CBR250 Forums banner

Harley Tyres

42K views 190 replies 29 participants last post by  BLUEY 
+1 Harley's suck.

+1 we've heard it all a million times.

+1 if you start a thread on a sportsbike forum about Harley's, someone HAS TO say how shit they are. It's an obligation, a duty, and a pleasure.

Plus another example of Merudo singling Drew out to sling some mud, the only person he ever singles out, because Drew doesn't bite back. Is it because Drew won't ))<>(( forever with you Merudo? :D

Justin.
 
richo said:
Meh, drew's whole argument above is that if you ride faster on a harley than is safe they're dangerous, last time I checked the same thing applies to sportsbikes.
I think his argument is actually just that they're pieces of shit... :blush:

Justin.
 
Having a bad day Richo?

Justin.
 
Richo: You've stated an opinion that you think Harley's are good for image/posing. This is CLEARLY an opinion and not a fact, as not everyone agrees that they look cool but anyone with any sense whatsoever will agree that they offer poor performance. Bikes don't protect the rider from external hard things that hurt with crumple zones and crash cages, so the only safety protection they offer the rider IS performance. Chinese cars that end up with zero star crash ratings and crush their occupants from 50kph collisions are poor for safety, are you going to make the argument that they're fine as long as you're the only person on the road and you don't go faster than 20kph? No, they're unsafe buckets of shit because they're designed to do over 100kph (as are Harleys) and life is unpredictable, you don't know when you're going to need to rely on handling and braking performance.

No matter how much of a tanty you want to throw, I agree with Drew on this one. You stated that Drew's argument is if you ride a Harley faster than is safe they're dangerous. The point is, that "faster than is safe" is the speed limit on many roads.

If you want to drive a bucket of shit with no grip, bad suspension, etc, then fine, you've got a crash cage around you that will bail you out of most non-retarded behaviour. To choose a bike that offers shit performance can have very severe consequences, and is knocking on the door of a Darwin award.

Justin.
 
richo said:
Meh, the safety of the thing in that context is pretty vague. Consider a car marging over you because you're in his blind spot. Do you really think that being on a superbike will make it hurt any less?
In that case, who will be better able to avoid the situation, someone on a superbike with great braking handling and grip, or someone on a Harley with shit braking handling and grip?

My first crash was swerving (and braking :blush:) to avoid someone who failed to give way. I ham fisted it (noob), but you'd have to be a bit loose to either suggest that a Harley would be equally equipped to avoid such a situation as a sportsbike or that such an event would never happen to a good/experienced rider. Performance avoids crashes, and could save your life.


If you honestly believe that the gear on your bike in terms of suspension/brakes/geometry is the only thing that's keeping you safe then I'm genuinely concerned for your safety.
I'm genuinely concerned for your ability to read a sentence. I said "Bikes don't protect the rider from external hard things that hurt with crumple zones and crash cages, so the only safety protection they offer the rider IS performance.". What else does THE BIKE offer to protect the rider?


Motorcycles are deathtraps. There is fuck all to protect you in the event of the unexpected, the only thing that will keep you safe is being alert and making good decisions.
That's a ridiculous statement that you're only making because it's self-serving. Safety is a sliding scale, no vehicle is 100% safe and none are 0% safe. Good tyres provide better safety than shit tyres. Good brakes provide better safety than shit brakes. Good suspension provides better safety than shit suspension. That's plainly obvious.

Once you crash it's obviously too late, but both rider AND bike have a part to play in avoiding accidents in the first place.


Can someone a bit more statistics savvy try to find the stats on accidents on sportbikes vs choppers? I think you'll find a dumbshit on a gixxer is far more likely to get himself wrapped around a tree than a dude with some common sense and the will to live on a massive harley.
An extreme example of apples and oranges. What I'd like to see are the stats relation to apples and apples, how many riders of EQUALLY mild temperament and high ability crash gixxers vs harleys.


