Because if the R1 is such a good bike, why isnt there one team with one ? even privateer ?

Personally, I cant stand the sound of the "new" crossplane engine (not new technology Cadillac introduced the first crossplane in 1923,) it sounds like a four cylinder harley (would)

* Last updated by: carabuser on 6/23/2013 @ 10:53 AM *

Hey Blast!! How are ya! They're full muzzy duals. I like'm but I've got it in right now getting a 4-2-1 Akra being put on it.

Yea Buser I'm not a big fan of their sound either. Sounds....funky! lol As far as good or bad I don't know much about that. I'll bet it's upstairs stuff, you know....the guys in the suits! ha ha

Sic

Friday, June 21 AMA at Barber results:

AMA Pro SuperBike Barber Friday Results 2013:
1. Josh Hayes (Yamaha) 1’25.889
2. Martin Cardenas (Suzuki) 1’25.984
3. Roger Hayden (Suzuki) 1’26.026
4. Danny Eslick (Suzuki) 1’26.851
5. Josh Herrin (Yamaha) 1’27.296
6. Larry Pegram (Yamaha) 1’27.307
7. Chris Fillmore (KTM) 1’27.381
8. David Anthony (Suzuki) 1’27.537
9. Taylor Knapp (KTM) 1’27.735
10. Aaron Yates (EBR) 1’27.842

Apparently the Graves R1 is very competitive with Josh Hayes spinning the throttle. Noticeably absent in the top 15 were any "piranhas"...lol, only goldfish.

When these bikes are race tuned, they all seem to be competive, R1 included.

Yea Josh is a great rider, (I think) I would like to see him go to world superbike and see what he would do there,
see if he is really that good, I dont know that he is or not, since asscar took over AMA and had to change the rules to make it so called "even" in their demented world, I know the bikes are not running to their full potential, Mladin tried to warn the fans about DMG taking over, and said that "if I cannot ride the best bike that is available, then why ride ? " or something to that effect ....

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/95971

Seventh at Valencia in his MotoGP debut, I'd say yes, Hayes is plenty fast enough to be a championship contender in WSBK.

Yea Kruz, I was gonna say that earlier about all the bikes at that level. They've got soooo much money and overall resources available to them they could probably make a bathtub pretty competitive, especially with the right "Shower Handle"!!! HA HAAAAAAA

Kruz, were you considering thr R1 before you got your 10R . I had 5 bikes I was considering, ZX14,ZX10,1000RR, even busa or gixxer (if I could get one considerably cheaper than the others,) but the R1 wasnt really on my list ..

just wondering ....

* Last updated by: carabuser on 6/23/2013 @ 2:26 PM *

cara, I think it was economics with too many tentacles in WSB-FIM/GP-AMA-MotoX-Ect. And I think euro buyers are more ape & duc buyers being brand loyal to euro brands than japanese? So they shrunk during the lean times or low on participation on the customer side, they do the same.

As far as this Y-E-S (yamaha -extended-engine-exchange service) business is concerned, it's a program on the cheap. In other words, swap a fresh engine next race. Cost? I have no clue? Is the yam600 durable? You see any of these bikes blowing up right and left?

I know a few racers on these 600's and it's amazing how they just keep running and running year after year without going thru the engine (IF) you can't afford a YES kind of service. But then you lack HP with those many race hours on it. Is the yam THE BIKE to use as a competitive bike? Parts a plenty? Yep. Rare are the Suz/Hon/Kaw's winning. I tired to talk and had one kid ride a kawi 600, but you can't talk the dad's into changing brands. Not when you can be inundated with extra parts if something goes wrong? So many 600's out there with spares, you can get right back on the grid.

If you break with the Hon/Suz, or say feed the grass with the bike? The day is over. Points are gone that round. Where as you are in better company with running with the rest of the field. So if yam is saying they are concentrating on the their customer base? This YES campaign is keeping the bikes out there... Sans, can afford to race with the big boys and their wallets.

Yea, I toyed with the idea of picking up a well preserved '08 R1 but went with an '08 10R instead when I found a new one at good price. Unfortunately, it got totaled and replaced with an '11 model.

The '07 and '08 R1s were good looking machines IMHO but the '07 had some weird fueling glitch in the ECU. They fixed it for '08, so that's the one I wanted. '09 got heavy and lost it's good looks, in my opinion, with that fat rear end and I wasn't a fan of the crossplane crank.

