore can't see that this new racer will be any less exciting. We aren't seeing the glory years of the 60's repeated with multicylinder, zillion gear gearboxes or anything because the powers that be have rules that won't allow it any more.

I was (am) anti the moto 2 bikes, as the 250's were fantastic and true GP bikes, plus the racing was always awesome, and they were often nearly as fast as the big boys. But I'm thinking the new 250 four strokes will be as fast if not faster than the 125's, and I've never really followed them anyway. And it seems a pretty cheap way to go GP racing to me, so I'm all for it (them).

[merv]

Yeah well I think the important thing to the average punter is brand rivalry and to have had Moto 2 settle on Honda engines was a bit silly because competition between Suter or Moriwaki or whoever no-name doesn't mean a lot to me in my every day life.

Is the problem that Honda are the only bike company with the resources to do such a thing?

[Mental Trousers]

The 2 stroke crowd are still alive and well right here

hahaha (gotta make fun of someone around here)

It would be interesting to see some Direct Injection 2 strokes mixing it up, although they'd be more expensive than the 4 strokes they'd be up against.

The main problem with high horsepower engines is getting that power to the ground and that's been one of the major technical reasons for moving to 4 strokes - they're inherently safer because they give the tyres more time to grip.

Honda don't supply the engines, Geo Tech do (although I think the Honda engine was chosen as a base and then an engine builder was chosen afterwards). However, the engine department is meant to be opened up to other manufacturers sometime (not sure when). I believe the reasoning was that this would allow teams and the Moto2 organisation to sort teething problems without the added hassle of developing engines as well. Which is fair enough as there are teams who haven't stuck with a single chassis for an entire season so far.

[eelracing]

It's not all Honda's doing that MotoGP went four stroke. There was virtually no application of 2 stroke performance technology in the real world so what was the point? Now we have stillborn MotoGP prototypes as production bikes (RSV4), long bang cranks direct from championship winning bikes (M1/R1) etc etc. Sounds farkin' good to me.

Haha, before you lambast 4 strokes as being expensive, the lease only price of a factory Aprilia RSA250 was over the 1 million Euro mark, never mind the running costs.

So the Aprilia RSA125's which make up 95% of the grid
I can guarantee we'll see more than one manufacturer involved and it won't cost the sizeable part of a small country's GDP to compete.


Bottom line? All of a sudden the small GP class has become relevant again.

That RSV4 you speak of was payed for by the leasing of the Aprilia 250 (the best 250 out there considering the Japs pulled out)with the promise to enter MotoGP.When Aprilia reneged and went Superbike racing with it instead Dorna had a hissy and brought forward Moto2 by a year in a big "fuck you" to Aprilia.

Relevant??? relevant to what exactly?racing? or what some latte drinking fop want's to pull up on outside the cafe?

No,GP racing should have nothing to do with selling motorbikes on Monday.
It should be about racing the best and fastest available technology...now if Honda and Yamaha etc wanna race 250cc motorbikes then all good but howabout letting some other schmoes enter a private 250 two stroke to compete against them then.
Oh no you can't have that eh?

Kim Newcombe was'nt trying to sell any Konig roadbikes last I heard

[Crasherfromwayback]

You tell 'em!

[lukemillar]

I was (am) anti the moto 2 bikes, as the 250's were fantastic and true GP bikes, plus the racing was always awesome, and they were often nearly as fast as the big boys. But I'm thinking the new 250 four strokes will be as fast if not faster than the 125's, and I've never really followed them anyway. And it seems a pretty cheap way to go GP racing to me, so I'm all for it (them).

Moto2 racing has been awesome. Live in the now man!

[Crasherfromwayback]

Moto2 racing has been awesome. Live in the now man!

No different to 250 racing in the day man...just slower!

[BMWST?]

Could'nt of put it better myself.

you need to put a[ in front of cfwb quote

[BMWST?]

Moto2 racing has been awesome. Live in the now man!

moto2 is a fail imo, the racing is good but i find it difficult to identify with any one rider,cos there are no "brands" involved.I find i dont care who wins

[gatch]

GP has gotten gay.

