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Honda brought out mass produced aluminum frames. Five years later, we were semi ok with aluminum frames and their being too stiff.
Yamaha flipped the cylinder around, Five years later we are semi- satisfied its a ok bike.
So, now you want an innovation that may or may not work, or that people may or may not like? Or, save money and polish up what you've always had.
Plus, if it follows the path of streetbikes, or maybe the world, there really are no new materials. All you'd get is a bunch of electronic assist items.
Is this thread a fishing expedition? I can not see how this can not make sense to anyone.
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And how is anybody supposed to "earn" this top equipment if they're stuck on second-tier equipment?
EDIT: Ok, so I misread or misunderstood Flatliner. I do agree that the top guys have earned the equipment they have
Other examples: Alex Martin, Phil Nicoletti.
Pit Row
Progress was so fast in the 80's because they were going from stuff like drum brakes to disk brakes, twin rear shocks to single, conventional forks to upside down forks, etc. These were all solutions to real problems or updates to outdated systems.
What on a modern bike needs a major overhaul? Can the suspension get that much better? Can the motors get that much more powerful? What needs to be changed that would require a full works bike?
I wouldn't mind seeing full-on Works bikes again. Let the engineers, inventors, & innovators run wild!
Racers are obviously the stars of the show. But racing could have a whole other side in addition to them, showcasing a different side of human potential.
And I believe the only way to bring back those days is to lift the works bike ban and create an all-out motivation that the factories had back in the early days. It was a little like Formula One, every manufacturer was just buzzing with excitement and new ideas.
It is not about sitting and thinking..... well, what do we need on our current bikes.....
We don't need any more than what we have....
Back in the mid 60's Suzuki went to Sweden (a hotbead of MX talent and technology back then) and hired a Swedish World Champ away from Husky to basically design and build a competitive MX bike for them and he and his mechanic did just that then the bike was handed to Roberts, Geboers and DeCoster to fine tune in a series that DID NOT BAN works bikes.
The European manufacturers were sweating with their "old fashioned overweight machines" but were able to convince the FIM to change the rules to remove some of the advantage that Suzuki had won from their Swedish design team
So then DeCoster had to race a works Suzuki with lead poured inside the frame to reach the new min weight limit.
But the result of all of this was the TM
Other manufacturers were doing the same thing and were also copying each other, Honda was busy copying Yamaha and Suzuki and Yamaha was giving Don Jones resources to modify the DT Yamaha into what would eventually be the YZ (Yamaha was also paying a Swedish rider to do the same thing in Europe) Then Don Jones shipped his creation which was basically 95% his own creation back to Yamaha in Japan and there it was on the showroom floor in America a few months later, with a brand new name on the sides,,,, the YZ had been born.
Honda got Don Jones to help with their wonderful new creation the CR
and all of the sudden the Teens all across America could walk into their local Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki dealerships and walk out with a modern MX wonder........ Gone were the old primitive days of slow, overweight, unreliable --- and expensive --- MX bikes and everybody said welcome FMF, DG, etc etc, Broc Glover was out on his 76 DG-CR (not a factory works bike) showing what American know-how could achieve....... and the world of American MX exploded into the great sport it has become.
But did we really need those works bikes that DeCoster was racing and developing in 1970?
nahhhh... Suzuki should just have left him on that East Bloc CZ !!!
Damn, wish all that stuff came with my stock bike
but to me, it seems all a compromise.
Those are examples of what the Japanese can come up with by not having a factory bike ban in Japan and Europe.
The American MX world is however very important and the AMA factory bike ban puts a big damp blanket over everyone. If the Japanese are banned from the USA, they loose a lot of enthusiasm for creating new ideas for just Japan and Europe.
Post a reply to: bring real factory bikes back...... please