National level race classes

[Robert Taylor]

Thats the best bit of advice I have seen on this site.Far too often when working with the top tier teams have I seen them do nothing for 2-3 days but change the suspension constantly and in some cases get lost in the science of suspension set up,The best thing you can do is ride what youve got and adjust the suspension when and if you feel it needs it until you have a better understanding of how things work.Then when you upgrade to the good stuff at a later date you can give your supplier some reasonable feedback and get the results you desire quickly.All the suspension courses in the world wont help you.If you cant tell your technician what you require then youve got no show of getting the bike set up

Because thats what top tier teams do to optimise lap times, rider feel and tyre life, its no different in MotoGP and WSBK! And yes they get confused too and lose their direction. I can well remember my Swedish namesake Rob looking at his computer screen at three very distinctingly different damping curves and shaking his head in disbelief because his assigned rider ( Haga ) could not tell / feel the difference between any of them. Perhaps Yamaha WSBK team were running the wrong link ratio from their box of 32 options........This is the real world and I dont think we should be in constant denial. You have to do the hard yards to improve and why victimise those who have the means and the motivation to do so?
We have produced troubleshooting manuals that I am happy to e-mail out to all and sundry and we are quite prepared to run set up seminars for those who are motivated enough to learn more about suspension setup. If there is no or very lacklustre response then it must mean that we are mostly intent about wallowing around in relative ignorance?????????????????? ( forgive the pun )
We have Peter Goddard ( Ohlins WSBK head technician )here at the end of the year for a seminar for our most loyal Ohlins customers. But adding his knowledge that will be imparted we can follow on with further seminars through next year.
In response to your last sentences it is very often not possible to learn much with many stock suspension systems because very often you have to max out the settings to afford some form of control, a band aid at best. And Ive said it before and will say it again, the marketing ploy of ''fully adjustable race bred suspension'' is as big a lie as ( for example ) ''I did not have sex with that woman'' or ''its all about trust''.

[Robert Taylor]

Couldn't agree more mate. BUT heres the thing the nature of our sport means we want to WIN or at least stand a shit show in hell of winning.
I'm not saying there aren't a lot of guys who are happy just being there and competing and I say bloody fantastic for them. AND there arent guys who do a season on an older bike as a learning curve.
But most of us want a shit show in hell of winning.
--Hey what about a simple +3 class --still 600's and 1000's but must be 3 years old?

And others have quite correctly said that our population is too small, too small to keep adding classes ad infinitum. Thats why we already have more regulated lower cost feeder classes that still provide exciting racing

[Robert Taylor]

Club racing is alive and well if the Vic club winter series is anything to go by. On more than one occasion the superbike grid was over subscribed and the no-qualifiers had the option of making my clubmans class even more interesting. A few clubmans riders also progressed to suberbikes during the series. The street stock class was chocker as well, in fact most classes had full grids.

Given our small population I think we will have to accept that our elite class is always going to have a small number of riders at the pointy end - regardless of how level the playing field is. BUT I think we need to have some "level playing field" classes to identify those riders who could be at the pointy end given a chance. Also somewhere for people with modest ambitions and limited budgets to play.

Why are there so few pro twins racers ?

Exactly. The point is also lost that the two elite classes are also about more than the riders. These classes are a showcase for the manufacturers new models, in tandem with the competition between the specialist aftermarket suppliers. ECUs, exhaust sytems, tyres, suspension, fairings, footpegs and other appendages. In fact no different to other first world countries and in this country embraced by the top three motorcycle distributors who heavily support the National road race series. And while it may sound callous if riders dont measure up to the pace or have exceeded their shelf life then attrition occurs. At the elite level of any sport you have to work hard to get there and make sacrifices. Aspiration and motivation are desirable qualities
We all depend on each other and if you dilute it all too much it will degeneate into little better than club level racing. Im not deriding club level ( grassroots ) racing, Im saying that the industry ( and their employees )also has a large collective stake in motorcycle sport. That probably sounds capitalist and commercial, but those things generate employment and tax. And when it comes down to it many suppliers in this small country actually provide exceptional added value, more so than in other first world countries.
Let us not talk ourselves into third world mentality.

