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Usless / unnecessary bike tech

I've seen three bikes totalled on demo rides over the years.two ducatis and one Honda ss.None had wheelie control.It would have prevented the wrecks.
You can't know that and you can't blame lack of rider control on lack of nanny features, those riders probably had no business being on those rides in the first place :| what did they ride in on, mom's minivan?

& as a trials rider you should know darn well that wheelies save lives.
 
One of them was a Diavel.The Harley owner bragged that his Fatboy with 8k motor upgrades had way more power.And then he looped it.Wheelie control would have helped.But he took it out of tour mode and put it in sport mode.Boom!
 
One of them was a Diavel.The Harley owner bragged that his Fatboy with 8k motor upgrades had way more power.And then he looped it.Wheelie control would have helped.But he took it out of tour mode and put it in sport mode.Boom!

:lmao: There's the problem, what would a Harley Fatboy rider know about wheelies, that's probably the bike he learned to ride on.
 
I've seen three bikes totalled on demo rides over the years.two ducatis and one Honda ss.None had wheelie control.It would have prevented the wrecks.
Just how many demo rides have you been on? I've only been on a half dozen or so, but never seen a crash or tipover.
 
Just how many demo rides have you been on? I've only been on a half dozen or so, but never seen a crash or tipover.

I dunno.Prolly about 15.The worst demo rides are at big rallys like Americade.I went on one at Ride for Sight in Fenelon Falls.The Harley we took out lost the side stand bolt halfway thru,and i dragged it beside the bike for a few kms.Laid the bike on it's side when we got back.The Harley rep saw me and said thanks.
 
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Just how many demo rides have you been on? I've only been on a half dozen or so, but never seen a crash or tipover.

I did a whole bunch when I first started riding, then petered out over the years. Have done probably same as Wingboy about a dozen or more. Saw about three tipovers over that time. Very embarrassing for the perpetrator because you're in a crowded parking lot with nobody but riders around you. Then you hear this sickening sound of plastic and metal meeting pavement and everyone turns to see who the idiot was.

Didn't see a crash myself on a test ride, but I was next in line for a K1200S at a BMW demo day downtown. The group that went out before me took forever to come back and when they did the K-bike was all rashed up because the rider had lowsided on some streetcar tracks on Lakeshore. So I didn't get to demo the bike I was interested in...
 
My last 1198 was bought cheap cause someone looped it on a test ride.

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Engines with more than 50 kilowatts of power.
What??? 50kw isn't even the entry point for POWER.

...when you get the MONEY... then you get the POWER. Then when you get the POWER then you get the ...

If you don't have the MONEY, 50KW will have to do.
 
What??? 50kw isn't even the entry point for POWER.

...when you get the MONEY... then you get the POWER. Then when you get the POWER then you get the ...

If you don't have the MONEY, 50KW will have to do.

50kw = 67.0511hp

2010 GSX650FA > 85hp
2009 FZ6 > 98hp
1989 VTR250 > 27.5hp

Just putting it out there...
 
...when you get the MONEY... then you get the POWER. Then when you get the POWER then you get the ...

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And all the other flavours of antidive from the other manufacturers.

I *liked* anti-dive! Was an improvement to damping rods which didn't go away for a long time! I think we already did this in another thread though
 
I *liked* anti-dive! Was an improvement to damping rods which didn't go away for a long time! I think we already did this in another thread though

What does antidive have to do with damping rods?

When i bought my Wing in 2002,the first thing i did was disable it.Really crappy system.I never did it,but i have heard of riders blowing fork seals with the Honda system.
 
Damping rod forks increase resistance with increased force. So if they have a damping rate that is good for smoothing out high frequency motion (e.g. you hit a bump or irregularity on the road at speed) then they will have very little resistance to low frequency motion (e.g. loading the forks by applying the brakes) so you get forks that wallow badly every time you stop. If you increase the normal damping rate to a point where the forks don't compress excessively under braking, then they will be rock hard when you hit the high frequency bump and break your pelvis.