And as far as Harley's being good for posing.. is it my opinion? Yes, like most things you fucken bet it is. Are you actually trying to deny that they're better at posing around than they are at cutting hot laps of winton?
Are you suggesting that because Harley's are fucking shit on a race track, that inherently makes them GOOD for posing on? Fuck no, a postie bike is shit on a racetrack and shit at posing on too. Saying that they're better for posing on than riding isn't saying much at all...


My main point is, how many of you have actually tried this? I'm so fucking sick of keyboard warriors banging on about how this is dangerous and that's unsafe or stupid. At least I'm getting out and trying these things.
Wow dude, it sounds like you need a break from the internet, since when is someone sharing an opinion on a forum a "keyboard warrior"? No one is acting belligerent except you. If you can't discuss things objectively and state your case without tanties, why are you here? Do you actually enjoy the frustration?


I've got some idea of how to ride a bike. I've ridden a lowered R6, I've abused a ratbike on arrowmaxes. If someone lends me a chopper I'll ride that too and report back.[hr]
This is not intended as a blow below the belt as you ackowledged this at the time, but putting arrowmaxes on the ratbike and abusing them resulted in you crashing on the road. I'm of the opinion, and I'm sure Drew is too, that each road crash could be your last, and I don't want to test that luck.

Justin.
 
Worm said:
lol @ Sir.b jumping to Drews defence.... again......
Drew's making his arguments and I'm making mine. I agree with his baseline (if not every one of his points) that Harley's are more dangerous than sportsbikes, and that compromising performance/safety for style is stupid on a motorbike.

If you think I'm just defending Drew and not making logical arguments, why not stretch those mental muscles of yours and argue the point rather than the man?

Thanks for getting involved though, your input was invaluable :D

By the way, Lee, adults having an argument/debate isn't a dick measuring contest, what do you find so confronting about people discussing a difference of opinion?

Justin.
 
richo said:
But the argument never was "which handles better". I'm not actually suggesting that a harley handles better and never was. I'm suggesting that if you ride within those limits, you're still got an acceptable safety margin.
Again, 'acceptable' is a matter of opinion. When it comes to my ability to walk, or stay alive, I want take all precautions, and won't hamstring myself by buying something that I feel is inherently less safe than another option. Riding a bike is dangerous and stupid, granted, but I'm prepared to trade off my safety for my thrills to a point, but I won't ride on wet tracks (and prefer not to ride on wet roads too) and I wouldn't ride on icy roads at all because it's outside of what I consider reasonable risk.


I'm guessing here about where those limits lie, and so are both of you. In Drew's case I'll freely admit it's a more educated guess, but if they're so obviously dangerous why don't you hear of more cases of people killing themselves on them?
For the same reason you don't hear of a lot of cases of people killing themselves with old unroadworthy cars. They're dangerous, but you still need luck not to go your way to die in them as long as you're not being an idiot. Even though my car is nothing to write home about, I bought good tyres and my brakes work well, and the moment either of those two things are no longer true, I will address them.

No one is saying that a Harley is going to take on a mind of its own and try to kill the rider, just that deliberately compromising performance for style is dumb and not something I'd want to be a part of. Even if I probably won't die riding one, the risks are higher as they provide less options for getting out of trouble (and we ALL get into trouble now and then, our fault or not).


I'm not suggesting that it's "equally equipped".
You were suggesting that it wouldn't make any difference if you were on a Harley or a superbike when a car tried to merge into you. I had someone do a left turn into a driveway from the middle lane across my path while I was doing 70kph, I braked very hard (gpr70's) and hit the car at about 5kph and kept it upright. How do you think it would have turned out if I was on a Harley with poor braking performance?

This is what I'm talking about. You can argue that I shouldn't have been doing 70kph in a 70kph zone on a dry day, but that would be silly. I was travelling down the road and a guy who was not familiar with the area (his admission after the event) found the driveway he needed at the last minute and banged a hard move to make it there from the middle lane. I was attentive and braked early and hard, as soon as he gave any indication that he was going to make a move. Shit happens, and I want to maximise my ability to get out of it.