[Robert Taylor]

But theres the rub--35 or more entrys at club level and scratchin for 15 at national level.
So it aint a case of don't fix what aint broke. --It is broken
Maybee theres another way to breath life into the elete classes
Me Im happy in F3 and planning now for the 09/10 nats --

Have you not thought that travel costs have a lot to do with it? And 15 at Nationals compares pretty favourably per head of population with what you see on a WSBK grid. Just stating the obvious

[Robert Taylor]

Easy fix: 1 set per meeting.

How many fairings, footpeg brackets etc to go with that? The tyres would have to be very ''wooden'' to last and that inevtably means less grip, LESS RIDER FEEL and a greater preponderance for crashing. So bang goes an oversimplistic cost argument.

[Robert Taylor]

Extremely insightful, and hard to disagree with. I began racing in the early 90's and I'm pretty sure my wage got me a lot more racing then.
Whatever way you look at it, the higher level you want to compete at, the more it costs - exponetialy ! Going from midfield in any class and trying to compete at the front will probably double (or more) the cost involved.

Ive got to 100% concur with Slowpoke, he has thought this through thoroughly and the arguments are very very plausible.
Id like a more palatial home and a fancy car but I have to learn to walk before I can run. Part of the answer is to work harder for what I personally aspire to, rather than expecting everything to be as cheap as chips. Perhaps its time for many in this country ( not only a number of motorcycle racers ) to learn that and to aspire to build a better future ( pun and mindset totally intended )through more personal effort. No offence to anyone is intended for saying so, Im just saying that if you want to get anywhere in life then you should jolly well have to work for it!

[Sketchy_Racer]

How many fairings, footpeg brackets etc to go with that? The tyres would have to be very ''wooden'' to last and that inevtably means less grip, LESS RIDER FEEL and a greater preponderance for crashing. So bang goes an oversimplistic cost argument.

Lesser equipment and more 'wooden' or not like bubble gum tyres wont necessarily result in more crashes, nor will stock suspension.

It comes down to the rider and that person having an understand of what the bike is doing. Just because better tyres offer more grip, doesn't mean riders are not going to be pushing them to the limits just as hard as not so great tyres.

I am a bit lost as to why everyone has this idea that Stock suspension and Crap tyres instantly mean crashes! and I am yet to ever anyone show statistics of this.

One case where it seemed very much the opposite was when Jay got the new zx6r and raced and did very well at taupo on stock suspenders yet the next round after receiving the fancy equipment he crashed twice in one day, complaining of no feel what so ever and inconsistent grip.

Im not saying you can go as fast on lesser equipment, but i don't believe it is a safety issue. Tyre wear also it is quite evident that better equipment helps out.

at the end of the day it is up to the rider to learn and understand what level of grip is available and to work with what they have. If everyone is in the same boat, then it can make very interesting racing.

[Mishy]

No offence to anyone is intended for saying so, Im just saying that if you want to get anywhere in life then you should jolly well have to work for it!

You Protestant's are all the same !

[Mishy]

One case where it seemed very much the opposite was when Jay got the new zx6r and raced and did very well at taupo on stock suspenders yet the next round after receiving the fancy equipment he crashed twice in one day, complaining of no feel what so ever and inconsistent grip.

Yes, but 5 degrees of track temp on the day had a lot to do with it, and Jay was trying to go faster than the conditions would let him on a new and unsorted bike . . . . . . . .

Jay would certainly have had difficulty working with the stock rear end, and we knew that at Taupo before we changed to the TTX36, same as we found the limitations of the stock rear in less than 10 laps on the R6 he rode a while ago.

[Sketchy_Racer]

I realise there was more to it than just the shock, but also kind of proves my point that a rider can easily outride the limitations of fancy equipment just as easily as they can outride the limitations of stock?

Sorry to have to use Jay's unfortunate day there, But i feel it has some relevance.

Please don't think of me as someone trying to bring a product down or nay say to people with vast experience, I'm just trying to learn about this in an informed manner so I can form my own opinion of it. I will have a chance to learn about the limitations of stock suspenders at the end of december which will also help.

