| Author | Message | ||
     Classax |
Apparently you guys didn't get the memo, "give up" is not apart of the EBR Lexicon. If it turns out to be a head gasket it won't suggest anything for street bike owners, other than the showroom equipment on their bikes is being tested to failure at WSb and that running improvements are on the way. Let's not forget Aprilla ate nearly an engine a round last year, even with all the trick corsa parts installed. Part of the Panigale's power woes last year had to do with detuning in order to make it through the season on the allotted engines. They eventually found someone to make the MM ecu work for them. I admit its better to blow one up in the pits than on the track. Was it the best race result for EBR, of course not, but that's racing. Its still a long season yet to go, the show has only started. (Message edited by classax on April 28, 2014) | ||
| Classax |
I figure that Tim will have about 30,000 mile on his RX by the end of the summer LOL. Texas is huge, and we have tons of fun back roads to rag. Got to ride while we can. Summer here is like your winters, the weather gets too extreme for riding. We rode 530 miles Saturday, had a blast! Living with in an hour of three tracks also helps. GSS this weekend to see how it really handles a tight technical track that almost nullifies anyone's power advantages. WSb has very few of those types of tracks on the schedule but they pepper the USA. | ||
| Trojan |
the show has only started. Actually no. The WSb show started back in November for testing, and racing since February. We are now passed roundf 3 and it appears that the EBR team have made very little progress (in fact you could argue that their best race so far was the very first one!). People forget that this bike (or pretty much the same bike) had a year in AMA to iron out any problems before entering WSB, so should have got rid of the minor problems that have been its achilles heel so far in world competition. If they are still not using the state of the art MM electronics you have to ask why not? Why have they only just got hold of the WSB Ohlins forks? You can wrap it up in whatever niceties you like regarding road bikes and reliability etc, but the short answer is that this is WSb and has a worldwide following. Buell/EBR do not need another engine failure scare in the glare of worldwide publicity, especialy on a bike they are now trying to sell to the world as a Superbike. Aprilia went through a lot of engines in their first wsb season, not because of reliability, but because they were pretty much building MotoGP spec motors with a very limited track life between rebuilds. The rules at teh time allowed that and they took full advantage of the rulebook at the time (the same as they did with their gear driven cams). The Panigale wasn't detuned, it just took them a while to get to grips with the electronics as well as rider injuries and team politics. They have shown this year that they have a basically very fast bike (as they did at the first round last year before injuries took their toll). If the EBR bike showed the same basic pace as the Panigale we wouldn't have much to worry about. Sadly it doesn't  EBR and the team need to get their heads together and decide if they want to race at WSB level or just make up the numbers. If it is the former then they have a lot of work to do. | ||
| Rocket_in_uk |
Aprilia went through a lot of engines in their first wsb season, not because of reliability, but because they were pretty much building MotoGP spec motors with a very limited track life between rebuilds. The rules at teh time allowed that and they took full advantage of the rulebook at the time (the same as they did with their gear driven cams). The Panigale wasn't detuned, it just took them a while to get to grips with the electronics as well as rider injuries and team politics. They have shown this year that they have a basically very fast bike (as they did at the first round last year before injuries took their toll). Thank you on the BadWeB's behalf for the more than necessary reminder Matt, Rocket in England | ||
| Court |
Things are going to work out very well. | ||
| Bob_thompson |
Agreed Court.....and I will ad; many people in other endeavors believe that ANY form of publicity is GOOD publicity. Maybe in EBR/Heros case this could hold true. At least they are "in the news" now more then ever before. Right now many more people all over the world know who they both are and that will help them both to more forward and ahead in world wide stature, size and financial benefit. Go EBR and GO Hero! The last time I saw this was with the release, finally, after a long tedious wait, with much discussion, positive and negative, for the 2008 1125R to finally start shipping. The best bike I have ever owned. Time will tell with the 1190RS for sure. | ||
| Trojan |
Hi Bob, I don't know if you remember the disastrous press launch of the 1125R at Laguna? It pretty much ruined the sales of the bike in the first year and probably did as much as anything to stick the knife into Buell in the end. The old saying that any publicity is good publicity does NOT hold true of you want to sell bikes, and trailing around a long way off your main competitors (orsuffering DNF and non starts) is not good publicity (especially as they are getting zero race coverage anyway becuase they are so far back). Erik is a racer, so I am pretty sure he is not happy with the situation as it is now and will (I hope) want to do something about it pretty sharpish. Any coverage the bike is getting now from WSB is almost certainly damaging the brand. | ||