Yamahas are generally well built reliable machines and have good performance out of the box.

* Last updated by: Kruz on 6/23/2013 @ 2:55 PM *

Hub, what you say makes perfect sense, Ok I am going to start something here LOL ! Do you guys think the R1 is the best 1K, or even in the top 2 ?

Noticeably absent in the top 15 were any "piranhas"...lol, only goldfish.

cara, I'd say it is up there with the best of them. I like the crankcross sound. Now, you have Keith Code's little prodigy and he jumps on a Honda 600, does not know the track, then blows them away with 8 seconds of breathing room. And he's only going to race select AMA races, being he's going back to europe to run the 125cc cup. So this Joe Roberts kid was being trained on Keith's 'Pee Ran HA's'; so for him to jump on a Honda 600? A 125? Learns off a 1000cc MAN machine?

It's no wonder you get someone like this and blows away a bunch of club levels on TV. So rare are the pro's on the bikes out there. My buddy and I were semi-feeding two racer$ and both pretty much were blown away by the time they stepped up to the pro level. Mid packers so we lost interest in them. They were fast club level, but when it came time to run with the likes of a Joe (I show you formula and practice drills) for racing, not come from some Schwantz/Peedmore/Yamaschoolshit. YOu just go round and around and not really learn the ins and outs of the game let alone the head game you need.

If you watch AMA live timing, you can see who has the HP thru the 'traps.' Technically that says nothing. Most have a lot of HP or top end, but have terrible section times. That says they can't turn the bike or go thru the corners fast enough, but anyone can lock the throttle out of a corner and run thru a straightaway and trigger the lights to show your trap. So HP meanshit when it comes to racing. The front runners trap slower but have the sections clicking off seconds a trap can't.

Yea,
I dont know a lot about the AMA, the closest I got was a friend used to sponsor Danny Eslick when he was with Matsushima Suzuki on a 600, I keep asking him to ask danny about the ins and out of the AMA, but he isnt talking ...

Buser, Danny lives about 4 miles from me and Dane Westby lives about 5 miles from me. I think my youngest son went to school with Danny here in Broken Arrow. I've know Dane's dad Tryg even before he opened "The Kinetic Playground" in Tulsa in the 70's. Donny Meador now owns it and is my Brother's "Brother In-law" it's next door to "Westby Racing" here in Tulsa. Yes, it's a pretty tight lipped community. Sic

Hub, what you say makes perfect sense, Ok I am going to start something here LOL ! Do you guys think the R1 is the best 1K, or even in the top 2 ?

Out of the box maybe not, heavy and a little down on power, tuned, look at what Ben Spies did on one his first try.
I've never owned one but good handling seems to be their trademark.

Look at the top ten results at Barber, it's an all Yamaha/Suzuki show in the AMA, two Katooms and one Erik Buell included. I don't see any BMW, Honda or Kawasaki. Could be race contingencies from the manufacturers play a big part.

I keep saying all these bikes have similar potential when tuned, look at Tom Sykes results in WSB aboard a ZX-10R.

* Last updated by: Kruz on 6/23/2013 @ 5:07 PM *

What are the ins or outs? You buy an AMA membership, a mechanics license a pit crew that will let you in and you are in! You need an engine man, a mechanic, a suspension man and a sandwich maker. That's the pits sans the bike and rider. There is this 'team' that has to gel or it's a horror show for everyone. I've pitted in the horror aspect and with two decision makers it goes downhill from there. So I was in and then OUT!

Well, what I meant by the ins and outs, was if everyone is playing by the rules, this started a long time ago, Mladin said something to the fans about DMG taking over and ruining the sport, then next race they pit Mladins bike and tear it down, and say he is using an illegal crank (BS) he said "we all use the same cranks" they didnt tear down Spies bike, then all of a sudden the yamahas start blowing everyone away, like I said I might be reading too much into this, and I dont claim to know a lot about AMA racing etc ... but just thought this turn of events was strange, Oh and the crew cheif for Yosh eluded to the fact that some team or teams are using not so legal electronics ...

HuB I was hoping to find a response to my Dildo post...

