CBX Racing

[Warwick Biggs]

Yes I am Phil. The Prolink was kicked out a few degrees to suit a more touring focus. The first models were more sporty. I took the easier route of starting with a Prolink but reversing the head angle for racing.

Very sad to hear that Paul Smart died in a road accident the day b4 yesterday. Here is a pic of Paul and Maggie that Fran took when we were all house guests with the Milligans for the 2016 Island Classic. Paul is leafing thru' Dennis Brown's original Italian program for the famous Imola 200 race that he won for Ducati. He was musing about how few of them were still alive and now he is gone, too.

In gratitude Ducati always kept himm supplied with their latest models gratis and he was probably on their Panigale road bike when he crashed. Maggie has been very ill and it has been a difficult time for the family. He reckoned that the Ducati works rider was supposed to take the win but there were no team orders so he just road a normal race. Spaggiari however, never spoke to him again!

Maggie (Barry Sheene's sister) took credit for arranging the ride because when the call came thru' from the factory Paul was away in the US racing Kawasakis and she negotiated his 500 pound fee.

Paul was an old school gentleman and a good raconteur. He had no compunction about getting his hands dirty and helping me drain all the water out of the 6 carbs on the lump after a 1,000 kilometer road trip on an open trailer thru' heavy rain. He also confirmed my early criticism of the awkward packaging of the Ducati L twins that necessitated the font having to be kicked out to avoid the wheel hitting the front cylinder. I track tested a 750 GT back in the early 70's and rejected it as slower than a 450 Honda parrallel twin cam and too heavy in the steering to be any good on the track. The L configuration resulted in heavy steering. To get the V twins to turn you then had to reduce the wheelbase at the swingarm and that creates traction problems as the power goes up. That is why the Pantah is a better racing package. This basic problem plagued the V twins thru'out their racing history.

[Syscrush]

RIP Paul Smart. A true legend. Thanks very much for sharing your personal experiences with him.

Also, interesting about the change to steering head angle. I knew that the triple clamps had the same offset on both bikes, so I just assumed the rest of the front end geometry like rake & trail were the same, too.

[Warwick Biggs]

Paul was a bit of a paradox in that his public life came to be defined by basically a single race. The rest of his professional racing career is hardly ever mentioned because the race at Imola was a break thru' moment for Ducati and then late in his life he became the fulcrum for a marketing campaign in which he was central but also a passenger. His relationship to Barry Sheene, Britain's last GP champion and connections to the 'golden era' of GP racing were part of the cocktail.

In this respect he is different to many of the other 'legends' of the sport who are still 'on the circuit' and it will be interesting to see whether any of the obits pick up on these stand-out facts.

Wes Cooley has died too, another somewhat younger racer who we remember in Oz when he came out with Pat Hennen to race in the Castrol 6 Hour. At the time that race was one of the most important production bike races in the world and it was the pre-cursor to Cooley and Kiwi Graeme Crosby teaming up for a big victory in the Suzuka 8 Hour.

[Warwick Biggs]

Back to the living! Albeit retiring. I have to pay tribute to Valentino Rossi after an unprecedented 26 years at the pinnacle of the sport in his final race in the Spanish GP at Valencia yesterday. He not only finished in the top 10, but he finished within tenths of a second of the fastest riders in the world on a satellite bike that was down on speed. The slow motion pictures of him 2 wheel sliding his Yamaha to within millimeters of the racing line at 200 mph lap after lap were breathtaking. It also marked Ducati's very first clean sweep of the podium with the Desmosedici. All hail Vale! And congratulations to his protoge Pecco Bagnaia for another top class win.

Here are some pics of Jim Zamenek's use of the Honda ELF arm on Jan Ringnalda's CBX.

[Warwick Biggs]

Does anybody have Mr Zamenek's contact details because I would like to investigate the technical aspects of this conversion?

[Rick Pope]

reach Jim at: "bikes-at-fuse-dot-net"

[Syscrush]

Back to the living! Albeit retiring. I have to pay tribute to Valentino Rossi after an unprecedented 26 years at the pinnacle of the sport in his final race in the Spanish GP at Valencia yesterday. He not only finished in the top 10, but he finished within tenths of a second of the fastest riders in the world on a satellite bike that was down on speed.

Rossi had at least one podium finish every single season for 21 straight seasons. Agostini's longest such streak was 11 seasons. Marquez's is 9, and with 0 podiums in 2020, there's no way for him to build a streak like Rossi's. As other phenomenal talents have come and gone, Rossi continued to race every year and score a top-3 finish at least once every single year for 21 years in a row. Team changes, bike changes, rule changes, crashes and injuries, triumph and heartbreak - even a global pandemic - and through it all Rossi kept racing and finding his way onto the podium for a generation. By the time of his last podium in MotoGP, he had lived literally half of his life in the most most advanced, highest stakes motorcycle racing series in the world, and evolved from wunderkind to elder statesman.