| Classax |
Aprilia went through a lot of engines in their first wsb season, not because of reliability, but because they were pretty much building MotoGP spec motors with a very limited track life between rebuilds. That's is engine consumption "full stop" as the English would say. Whether it was rebuilt before or after certain parts failed is immaterial to the fact that the engines under race pressures was used up. The Panigale wasn't detuned, Cycle News and Road Racing World both had great write ups on the challenges Ducati faced with the Panigale last year and how the MM unit issues resulted in them having to settle for less than full power and reduced RPM limits, not to mention the restricters imposed by FIM. it just took them a while to get to grips with the electronics as well as rider injuries and team politics. They have shown this year that they have a basically very fast bike (as they did at the first round last year before injuries took their toll). I couldn't have said it better myself. When I noted the WSb clearly had technical issues because it wasn't trapping speeds as quick as the street bikes or AMA bikes. Some said there was no comparison, but there clearly are issues with the electronics for sure. The team politics and experience is still in its infancy. It took nearly a whole season but Ducati got it sorted eventually, no reason to think EBR won't do the same. Geoff May has historicly been good for about 2 seconds a lap over Yates on the same set up, and he's been slower than him since the injury. Mechanical DNFs & DNS' may not look good but in racing they occur. Its part of the show. Its 3 rounds into a 13 round season. The math says it possible(NOT saying they will or even implying it)they could still win both the individual and MFGs championship. So let's all Calm down, one can't solve a problem by packing up and going home. | ||
| M2typhoon |
With the current state of their WSBK team and their quality of races, I can only hope they get to shove it down everyones throats again. Erik already did it to HD so why not everyone saying they shoulda done this or they shoulda done that. I have faith but it's severely waning. I'm not sure the 1190 derivative of the Helicon engine is up to the needs of WSBK racing. One can only hope so much. (Message edited by m2typhoon on April 28, 2014) | ||
| Classax |
I have faith but it's severely waning. I'm not sure the 1190 derivative of the Helicon engine is up to the needs of WSBK racing. One can only hope so much. I hear you, but anything worth doing tends to be difficult and anything truly monumental is normally marked by the degree of the obstacle that was overcome. Is the ET-VT currently good enough to win in WSb as its stands right now? Nope, but by the same token it is good enough to make the grid and they haven't even developed all the cool race bits for it yet. Will it ever be good enough to win in WSb? I think its worth a season or two to try and find out. | ||
| Vagelis46 |
Suzuki had also a blown motor in Philip Island, that actually cost Lavery a certain win ............so let us all wait a bit more... I stand be what I said before..... the real test for the EBR will be the Laguna Seca race , and the races that noone have raced before : Sepang South Africa There we shall see how close EBR is to the EVO bikes .... | ||
| Guy_glover |
Bench racers know all the answers. Before EBR started this new endeavor someone else was last. Don't think that for one minute Erik and crew plan on staying there. I'm glad when I started Drag racing and lost for years that I didn't throw in the towel. It took over ten years until I set my first national record and set many more in many classes after that. The last 10 years I raced I'll bet many people in the U.S. wished I would have quit when it seemed so impossible. | ||
| Guy_glover |
Go TEAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! | ||
| Crusty |
Go TEAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  | ||
| Bads1 |
Hmm followed drag racing. Never heard of you | ||
| Guy_glover |
Harley Drags-AMA DRAGBIKE,HDRA<AHDRA ECRA XL Sporty Best 8.82@155 MPH in 1989 on GAS, not fuel (Message edited by GUY GLOVER on April 28, 2014) | ||
| Guy_glover |
Sorry , 1988 at Atco in N.J. | ||
| Trojan |
It took nearly a whole season but Ducati got it sorted eventually, no reason to think EBR won't do the same. There is a big fundamental difference between Ducati and EBR in their first WSb season with new bikes. Ducati were fast straight out of the box (front row at Philip Island if I rememebr correctly), they just needed to make adjustments to make it fast for a full race distance. They were hindered by team politics and injury more than any mechanical/electronic issues. EBR have not been fast but are woefully slow, so that is not just a case of minor adjustments and setup but a serious problem. Engines letting go when they are already slower than the rest of the field doesn't bode well for further tuning either. Why are we at round 3 and they are still not up to speed with electronics? Did they think that they could be competitive using the stock ECU (and other parts)?. if that is the case then I can only think they were terribly niaive or overconfident in their planning. They had a full season in AMA Superbike as well as Jen's experience racing Europe to draw on, so it isn't as if they are racing an entirely new package is it? It took over ten years until I set my first national record and set many more in many classes after that. EBR don't have 10 years to get it right. They don's even have 10 weekends if they don't want to be regarded as the whipping boys of WSB unfortunately. | ||