Cheers,
-Glen

[CHOPPA]

I realise there was more to it than just the shock, but also kind of proves my point that a rider can easily outride the limitations of fancy equipment just as easily as they can outride the limitations of stock?

Sorry to have to use Jay's unfortunate day there, But i feel it has some relevance.

Please don't think of me as someone trying to bring a product down or nay say to people with vast experience, I'm just trying to learn about this in an informed manner so I can form my own opinion of it. I will have a chance to learn about the limitations of stock suspenders at the end of december which will also help.

Cheers,
-Glen

After riding on a bike with ohlins cartridge forks over standard forks id never go back, i understand when riders talk about this 'feel' thing you can really push the front and feel the grip of the tyres better then the vague feeling you get from standard suspension. I could possibly go as fast on standard stuff but i wouldnt have the same confidence id just be relying on trust....

I dont like spending the money anymore then anyone else but i do like having good competitive gear, i choose to put the money in and scrimp in everything else in life cause at the moment thats my whole life...

[Robert Taylor]

I realise there was more to it than just the shock, but also kind of proves my point that a rider can easily outride the limitations of fancy equipment just as easily as they can outride the limitations of stock?

Sorry to have to use Jay's unfortunate day there, But i feel it has some relevance.

Please don't think of me as someone trying to bring a product down or nay say to people with vast experience, I'm just trying to learn about this in an informed manner so I can form my own opinion of it. I will have a chance to learn about the limitations of stock suspenders at the end of december which will also help.

Cheers,
-Glen

Some perspective and please excuse a little anger for having to expend time elaborating at length......... As a generalised statement the nature of forums is such that its all too easy to snipe from the sidelines when not being privy to the full context.
Point of fact different circuit and as I abundantly recall it was a bitterly cold day that drained the heat out of that induced into the tyres by the warmers.....even before the bikes rolled off the dummy grid onto the track proper. The tyres were well away from their ideal ''temperature window'', that being the predominant and over-riding reason for lack of feel ( and grip ) on that day. As I have been at pains to point out in other threads we in NZ often attempt to race in much colder conditions than riders in the northeren hemisphere, they ''shut down'' over the winter. Bear in mind that the tyres we source come from that hemisphere where the mass markets are and where they almost always race in much more agreeable temperatures.
Note that cold days at tracks like Manfield reflect in much slower lap times and because of relative lack of feel I hasten to add more crashing due to feel / grip deficiency than you will usually see at a Nationals round.....where the riders are going significantly faster and hanging it on the edge.
One very compelling reason why race riders prefer higher performance tyres and suspension is superior feel and feedback, and indeed the ability to readily dial in / optimise that feel. If the rider can feel more ''connected'' to the track that in itself can allow the rider to be more comfortable at the edge of traction and further minimise crashing.
Aside from the icy temps we did ( candidly ) take a while to dial in Jays suspension but walking away from a challenge was not in either my script or that of his team, who in the end event found that ride height geometry was one of the most critical factors allied to Jays unique style. History records that Jay finished as NZ#3 at the Nationals, due to his own ability but also because of relentless development of the suspension and interaction with a tyre company / distributor whose coalface involvement shames all others in the sport. The superb feel we dialed into the machine was light years better than the oem suspenders and our start gate position. And I attribute some of the improvement to lessons we learnt at pre season World Supersport testing with Katsu Fujiwara. ( as a footnote these bikes handled well but struggled all year due to horsepower deficiency )