Forza Rossi - the greatest we've ever seen, or are ever likely to see.

[Warwick Biggs]

Thanks Rick and yes Phil, Rossi is a phenomenon and expect him to lead an Italian rider renaissance as VR46 Team owner.

I've been thinking about the undoubted benefits of the Honda ELF arm for a CBX racer but am reluctant to fiddle with the chassis of the Lump when it is working satisfactorily. If I had a spare CBX mule I would definitely try it out. Definitely food for thought. Speaking of mules here is one of the first positives of General Motors pulling out of the Australian automotive manufacturing market.

Salt M/C's bought a lot of the General Motors Holden production line and their first product is a super light weight 2 stroke cafe racer. However, that is just a whimsy. What they are seriously working on is a compact 1200 cc hydrogen fueled V8 motorcycle with direct injection. They claim it is narrower than a big twin (see pic), weighs less than 50 kgs with titanium cases, revs to 15,000rpm and can run on biofuel as well as hydrogen. Claimed inspiration comes from the Guzzi V8 but with a thoroughly modern approach. Extensive engineering experience in mining and particularly hydrogen tank manufacturing underlined by healthy capitalisation, means they may be worth watching.

COP26 should turbocharge an exciting revolution in innovative motorcycle design and engineering that will really shake up established market players.

[Warwick Biggs]

Here is another shot of the Salt V8...

It follows in the footsteps of the Oz designed and built Drysdale V8 bike, the F1 Repco Brabham V8 and the Kiwi Britten.

[Warwick Biggs]

Yesterday I took the NC30 and the 750 GSXR to the track for testing in glorious, perfect weather. The 400 had 2 extra teeth added to the rear sprocket to help it use all it's 50 hp to jump out of the corners and to keep the revs up. It certainly felt a bit different and at least there were no missed gears or ending up in neutral when having to go up or down to or from first. I was able to avoid first gear altogether. Times were consistently in the 20's so that was good and we were able to pass most of the modern 400's out there. KTM must be doing well as their 390's seem to be breeding prolifically.

Unfortunately, I had to put the 400 away after a few sessions when it started to overheat and discharge coolant. I suspect a thermostat may have jammed closed. Something to investigate anyway. There is always something going wrong on these historic racers! I also need to lift the seat even higher as my 6 foot frame is hard to move around once I fold myself into it's tiny proportions.

The Suzuki is a man sized rocket ship by comparison and wants to point skywards on every gear change and bump. It really needs the steering damper too as it shakes it's head violently on return to terra firma. It chews thru' tyres at a great rate so I was trying Metzler's Racetec TD's for the first time. Two reasons. First they are reversible so you can gain greater track mileage from a set because most tracks are clockwise and have a preponderance of right hand corners meaning the tyres wear more on one side only and secondly, they do not require tyre warmers and have a wider temperature range than most other slicks. Initially, the front felt a bit heavy and odd but after they warmed up they were able to carry high corner speed. Not so the rider tho' as twice I missed shifts when braking hard for hairpins, once with an almighty crunch that I thought had stalled the motor as I sailed up the escape road but I was mistaken and quickly rejoined the group.

I don't normally ride with the red expert group who are mainly on modern race spec 1000 cc superbikes. They are all much younger and quicker than I am and on quicker bikes. Many are professional racers and ASBK competitors. My 750 has a healthy, fairly linear 130 hp at the rear wheel (helped by a Woolwich ECU and software) but these guys all have in excess of 200 hp with lots of trick bits so I am easily out gunned. Still, it was interesting being passed by racers who were sliding their machines into the corners speedway style. This is not a style that I have ever mastered and they must go thru' tyres at a phenomenal rate. I was lapping in the mid 20's and happy with that (yes, only a few seconds faster than the nimble little NC30) while some of the experts were in the teens and nice to watch as they scythed their machines around with smooth aplomb.

They were practising for next weekend when many of them will be racing against Jack Miller in the ASBK at the new South Australian track at Tailem Bend, situated on the picturesque Murray River. Miller and may of the Oz professional racers and their northern mates are back from the MotoGP and northern hemisphere off season so quite a few contest our summer season races to keep their eye in. My next race will be the SA Historic Championships over New Year.

Roly tells me he has the pistons and crank ready for the Lump and they are off getting balanced so hopefully, we can take the CBX over to Melbourne in the New Year for the motor upgrades.

[Syscrush]

Good luck getting the 400 sorted out! That's exciting news about progress on the CBX.

As for sliding and tire life - I remember back when Garry McCoy was at the top of the heap, there was a lot of confusion about how he was able to keep his tires alive through a race given his sliding style. The conjecture at the time was that by spinning and sliding the tires, they would reach a higher surface temp than with a more traditional riding style, but the interior temp of the carcass would stay lower than a tire that has good grip (and the associated higher forces and greater deformation), and as a result the tire would last longer than expected. I don't know if that's been borne out with more/newer/better data or not, but it sure is interesting.