| Stevel |
I'm pretty sure this thread is being monitored by EBR. I certainly would be if I were EBR. I suggest to the audience here that we are not in possession of all the circumstances surrounding the decisions that have been made by EBR, which makes criticisms of those decisions out of order. Personally, I have confidence they will correct those deficiencies as soon as possibly in any way they can. Testing and product development is a time consuming and expensive exercise and in that light, I would like to make a suggestion to EBR. Just as crowd funding has made a huge difference in getting new products to market, a similar approach may be very useful in EBR's case. There are a significant number of folks that would be willing to do product development in parallel to their own efforts for free, just as Microsoft lets the user community do their beta testing of new releases, EBR should make available raw castings, forgings and other support bits and pieces for parallel development efforts. This could easily be done, perhaps with signed NDA's or other like mechanisms. These bits and pieces should be sold to the external developers at EBR cost. Even if these efforts didn't add value, which I doubt, they would occur at no cost to EBR. I don't see any downside to this suggestion. If others do, lets hear them now. | ||
| Trojan |
Testing and product development is a time consuming and expensive exercise Which is why the majority of WSb teams test over the winter! If EBr do monitor this then I would certainly like to know the details of the WSB deal thsi year. Was it a thought out factory approach to set up a team, or was it a last minute offer by a small team to run EBR bikes? | ||
| Hughlysses |
Today's Cycle News magazine article on Assen has little to say about EBR's effort, but there are a couple of interesting side-bar comments by the team manager:   Complete article here, as well as a first ride test of the 1190RX street bike: http://cyclenews.uberflip.com/i/303159 | ||
| Trojan |
sounds like the usual list of excuses to me They knew that hiring riders with no experience would lead to this so why do it? Even then though, Christian Iddon was in his third EVER Superbike race, with very lytle experience of Assen either, yet was still faster than both EBR riders (on the Bimota, which is newer than the EBR). World class riders should be more than capable of learning tracks very quickly, given that they only visit each track once a year. The team should buy them a Playstation! It will be interesting to see if they go well at Laguna for sure. | ||
| Jens |
Excuse me for not commenting all that.... At least one EBR 1190 had Assen TT Track noise regulation experiences (-;  http://pegasusraceteam.com/html/assen_2011.html | ||
| Trojan |
At least one EBR 1190 had Assen TT Track noise regulation experiences (-; Exactly, so they should have asked you before they got there  | ||
| Hughlysses |
Exactly, so they should have asked you before they got there Duh. Previously we had the "too much oil" issue; now this. It sure seems like the team manager is neglecting to take advantage of the existing knowledge regarding racing these machines. | ||
| Trojan |
It sure seems like the team manager is neglecting to take advantage of the existing knowledge regarding racing these machines. It is lots of small things like this that make me suspect that this is a small team that just asked to run EBR bikes at a late stage of the off season rather than a proper planned 'factory' effort. Are there any bona fide EBR factory personnel on the team strength or are they all Italian? How much development is the factory doing or is it all down to the team to do for WSB? | ||
| Hughlysses |
^ Good question regarding involvement of factory personnel. You'd have to hope that if they weren't involved initially they're certainly involved now. I think it's almost certain that the deal to go WSBK racing was not finalized until late October 2013, as it was sort of leaked by Geoff May a day or two after the formal unveiling of the 1190RX at the AIMExpo in Orlando, Florida. That gave them a very short time to put together a team and start developing race bikes. | ||
| Vagelis46 |
It gets clearer and clearer that EBR should have entered SUPERSTOCK 1000 in the WSBK series..... The V-2 Ducati Panigale is very competitive in SUPERSTOCK, so the EBR might also have had a good chance to be competitive ........ Also the riders in SUPERSTOCK are not as fast as the WSBK guys....... | ||
| Daves |
Too bad the South Africa race isn't until Oct. I will be there hunting in June. Would've made a great extra day or two while there. | ||
| Rocket_in_uk |
Don't worry Dave. Rumours round race circles here suggest EBR won't be there October either. Rocket in England |