I dont see any committment from the makers of oem suspension to constantly improve suspension settings trackside at NZ racetracks????
The example of Nick Cole must also be cited. With all due respect to Nick his personal stats are challenging when setting up a bike. Nick initially tried firmer and firmer springs in the front end ( and in fact on the oem rear shock ) of his ZX6R to try and achieve some modicum of decent brake dive pitch control. To no avail. The rather dodgy oem cartridges in the ZX6R are a peened together sealed for life unit that makes it less than easy to respec them without some costly and time consuming re-engineering and parts.
Springs are about position ( oversimplistically ) and trying to afford much better regulation of brake pitch control by ( effectively ) over-springing is a very poor band -aid as it will have negative consequences in other areas such as side grip etc.
The solution was to fit our beloved Swedish cartridges with valving appropriate for Nick. In doing so this liberated Nicks performance and he is using those same settings to this day. A similiar situation applies to fitment of the TTX rear.
With a stock suspension formula that allows for only spring rate changes Nicks competitiveness would be seriously undermined as the damping would no longer be able to be calibrated to his body mass. In essence then it would hardly be a fair playing field! Springs are about ''base position'', damping is about controlling / regulating that rate of change of position. Sadly, its difficult to get many to accept that technical fact as too many people are locked into a 70s mentality. Brutally, ''ignorance is bliss''
Interestingly, when I attended an Ohlins distributor conference late last year one of the subject matters was that the new ZX6R and GSXR1000K7 were very difficult bikes to set up and there was a common consensus that the rear ride height on these only worked within a relatively narrow window. We too initially struggled with setup with Craig Shirriffs GSXR1000K7 and the testing is always done in the public eye and amongst those with a great Kiwi knocking machine attitude. Imagine ( as I have often wanted to do ) insisted on the riders carrying out their testing during actual VMCC race heats by cruising into the pits several times to make setting changes........... I also remember the uproar when Sam Smiths bike turned up with data logging transducers fitted. ( legal for VMCC ) Oh how the temerity of using modern technology to actually learn something!!!!!!!!! Thankfully we had Craigs bike very dialed come the Boxing day meeting and Robbie Bugden was able to come out of the blocks firing with the benefit of those very settings. If I can be so crass as to induge in self praise a lot of that is owed to sheer bloody minded persistence.
''Wooden'' control tyres and a stock suspension formula with ''band aids'' of allowable firmer springs only will by no means provide the level of feel and track connection, compared to proper tyres and well sorted race specific ( as opposed to road going ) oem suspension. Whats clever about winding the oem settings to max to try and afford some form of control? This is no longer the 1970s, issues are unavoidably more complex and so are the solutions. We have to accept that and go with it rather than negatively deriding so.
Sketchy, I am cursing you for expending so much time explaining all this but also thank you as I think Ive been able to offer a yet more plausible case why with higher powered machines oem suspension and theIr interaction with tyres is a folly and fraught with issues.