I'm suggesting that a good rider won't put themselves in the situation in the first place.
Are you suggesting that good riders don't make mistakes, or that a good rider can't find themselves in danger at no fault of their own?


A modern sportsbikes brake setup is designed so that you can comfortable stop the thing from about 260 km/h with zero weight over the front wheel until you stop in stock trim. So does it logically follow that doing it on the road is safe because the bike is capable of it? Fuck no.
The argument isn't that you should ride to the maximum potential of what your bike offers, it's that some bikes don't meet the minimum standards that they should. They pass ADRs obviously, but that's clearly not enough.


I see exactly what you're getting at, but per kilometer I've had far less crashes on my cbr than I have on my R6. And you can bet I was riding a fuckton harder on my R6 for all of those.
It's a concern that you would include "less crashes" as a pro-argument. Every crash I've had has been regrettable, I don't judge the safety of something by how often I crash on it, my goal is to never crash again and I will never buy a bike with shit performance or buy shit tyres because it's counterproductive to that goal. I would expect that most sensible people would want to do everything they could to avoid crashing on the road.


For that matter, my cbr is in all likelyhood far more dangerous than any HD on the market. Definately was when it had lubed brakes and no fork oil. Do you know how many times I stacked it in that time? 0. Why? Because I knew I was on a bike with shit brakes and no fork oil, I left myself a fuckton of room!!
So because you survived riding something dangerous, that means it wasn't dumb to ride it in the first place? I can't help drawing a parallel to a soldier coming back from war saying "war's not dangerous, I survived, I kept my head down!".


I'm saying that in any case, no matter what bike they're on, a rider making smart decisions BEFORE they're up shit creek will save them a lot of pain.
And I'm saying there's a lot of external forces outside of your control, good riding does not eliminate the possibility of ending up up shit creek but having a good performing bike will improve your chances of getting out of it once you find yourself swimming.


I'd hardly say it's self serving. Good brakes and suspension is nice, but in saying that would you actually suggest that an R6 is any safer on the road than an SV650?
Firstly, an SV650 has no dumb compromises. Take a look at the thing, they certainly haven't chosen form over function! As long as the rider isn't using the extra performance of the R6 to be a twat of course, yes, the R6 will be marginally safer. A hard tail Harley chopper is no SV650 however...


Riding a motorcycle in the first place is a calculated risk, how you choose to minimise that risk is entirely up to the invidual.
Absolutely, but there's no denying that different bikes pose different risks. If someone wants to jump off a cliff into water of an unknown depth that's entirely up to them, won't stop me thinking they're an idiot.


I totally agree. However, I'm working with what (might be?) is available. There surely are statistics on what type of bike have more prangs.
Which would have absolutely nothing to do with the debate. Let's say it turns out that there have been 10 cruiser deaths and 100 sportsbike deaths in the last x years....

What percentage of bikes on the road are cruisers and what percentage are sportsbikes?
How many k's per year were the cruisers on the road compared to the sportsbikes?
What was the age and experience of the cruiser riders compared to the sportsbike riders?
Where were the respective bikes being ridden?

Not to mention the FACT that idiot hoons are overrepresented on sportsbikes.

Raw crash numbers have absolutely no statistical merit in this discussion.


Well posing on is far too loosely defined for this argument to really go anywhere, I think. However in saying that, I think a harley is perfectly capable of riding down to the peninsula for a bite of lunch in moderate safety.
So is any ADR compliant vehicle. I want my safety to be more than moderate, I want it to be as good as possible while still getting to eat my cake.


I'm just saying that maybe horses for courses applies here?
I'm not trying to stop people riding Harleys, in the same way as I'm not trying to stop people going BASE jumping. If you want to do it, it's your life, I won't buy a Harley though, because I think the ability of my bike to stop and swerve may save my bacon one day, and I like bacon.


All I was getting at is that there's a big difference between saying "this is shit" and actually trying it. The real world can be different to the test bench (or the textbook).
Again, Harley's aren't going to spontaneuously combust or counter steer you into the ground. They are less capable of dealing with what the road confronts us with, you don't need to test that out to know it's true, and I'm not going to risk my neck to test something obvious.