[Warwick Biggs]

Yes, well next time I'm in Queensland I will ask him Phil. He now runs a petrol station in a small country town. Very low key after a period at the pinnacle of the sport. Personally, my experience is that if you are spinning up and really hammering, then the tyres suffer. Hot tears are just as destructive as cold tears.

I suspect he just ran harder tyres and developed his style from speedway. Graham Crosby and Hugh Anderson had a similar tendency to slide derived from their early years of grass tracking in NZ. Kenny Roberts Snr upset the apple cart when he finally found his way around Europe as a result of his AMA flat tracking background. Most riders can slide the rear but sliding both front and rear on the bitumen is mainly a super motard activity. I know some riders who will not ride with motards because of their differing lines and sliding ways. For a start they are more or less out of control. Then there is the unpredictability and the fact they can take up 3 bike widths in a corner.

In unwelcome news just in, James Fisher the Yorkshireman who races a CBX in the UK historic championship was injured when he crashed out of a battle for the championship lead. His hand was caught under the clipon as he mashed his face into the ground after touching the leader's rear wheel and was knocked unconscious. His thumb has had to be re-attached with pins and his recovery will be difficult. So I'm wishing him a speedy recovery over the northern winter and congratulate him on a top performance. Second may be the first loser as they say but it is still a great result, particularly for us CBX nuts.

Onya' James!

[Warwick Biggs]

Time for another CBX Racing pic. This time Trevor Manley aboard Roly's Beast at the 2015 Island Classic hunting down one of the US team TZ750's.

Sadly altho' Trev is still with us he has given up racing, the Beast is in permanent retirement and the Island Classic is no more - a victim of the COVID pandemic. And while I've always liked the Greek language I would never have imagined the number Omicron could have such menacing connotations altho' racing here remains relatively unaffected. In a few weeks I will be racing my NC30 in the SA Championship and this w/e we will be at the track for some testing.

I've gone up a few psi on the radiator cap in the hope of raising the boiling point a bit and reducing the overheating that has accompanied a harder working motor on lower gearing. Even with liquid cooling and 2 large alloy radiators they are prone to over heating when really worked hard. I've squeezed the radiator catch bottle up into the nose of the fairing so I can keep an eye on coolant levels as well as on the temperature gauge and altho' you can smell it when you pit that might be too late if you let things get out of hand..

[Warwick Biggs]

The best laid plans o' mice an' men gang aft agley...

Altho' we made it to the track I could not take the NC30 for testing as planned because of unforeseen tyre supply problems. While I have a good practice day plus a few races left in the tyres already fitted I am not sure whether my replacement tyre order will make it in time due to a combination of general difficulties with supply predictability and the Xmas/New Year silly season. So, rather than wear out what I have just doing testing and risk running out of rubber in the races, I took the 750 GSXR instead.

That demonstrated more tyre problems. The GSXR had the new Metzler TD's fitted and altho' they had good grip they turned out to be too soft and were worn out after 1.5 track days. Not good enuf' and not available in a harder compound so even tho' we had a series of violent storms come thru' and they handled the dramatic temperature changes quite well they are just too soft for Mac Park. Altho' they are reversible changing tyres in the pits is a grubby task at the best of times. Anyway the aforesaid storms had the track awash and cold for half the day and then hot,dry and windy for part of the rest so not really worth the effort of flip[ping them over.

I did think of taking the CBX which hasn't had a run for around 9 months but that would have been tempting fate to no immediate purpose.

[Warwick Biggs]

OK here is a question for the technically literate amongst us.

All the current crop of across the frame MotoGP bikes use a contra rotating crankshaft to neutralize the gyroscopic forces of the longer crank and the tendency to increase the same forces on the wheels causing the bike to handle differently in right and left hand corners with overall understeer on the way out. In the 1960's Honda used a jackshaft to take power off the centre of the crank on it's RC 6 cylinder racers. So, which way did the crank have to rotate?

This might seem to be very academic but in fact in a long crank racer it can make a big difference. Typically the cranks weigh over 10 kg. In racing one of the first tuning steps in converting a street bike is to reduce the weight and balance crank rods and pistons. This allows increased crank speed and therefore horsepower. However, it also means that there is a limit to how much you can take out of the crank and it will still be relatively heavy but rotating at a higher speed and therefore increasing gyroscopic force.

On a fairly long crank motor such as the CBX this will inevitably have a detrimental effect on handling. Not only in the corners but it will increase the tendency to lift the front wheel and wheelie. All of this is bad. So my next question is, what is involved in converting a CBX to a contra rotating crankshaft?

Cam chain tensioners would have to be reversed and a pinion gear accommodated. What else?