[Robert Taylor]

You Protestant's are all the same !

Thanks for the compliment!

[Robert Taylor]

I realise there was more to it than just the shock, but also kind of proves my point that a rider can easily outride the limitations of fancy equipment just as easily as they can outride the limitations of stock?

Sorry to have to use Jay's unfortunate day there, But i feel it has some relevance.

Please don't think of me as someone trying to bring a product down or nay say to people with vast experience, I'm just trying to learn about this in an informed manner so I can form my own opinion of it. I will have a chance to learn about the limitations of stock suspenders at the end of december which will also help.

Cheers,
-Glen

Do you have an invite? Pm me with your details

[Shaun]

Some perspective and please excuse a little anger for having to expend time elaborating at length......... As a generalised statement the nature of forums is such that its all too easy to snipe from the sidelines when not being privy to the full context.
Point of fact different circuit and as I abundantly recall it was a bitterly cold day that drained the heat out of that induced into the tyres by the warmers.....even before the bikes rolled off the dummy grid onto the track proper. The tyres were well away from their ideal ''temperature window'', that being the predominant and over-riding reason for lack of feel ( and grip ) on that day. As I have been at pains to point out in other threads we in NZ often attempt to race in much colder conditions than riders in the northeren hemisphere, they ''shut down'' over the winter. Bear in mind that the tyres we source come from that hemisphere where the mass markets are and where they almost always race in much more agreeable temperatures.
Note that cold days at tracks like Manfield reflect in much slower lap times and because of relative lack of feel I hasten to add more crashing due to feel / grip deficiency than you will usually see at a Nationals round.....where the riders are going significantly faster and hanging it on the edge.
One very compelling reason why race riders prefer higher performance tyres and suspension is superior feel and feedback, and indeed the ability to readily dial in / optimise that feel. If the rider can feel more ''connected'' to the track that in itself can allow the rider to be more comfortable at the edge of traction and further minimise crashing.
Aside from the icy temps we did ( candidly ) take a while to dial in Jays suspension but walking away from a challenge was not in either my script or that of his team, who in the end event found that ride height geometry was one of the most critical factors allied to Jays unique style. History records that Jay finished as NZ#3 at the Nationals, due to his own ability but also because of relentless development of the suspension and interaction with a tyre company / distributor whose coalface involvement shames all others in the sport. The superb feel we dialed into the machine was light years better than the oem suspenders and our start gate position. And I attribute some of the improvement to lessons we learnt at pre season World Supersport testing with Katsu Fujiwara. ( as a footnote these bikes handled well but struggled all year due to horsepower deficiency )
I dont see any committment from the makers of oem suspension to constantly improve suspension settings trackside at NZ racetracks????
The example of Nick Cole must also be cited. With all due respect to Nick his personal stats are challenging when setting up a bike. Nick initially tried firmer and firmer springs in the front end ( and in fact on the oem rear shock ) of his ZX6R to try and achieve some modicum of decent brake dive pitch control. To no avail. The rather dodgy oem cartridges in the ZX6R are a peened together sealed for life unit that makes it less than easy to respec them without some costly and time consuming re-engineering and parts.
Springs are about position ( oversimplistically ) and trying to afford much better regulation of brake pitch control by ( effectively ) over-springing is a very poor band -aid as it will have negative consequences in other areas such as side grip etc.
The solution was to fit our beloved Swedish cartridges with valving appropriate for Nick. In doing so this liberated Nicks performance and he is using those same settings to this day. A similiar situation applies to fitment of the TTX rear.
With a stock suspension formula that allows for only spring rate changes Nicks competitiveness would be seriously undermined as the damping would no longer be able to be calibrated to his body mass. In essence then it would hardly be a fair playing field! Springs are about ''base position'', damping is about controlling / regulating that rate of change of position. Sadly, its difficult to get many to accept that technical fact as too many people are locked into a 70s mentality. Brutally, ''ignorance is bliss''
Interestingly, when I attended an Ohlins distributor conference late last year one of the subject matters was that the new ZX6R and GSXR1000K7 were very difficult bikes to set up and there was a common consensus that the rear ride height on these only worked within a relatively narrow window. We too initially struggled with setup with Craig Shirriffs GSXR1000K7 and the testing is always done in the public eye and amongst those with a great Kiwi knocking machine attitude. Imagine ( as I have often wanted to do ) insisted on the riders carrying out their testing during actual VMCC race heats by cruising into the pits several times to make setting changes........... I also remember the uproar when Sam Smiths bike turned up with data logging transducers fitted. ( legal for VMCC ) Oh how the temerity of using modern technology to actually learn something!!!!!!!!! Thankfully we had Craigs bike very dialed come the Boxing day meeting and Robbie Bugden was able to come out of the blocks firing with the benefit of those very settings. If I can be so crass as to induge in self praise a lot of that is owed to sheer bloody minded persistence.
''Wooden'' control tyres and a stock suspension formula with ''band aids'' of allowable firmer springs only will by no means provide the level of feel and track connection, compared to proper tyres and well sorted race specific ( as opposed to road going ) oem suspension. Whats clever about winding the oem settings to max to try and afford some form of control? This is no longer the 1970s, issues are unavoidably more complex and so are the solutions. We have to accept that and go with it rather than negatively deriding so.
Sketchy, I am cursing you for expending so much time explaining all this but also thank you as I think Ive been able to offer a yet more plausible case why with higher powered machines oem suspension and theIr interaction with tyres is a folly and fraught with issues.

Good effort, vast explanation, even though it is not the 70's as you say, could you explain how all the riders/racers of that time, managed to learn how to race a bike safely and as succesfully as lots of them did, using the STD stuff, and Springs, and Oil only as there mods?