Meh. I took a calculated risk.
Which is the crux of this debate. You're comfortable subjecting yourself to much larger risks than I am, and will ride in a situation where crashing is all but inevitable. G broke two vertibrae crashing a pocket bike on a go-kart track and is lucky to be walking, you don't need to be doing ridiculous speeds to hurt yourself, and I have an always will try to keep my risks manageable.


That crash was regrettable, but rather than just moping and saying oh fuck I crashed I chose to look at it from a few steps back and see what I could learn from it.
When I put down my gpx on arrowmaxes because of traction loss, and then put down my ciblet on better (but still average) tyres because of traction loss, I went and bought good tyres so as to increase my safety margin. Could I have avoided both accidents by changing my decisions leading up to the crashes? Yeah absolutely. I could have not gotten out of bed too, but that's not realistic, neither is the idea that I'll never make a mistake again on the road on a bike. So, I recognised that I'm not infallible, and also that it may not even by my fallability that puts me in the shit, and did what I could to give myself more headroom. That's what I call learning from my mistakes.

Justin.
 
Agree to disagree -> continue.

Nicely played Richo.

Justin.
 
richo said:
Because you've never done the same thing. :blush:
Well, if someone went to the trouble of responding to all of my points, then I would respond back in turn and then agree to disagree, not ignore the arguments presented and then change tack to having cheap jabs at the issue. Not my style to back away from an argument while I still think I'm right though unless the other party has resorted to nonsense.


I would have thought the abundance of smilies would have given away my insincerity. Just because I've agreed to disagree on the key issues (And conceded that my argument was based on some somewhat skewed views) doesn't mean I'm not planning on watching this thread (Which I fully expect to reach 45 pages an teh lawk!) and chiming in occasionally.
I think the /shitstir made it pretty clear, just sayin that it's cheap. It's really only me you and Drew involved in this (not including Merudo going "pffft" to Drew here and there), I don't see it continuing much further.

Justin.
 
Cheers Rich :D This post was too long to proof read, please disregard any instances of poor spelling and/or grammar :p


richo said:
I see what you're driving at. I still take precautions (The closest I'll come to squidding is draggins instead of leathers).
I have a bad history with protective gear, which will no doubt continue. My take is that a crash is pretty much going to hurt no matter what, so I like to put my eggs in the "don't crash and you won't need gear" basket :p

With that said, if I'm not geared up, I take extra precautions.

There's a little internal hypocrisy going on, yes, but I'm not on the "WEAR GEAR YOU IDIOT" bandwagon so at least I don't push that hypocrisy on others :D I really love a shorts and singlet cruise on a hot day, for me it's worth the risk to skin.


My logic on this is probablydefinately a bit skewed, in that I find a modern sportsbike just way too boring for the road because you can't ride the thing even vaguely close to what it's capable of unless you want to go to jail.
While this is true, the reason I started doing track days is that I realised how dumb I was being on the road and that it was only a matter of time until I completely fucked myself up. Actually, it was less about realising this (knew it all along) and more deciding that I wasn't prepared to jump headfirst into that outcome anymore.


I suppose in a technically inferior bike I see the opportunity to have some more fun on it because you can be going much slower and still somewhere near (if not on the limits of the bike). This is something that is in retrospect fairly obvious in my replies and thought processes, but isn't something I'd really given much thought in the context of the discussion.
Makes sense. Where I'm at right now is maximising safety on the road and saving my fun for the track. Crashing anywhere still hurts, and the track isn't made of feathers and foam, but we all recognise that if going too fast is in the blood, it's in the blood.


Trying to look at this objectively, perhaps I'm expecting a higher standard of personal responsibility from the average road user (who to be fair seem to have an IQ around room temperate) than is realistic.
Perhaps. Other road users are my primary concern, if not for them, I wouldn't find riding like a cock such a dangerous activity.