Single cyl 4 strokes, with no fancy valve trains and restricted rpm.

Sounds like uber expensive bucket racing to me.

They could have at least made it a v twin. So it doesn't sound so fuckin homo.

[Crasherfromwayback]

moto2 is a fail imo, the racing is good but i find it difficult to identify with any one rider,cos there are no "brands" involved.I find i dont care who wins

It's no different to me than 600 Supersport racing. And that's NOT what GP racing should be about.

[tigertim20]

Slowpoke raised a fair point, why wasnt the tech from the 2 strokes being used in production? Yamaha at least saw fit to put the crossplane into the r1 from 09 onwards, something totally new, and direct from the concept/moto gp bikes.

Now I love 2 strokes, Ive had several of them, but whats the point of them being raced in a class like that,, if they arent going to use that info and experience to develop some for us mere mortals to get our hands on out here in the real world, then whats the point of having them at all.

On the flip side, there is evidence that the four stroke concepts are making their way into rpoduction for us to buy at the stealership, so WHY the fuck couldnt thy do it with the 2 strokes when they had them? perhaps that is the more pertinent question.

Id been hanging out for the release of a big engined stroker sportsbike. guess it aint happening

[lukemillar]

moto2 is a fail imo, the racing is good but i find it difficult to identify with any one rider,cos there are no "brands" involved.I find i dont care who wins

The 'brands' are the riders not the machines. End of the day, I guess it depends what you enjoy about racing, but for me, having 40+ bikes on a grid where the depth of a teams pockets won't dictate who will be up the pointy end = some of the best racing from the GP paddock over the past 2 years.

[James Deuce]

Slowpoke raised a fair point, why wasnt the tech from the 2 strokes being used in production? Yamaha at least saw fit to put the crossplane into the r1 from 09 onwards, something totally new, and direct from the concept/moto gp bikes.

Now I love 2 strokes, Ive had several of them, but whats the point of them being raced in a class like that,, if they arent going to use that info and experience to develop some for us mere mortals to get our hands on out here in the real world, then whats the point of having them at all.

On the flip side, there is evidence that the four stroke concepts are making their way into rpoduction for us to buy at the stealership, so WHY the fuck couldnt thy do it with the 2 strokes when they had them? perhaps that is the more pertinent question.

Id been hanging out for the release of a big engined stroker sportsbike. guess it aint happening

GP racing isn't there to improve the road breed, it's a technology showcase for the manufacturers. Superbike and Supersport is there to improve the road breed.

GP racing is not some sort of proddy class but it will turn into that when the claiming rule bikes turn up next year.

Motive power shouldn't be relevant at all and the cc limits were arbitrary but a necessary class divider.

The 4-stroke "revolution" is driven by Honda and to a lesser extent the desire to "appeal" to the environ-mentals. I think the environ-mentals would be horrified to know that a big chunk of the world's produce gets shipped and trucked by clean, incredibly powerful, direct-injection two-stroke engines.

Then add in an organising body that doesn't give one flying fuck for motorcycles and looks over at Superbike to see exciting racing and big fields and wants that, so it changes prototype racing into some pointless pseudo-proddy cul-de-sac in a series of increasingly desperate knee-jerk reactions. Bit like Formula 1 which just looks like British Formula 3 from the early '90s on fast forward.

Organisers don't want innovation, they want money and ratings in that order. Spectacle comes a very distant third when you prioritise those two ahead of competition, but always bear in mind that in prototype racing, cars or bikes, the rule is for boring processional racing as innovative technologies leapfrog the competition and then rules are changed to exclude huge advantages and then the new rules are exploited by some genius and so on. Sometimes you get a confluence of technologies that provide epic racing for a few years at a time. What's happened in present-day racing in the top levels of motorsport is draconian regulation that gives the haves a huge advantage and the have-nots an insurmountable mountain to climb, leaving little scope for dramatic changes of fortune for innovative teams.