(Paraphrasing the Racetech Cartridge Emulator sales pitch from memory)

Cartridge forks are the superior modern solution, but for the time anti-dive let you have a seperate damping rate for times when you were braking. I guess blowing fork seals could be a thing if you hit the wrong kind of bump while you were braking... TRAC was adjustable though, it could be turned down.
 
Then you would love the BMW monoshock front end, it actually works.
 
Damping rod forks increase resistance with increased force. So if they have a damping rate that is good for smoothing out high frequency motion (e.g. you hit a bump or irregularity on the road at speed) then they will have very little resistance to low frequency motion (e.g. loading the forks by applying the brakes) so you get forks that wallow badly every time you stop. If you increase the normal damping rate to a point where the forks don't compress excessively under braking, then they will be rock hard when you hit the high frequency bump and break your pelvis.

(Paraphrasing the Racetech Cartridge Emulator sales pitch from memory)

Cartridge forks are the superior modern solution, but for the time anti-dive let you have a seperate damping rate for times when you were braking. I guess blowing fork seals could be a thing if you hit the wrong kind of bump while you were braking... TRAC was adjustable though, it could be turned down.

Right.I forgot about TRAC.
 
I did a whole bunch when I first started riding, then petered out over the years. Have done probably same as Wingboy about a dozen or more. Saw about three tipovers over that time. Very embarrassing for the perpetrator because you're in a crowded parking lot with nobody but riders around you. Then you hear this sickening sound of plastic and metal meeting pavement and everyone turns to see who the idiot was.

Didn't see a crash myself on a test ride, but I was next in line for a K1200S at a BMW demo day downtown. The group that went out before me took forever to come back and when they did the K-bike was all rashed up because the rider had lowsided on some streetcar tracks on Lakeshore. So I didn't get to demo the bike I was interested in...

You can take my K1200s for a ride, just don’t crash it or rash it....I still want to transport it to Croatia, so I have a ride out there....
 
So I own a VFR 800 V-tec, and while I love the bike it has some rather questionable (imo) tech that really shouldn't have been implemented. First and foremost being the V-tec system. I understand it's supposed to make the bike more fuel efficient, but a valve check on the V-tec is so expensive it totally negates any savings at the pump.

Secondly: Linked brakes. I've been riding for almost 30 years and have never found a need for them. I don't find them intrusive by any means, but similar to what I stated above it makes maintenance more complicated and expensive. Plus the fact that no other manufacturer has added this feature in their lineup (that I know of) should mean something.

As the years go by more and more bikes are featuring more and more tech - some of them useful, others not so much.

Anyhow, these are my 2 main tech gripes that I've found in my years of riding. What are yours?

I've got an 8th gen VFR and they've really smoothed out the Vtec transition so that it's not even noticeable. I don't know, or really care, about the fuel saving aspect of Vtec from a dollars and cents point of view, but from a riding point of view it is really good. I did a trip to the Dragon this summer and the bike was ridden hard, every day, all week. I still managed to average 5.2 l/100km. Some of the guys I was with had to really keep an eye on their fuel gauges, if they had them, and were filling up every 200kms or so. I would top up my tank if it needed it or fill every-other time we stopped. Fuel level was the last thing on my mind. Also, when I'm just touring and taking it easy I regularly hit 400+kms before the gas light comes on. But if for no other reason, that sound....lol!
The 8th gen also got rid of the linked brakes and went back to a traditional ABS set-up. It also added traction control which can be turned off/on on the fly. The optional factory quickshifter is very nice too!
As for tech that I didn't much care for - My last bike was an '07 FJR1300 and it had an electronically adjustable windscreen. A very nice feature so that you can find the sweet spot....until you turned the bike off. As soon as you turned the key to 'off' the windscreen automatically went to the lowest setting. Annoyed the hell out of me when I was touring and stopped for gas! Luckily the auto-down feature was easily disabled by simply removing a fuse. I heard Yamaha removed this on the more current models.
 
You can take my K1200s for a ride, just don’t crash it or rash it....I still want to transport it to Croatia, so I have a ride out there....

Thanks for the offer. I rented a K1200S for a weekend in California a few years back. Great engine, however you really felt the long wheelbase in the twisty canyon roads.
 

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