Don't edit out the "like a" :D


And if you were on a superbike with brembo calipers and beringer rotors, you would have pulled up in time. Or you would have panicced and flipped yourself over the bars and faceplanted the car.
Possibly, who knows.


And in saying that, Mick Doohan could probably have pulled up a harley with poor brakes in time (or avoided the incident with steering) -> and no I don't know all the specifics. It may have been physically impossible to avoid the accident on a harley, that's immaterial to what I'm driving at.
I get your point, and I'm definitely no Doohan. I've thought about whether steering input would have possibly been able to avoid the collision entirely a number of times, but I think I chose the right option because me and the bike ended up unscathed (save for a small chip on the paint) and the dude's car ended up with an impression of my knee in his rear 1/4. Win-win :D


I'm not saying you should deliberatley ride a crap bike, the point I was trying to get across is that you're better of practicing and being good at riding whatever you're on, rather than assuming that because you've got shithot brakes and suspension you just have to pull the lever and you'll be fine.
Can't argue with that.


Perhaps more that a good rider wouldn't blame the bike afterwards, even if a better bike could have saved the incident.
I think taking personal responsibility for accidents that you had a HOPE of avoiding/saving is a potentially life saving attitude, so I can't fault the thinking behind it, however, you must recognise that not all accidents are saveable. There is a grey area in the middle where an accident would be saveable (within your skill level of course, not inherently) if the bike was better, and if I found myself in that grey area, I'd want to be on the better bike :p


The point that I was originally trying to make though is, that you don't buy a harley unless you really like the styling. As someone who doesn't like it, it's obviously a very easy choice for you to choose the safer bike. If they were just as safe you'd probably still take the sportsbike I'm guessing.
I would, I prefer the sportsbike styling, but I wouldn't rag on Harleys if they were well engineered.


For a person who's into it in a big way, assuming that safety is a concern, they'll weigh up the compromise between styling that they like and potential safety concerns and make their own decision on their own standards, in just the same way that people who are very competent riders choose to run harder commuting tyres that offer less grip than the softer sports tyres to save a little coin. There's more grey area than I think you gave the issue credit for.
Fair call. It's all risk:reward at the end of the day, and if I was a mad fucking Harley nut (just like if I was a mad fucking throw myself off cliffs nut) I'm sure I'd say the risk is worth the reward.


I'm just saying that you choose to ride a bike over driving a car in spite of the fact that it's more dangerous for a multitude of reasons, whether it be cost, speed, time saving or simply because you like riding bikes. It's that same sliding scale, just slid a little further.
I'm not really sure it follows. I choose to ride a single tracked vehicle, yes, but I think I have taken a good number of precautions to avoid crashing it, primarily choosing a bike that offered good handling and performance characteristics. The decision at the time was about performance, but my continual use of good tyres even though the bike is now primarily a commuter is all safety.


There aren't many people who I'll honestly believe if they try to argue that their experiences are any different either.
I was absolutely not doing anything stupid during my first crash. I was doing less than 40kph in a 60 zone because it was wet and coasting (neutral throttle) past a line of cars pulled up in a turning lane waiting for a light, then bang, dude a few metres in front of me pulls out. Even hampered by the cold max's, I think I would have been able to steer around it now that I'm less of a noob, maybe, but I was totally behaving myself (taking it very gentle actually) at the time. He paid for the damages for failing to give way.


I'm not glad I had any of my stacks, but I make a point of not making the same mistake twice. There's an old adage about the difference between a rider with 10 years experience, or 2 years experience 5 times over. I'm making the choice not to be the latter.
I've learnt from mine too. I don't think I had to actually smash to learn the lesson, I've learned plenty from scares too.


I don't want to crash- but if either one of us was 100% dedicated to never crashing again we'd sell our bikes and solve the problem once and for all. Again, it's a sliding scale of acceptable risk, and there's no right answer.
Agreed. For me, a Harley is outside of what I call acceptable risk. At the end of the day it's about odds, nothing is inevitable, and I'd take one for a blat, shit, I'd even take the rat bike for a blat, but the longer you spend on something that won't stop and won't steer, the greater your chances of finding yourself in a situation where you absolutely need to. Massively unlikely that anything will happen during a short blat where the rider shows self control, but unacceptable for me in the long term.