You mean the politics of racing? Yes, that was a (cough factory) trick crank. "If you are not cheating you are not winning" is the asscar way. Same trickles down to bikes, box cars, etc. There were [a lot of] tricks to the Yoshi bike I cannot disclose, and those were way before Mat came on the scene.

You mean the ins and outs of who gets a pass and who does not?

As far as the dil, Wolfy?... You need to commit to loading up injection molded dil videos, receive a warning from utube that this rubber phallic is more harmful than watching beheadings you wave 72 dills at those idiots. And then say...

Hub,,,HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
You kill me!
Fk never change dude, NEVER!

Now, you have Keith Code's little prodigy and he jumps on a Honda 600, does not know the track, then blows them away with 8 seconds of breathing room

It's all about the rider, fully 95% of the equation is the rider's skill, other 5% is other variables including the bike chosen.

I figured this out after buying a whole string of sportbikes and found out I could go down the same road just as fast or faster on a 600 as on a 1000cc bike with a gazillion HP. It isn't how much power you have available that counts, it's how much of the power that is available you can use. Now I'm talking about corners, a trained monkey could literally ride a motorcycle in a straight line, there is almost no skill involved. Corners have an almost infinite number of variables that a rider must learn to contend with and every corner is different, snowflake theory.

If a rider can use 50 HP in a corner and you put him on a 150 HP bike, he's still going to use only 50 HP, that other 100 HP is unusable.

That's why I now laugh at dyno reports and spec sheets from magazines, you cannot ride a spec sheet. Only a very few gifted riders can begin to come close to using what any modern literbike has in stock HP on the track, much less the street where all literbikes are way overpowered.

This stuff about which bike is best is nonsense, they are all good and all capable of winning depending upon the track chosen, the rider and other variables.

I fight this stupidity on every forum I belong to and that is a bunch of them, ZX-14 Forum, ZX-6R forum, ZX-10R forum and CBR 1000RR forum. Everyone thinks that there bike is the best and all others are crap. No, they got it wrong, all of the bikes are good and it is they that are full of crap.

My advice to newbie riders, get your head out of those magazine test reports and spec sheets, man up and go to Keith Code's California Superbike School or other school in your area and learn how to ride and then practice, practice and more practice. When you get tired of practice, practice some more.

You cannot buy speed in this sport no matter how fat your wallet is, it must be payed for by blood, sweat, tears and hours of hard work on the basics. Rich man, poor man, makes no difference, the path is always the same.

Not directing this rant at anyone in particular but if the shoe fits..........

Kruz, were you considering thr R1 before you got your 10R . I had 5 bikes I was considering, ZX14,ZX10,1000RR, even busa or gixxer (if I could get one considerably cheaper than the others,) but the R1 wasnt really on my list ..

just wondering ....

You cannot go far wrong with any of those bikes depending on what you want to do with them. If you are going to do track or hard core twisties then the Busa and ZX-14 are not my first choice but will definitely work with the proper setup. The Gixxer, CBR1000RR, ZX-10R and R1 are all excellent, find the one that you like at the right price and then set it up it to work for you. I have a theory on suspension, leave it the heck alone until you can outride the stock suspension settings. The factory spent a great deal of money and hard work getting the basic suspension settings correct for a wide range of variables. It is hard to imagine someone with limited or no understanding of suspension (complex subject) armed only with a screwdriver and spring spanner improving on what the experts at the factory came up with.

When you are riding fast enough to outride the stock suspension and start having handling problems, now it's time to start tweeking things slowly and methodically.

I've seen guys really bugger up the suspension on their bikes by not knowing what they're doing but then again, that's why the owners manual lists the stock settings.

Yes, I think most bikes are good when you get to the level of a sportbike, I like just about all bike makers, (except maybe that one that has a two letter abbreviation, just kidding !) duc, aprilla (although I dont think I would want the maintenence of the aprilla) I am thinking of picking up a used CBR 1000 to mess around on, its in showroom condition and has LOW miles, and I can probably get for $5000, not a bad street 1000 ? it's a 2004 though..

* Last updated by: carabuser on 6/24/2013 @ 8:31 AM *

I agree, Kruz. But here's the thing. Keith has brought along many top riders. No other trackday school can point that out. Pointing out it is not practice, practice, that gets you there. It's literally has come down to a science. Keith is more detailed in every way. The other schools are just expensive lap times that go nowhere fast.