Well I want to clear this up very simply. No, riding it was a retarded idea. I'm probably lucky to have gotten away with it. All I'm saying is that while I was relying on luck to an extent, I made choices that minimised that risk, which clearly had some effect on the outcome.
A bad rider, or bad situational choices, are much more dangerous than a bad bike, granted. I'm not concerned about bad riding or bad choices, I only have myself to blame for those, and I tend to do both ok on the road these days, my accidents were all in the first yearish of having a bike.


I'm just saying that if you want one enough to buy it, you can compensate for the disadvantages in safety by making good decisions.
We've accepted however that not everything is in our control, and you can't compensate enough to get back to level pegging with a sports bike (ridden responsibly).


Would you drive a 74 valiant? It certainly doesn't turn or brake as well as a modern car, but there's nowhere near the same level of stigma around classic cars as there is long motorcycles.
I would, because it's got a nice sturdy cage around it, which I think completely changes the state of play. I wouldn't own a bike that was the equivalent of a 74 valiant though. I'd putt one around to see how bad it is, but I wouldn't throw myself into heavy traffic on one, and if it started raining, I'd pull the fuck over!


If someone can show you that the water is of a safe depth and there's nothing pointy at the bottom,and 3 of your mates make the jump without being injured would you do it?
I wouldn't be so worried about my mates surviving it, honestly I'd make my own mind up. A couple of my mates jumped off a bridge into the Yarra many moons ago, they were fine, but I didn't follow, I thought getting a mouthful of Yarra water was fucking stupid even if the drop didn't hurt :p


Although, in saying that, do you really think the dickhead:bike ratio is that much higher on sportsbikes as compared to harleys?
I do, honestly. There's only one Harley rider I've ever seen being a twat, he had some fucking super modified thing that was pulling wheelies on each gear change up to 60kph. We dragged on Royal Pde :p

The number of sports bike riders I've seen taking absolutely stupid risks however I wouldn't even try to count. Recently I saw a 600RR absolutely fanging it (well over 100kph from my expert opinion :p) lane splitting up the inside of stationary cars in the rain. If *anything* popped up in his path, a car door, a pushbike, a pedestrian, a fucking possum, he was fucked. There was nowhere to swerve and no chance of stopping.


That's your choice, and while I'm arguing the specific case of harleys here, in a broader sense I'm arguing for the right of people to apply some common sense and buy a bike that ticks all the boxes they're looking for.
I respect the right for people to make their own choices, we only get one life and we should live it how we choose, even if it ends up being a short one. I've taken much greater risks on my sportsbike than no doubt 99% of Harley riders ever will (don't anymore though), so I'm not about to abuse an individual who chooses to ride a risky bike, but I have a fundamental issue with a manufacturer sacrificing performance/safety for style.

My take is that if you're going to ride a bike, make it a safe one, they're dangerous enough as it is.


Cool, something we actually agree on. I fucking love bacon too.
LOL :lol:


G breaking his back is a tragedy, but considering that he was riding a pocketbike on a closed circuit, there's not a great deal more he could have done. As far as I'm concerned all you're illustrating is that shitty things can happen to you regardless of where you are.
True. The point I was making here was in reference to arrowmaxes on the go-kart track the other week. When I was pushing the inevitability of the crash to you before you went out there, what I was really trying to get across is not that you might damage your rat bike, that you might damage yourself (while attempting to not come across as a fuddy duddy preacher). I wouldn't go out if I thought I was probably going to crash, because as G regretably proved, you don't have to be going very fast to fuck yourself up.


Sure, take every precaution you can to make your fun safe, but I'd much rather die in a fireball at 20 than wrap myself in bubble wrap and not do anything my whole life so I can look back at 80 and think "fuck yeah, i lived for ages.. and did fuck all".

There's a difference between living, and being alive for a long time.
Honestly, I don't think there's a pair of deaf ears in this place for that to fall on, we all ride bikes, we all understand risk:reward. How far you push that though is a personal decision, it's not a choice between bubble wrap and fireballs.


Would I have gotten away with how much trailbraking I gave a crack on the arrowstax the other week on better tyres? probably. Doesn't change anything though, I made a bad call and paid for it. As far as I'm concerned that's all there is to it.
We all make bad calls from time to time, but as I'm of the opinion that my next crash could easily be my last, I do what I can to avoid it. You're getting into racing and with racing comes crashes, I'm not trying to talk you out of anything, it's clearly on the positive side of your risk:reward calculation and it's 100% your choice, but you're a daredevil (as all racers are) and I think you need to put yourself in non-daredevil shoes when risk:reward scenarios come up. The vast majority of people would not be prepared to take the risks that you're comfortable with.

Because you're a mate, I'd try to talk you out of anything where I thought the risks were way too bad to be worth the rewards, but we're not at that level yet :D

Justin.[hr]
mitch179 said:
Crazy question here but have any of you guys ridden a cruiser?
I have, but only a 250 so the power was fucked. The seating position was enjoyable, so was the novelty of it, and so was being able to scrape pegs with 4 degrees of lean :D I wasn't particularly concerned about safety at that time of my life though.

Having a wife tends to change things. It would be absolutely fucking irresponsible for me to take the risks that I used to. I'd be horrified if she herself did.

Justin.
 
birdy said:
If scooters are designed to wheelie and stoppy then all bike manufacturers are noobs.
No, Lee (yes, I can tell it's you hiding out posting as Birdy), it's that you fundamentally don't understand what Drew is saying about the issue, probably because it went straight over your head (and parts of it went over mine too!). Drew's not saying that stoppies and wheelies are zomg awesome and that every bike has to be able to do one or it's shit, it's about setting up the geometry to get the weight transferring properly under acceleration and braking, right Drew?


Everyone knows that no one likes to loose at a argument on the internet..... hence dick contest. I have been in enough to know.
One thing I have learnt is dont bother getting into a argument with Dew (and then Justin) because you just cant win
If I had a 0-1000 record I'd take that approach too. Not exactly cut out for the debating team are we Lee? :p

Justin.[hr]
Merudo said:
Keep me out of this guy
You put yourself in it, not by having an opinion, but by replying to Drew with vapid shit like "haha oh wow". Good on you for putting yourself out there though :dodgy:


You're the one that one moment ago said to Richo to argue the point not the man
If you made a point, I'd be happy to argue it. But that IS the point, your posts in this thread have been pointLESS, you're only posting coz you've got an unreciprocated woody for Drew and have had for a looooooong time.

Do you notice that he doesn't even bother replying to you most of the time?

Justin.
 
Ahh, dude, sweet jesus, that's the most fucking distasteful thing you've ever said. LOL.

Justin.
 
Yes, I've ridden a cruiser, but only one so my experience is limited. It handled great at low speed but I didn't trust it for quids to lean over, it would grind pegs at sub-moderate pace around corners and wouldn't stop to save its life. How do you think your Harley would go through a slalom course? What about sweving to avoid a car on the wrong side of the road around a bend or over a crest?

Justin.
 
Mr Orange said:
I'm not posting to change your opinion. Simply saying, everything is flawed. It's just which cracks you prefer (ooo-er missus)[hr]
I'd be interested to hear what you'd say are the cracks in my 2006 CBR600RR?


It'd be competent. Youtube it.
Didn't know what you had. ('90 1340 Evo, got it).

Edit: Scanned a few pages, slalom returned no results, and every video seems to be people either riding in a straght line, or more commonly starting them and revving up in the garage or driveway.

Btw, what cruiser was it?
Virago 250. Entry level model I realise (mentioned it was a 250 earlier in the thread).

Justin.
 
Cerby: Have you ever had the front come up so violently from acceleration (not clutching) that you were in any danger of not being able to back off in time? I've never heard of anyone doing this. Nor have I ever heard of anyone looping a bike from an accidental stoppie.

Justin.
 
richo said:
In any case, I don't see how offsetting the forks forward from headstem when you're looking down them reduces the trail.. explain?
->


Justin.
 
Designed to wheelie.... I'm going to do my best to not use any scientific terms that will confuse people, which will no doubt piss the engineers/scientists off no end :p I'm also going to remove a lot of the geometry and suspension related stuff and essentially reduce it down to fundamentals.

Traction is determined by the amount of weight on a tyre. If there was no weight pushing the tyre down into the road, there would be no traction. The more weight pushing the tyre into the road, the more traction you have.

If the centre of gravity of a bike was at the same height as the two axles, the bike would not be prone to wheelies, but you would also have no weight transfer under acceleration and therefore no increase in traction, which limits the amount of power you can put down to the ground.

By lifting the centre of gravity, we give the bike the ability to transfer weight onto the rear wheel and improve traction, but this also reduces weight on the front wheel, making it prone to lifting.

Wheelies happen when 100% of the weight of the bike is being carried by the rear wheel. It would be quite easy to engineer wheelies out of bikes, but this would be stupid for a sportsbike because stopping wheelies means stopping weight transfer, and good luck getting on the throttle out of a corner without it.

You don't need to be a moto GP crew chief to figure this stuff out, but you do have to be prepared to think. Something you fuckers in a coma clearly have a problem with ;)

Justin.
 
Matt said:
all thinking was removed from this thread
I'm interested in the way bikes work, and so are some other people still hanging on. I don't see why people feel the need to jump in to a conversation other people are having that has nothing to do with them to tell them it's boring, fuck off somewhere else then if you don't want to participate.

Justin.
 
Matt said:
sorry buddy, but i tried reading what you guys were writing and it seemed like a bunch of argy bargy wrapped up in suppositions.
Yeah there was a bit of that going on, however, I personally have learned a shit load about the way a bike behaves because of this thread, it was worth persevering with for me.

Not everyone's here to learn, that's fine, some already get it and don't need to hear it again or can't be bothered wading through piles of shit to find it, that's fine too, but I'll take an opportunity to learn something I give a shit about every time, even if other people seem to resent discussions happening that don't interest them.

Justin.[hr]
richo said:
That means that a lower CoG bike can ALWAYS put down more power than a higher one because the higher one will wheelie easier.
Rich, from my understanding, the amount of traction available is determined by weight transfer, and CoG impacts weight transfer, so the CoG 'sweet spot' will be different for different conditions. Too low a CoG and you can't get the power down without the wheel spinning, too high and it wheelies too easily. This is why drag cars squat at the rear so hard when they launch, because they're set up to get as much weight on the back wheels as they can for traction.

So, I would say, the lower CoG bike CAN'T always put down more power than a higher one because the lower one will break traction easier.


Making this about locking wheels at motoGP standard is insane considering the suspension and tyre advances that have been made in the last 30 years.
Without weight transfer, any tyre will lock/spin, no matter how good it is. You can do a whole lot of stopping and a whole lot of accelerating without lifting a wheel, but both are possible, on my bike or a moto gp bike, and you can definitely break traction, on my bike or a moto gp bike, but they're also set up to stick pretty bloody well overall, so I think that balance, where both wheel lift and traction loss is possible, is the correct balance.

Justin.
 
richo said:
That therefore means that you can move the CoG down safely and get more power down.
There comes a point where the CoG is too low and will result in wheelspin because there's not enough weight transfer happening. That's all I'm saying, there is such thing as too low. I think this is what Drew was referring to when moto GP had their CoG too low, the bikes were unridable because they'd break traction too easily (rather than lift a wheel when the rider asked for more than was available).

You have less traction when you're cornering than when you're in a straight line. If the CoG was low enough that a powerful bike wouldn't wheelie, I'm summising that you would also not get enough weight transfer to be able to power out of corners? Having the bike push on exit because the front lightens when power is applied is infinitely better than getting high sided because weight wouldn't transfer.

Justin.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top