Apologies if you've seen this before, but i searched this forum and didnt find it referenced. Some cool pics anyway.
http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/fe...1_apriliaexcl/
I was wondering alot last year what Haga was doing. I guess those 28 wrecks would explain a bit.
Overall seems like good news..??
It's sad when someone you know becomes someone you knew. -/- Life will not break your heart. It'll crush it. -/- When life hands you a lemon, say "Oh yeah, I like lemons. What else you got?" -/- 'I believe that when the body is strong, the mind thinks strong thoughts. Time spent away from the Iron makes my mind degenerate. I wallow in a thick depression. My body shuts down my mind. The Iron is the best antidepressant I have ever found. There is no better way to fight weakness than with strength. Once the mind and body have been awakened to their true potential, it's impossible to turn back.' -henry rollins.
THAT IS AN OUTSTANDING FIND! YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT I'M YELLING!
This is good news indeed.
Has anyone heard anything about the new motor? All that I have heard is that it will not be available until Mugello, but no details.
All we have been told is that it's still an in-line triple with pneumatic valve springs. This motor will be Italian built with "reduced" input from Cosworth. Adjectives like "smaller" and "lighter" are being tossed about. The scuttlebutt is that it will rotate in the normal direction.
It blew me away to read Cathcart's comment that at the speeds HE rode it at it was better than all the other MotoGP bikes save the Honda. Now that I didn't expect!
Ricky,
I totally agree, I thought for sure that it would fall behind the Yami and the Duc at the very least.
We shall see!
Nice work on finding the article--I didn't even have that website bookmarked before!
Yes, I agree it was surprising to hear the usually reserved and politically neutral Cathcart throwing some praise onto the Cube--though I'm not sure he rode the latest versions of Kwak, Yam, or Ducati to compare things to. It really is amazing how fast year to year these GP bikes progress--the fast lap times at the recent Sepang tests show a >1sec. improvement than Rossi's '03 pole or fast lap times! Let's just hope Aprilia & the riders can realize the full potential of the Cube!
Hopefully the 04 season will see us on the podium!
if all the other bikes and riders were then same, then i imagine that the cube would be on the podium, however, the better bikes have all improved aswell, with all the top riders on them.
maybe i will be proven wrong
the harder more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle
that's great to hear....last season was soooo disappointing. I really wanted to love that cube...now maybe I still can!
'00 RSV Mille
all the "necessary" mods
building my own "R" one bit at a time
'99 GSX-R750 for track play
Awesome... that bike is a friggin' beast.
Cathcart had ridden all the other bikes a few days before the Cube and his impressions are printed in the last issue of Motorcyclist. He didn't have anywhere near as much praise for those bikes, save the Honda and to a lesser degree, the Ducati. I really like Edwards, but I honestly think he gave the RS3 a bad rap. By the sounds of it, the bike is not that far off the mark.
Two concerns, however. In the article mention is made of switching to a carbon fibre swingarm in order to make the weight minimum. That is possibly the worst thing they could due to a bike with rear chatter problems. It may help to reduce weight, but CF is incredibly stiff with no way to tune in lateral flex to cope with the chattering. High-sides a-go-go are a gaurantee.
Secondly, I heard a rumor that Aprilia will be on Dunlops this year. While they make a fine street tire and do well in WSB, they are FAR behind the other manufacturers on the GP grid. On a bike that already has some handling demons, that could prove fatal.
They do have Michelins for next year....just don't know who their sponsors are going to be.
00 Yellow RSV
95 RS250 Chesterfield
94 Suzuki RGV250
95 Cagiva Mito 125
79 Lambretta Jet 200
Aprilia's MotoGP squad will be testing later this week, this will be McWilliam's first outing on the Cube. If the Alice deal ended December 31st expect plain-wrapped test mules this time, or some variation of the riders' national flags like they ran on Colin and Nori a year ago.
Testing is where you try wacky stuff like CF swingarms. A part needs to either make a rider more comfortable at his current pace OR improve lap times. If it does neither toss it back in the truck.
Cathcart REALLY liked that Cube didn't he: "...unexpectedly impressive and enjoyable."
Carbon fiber can actually be tuned for the amount and direction of flex you want. By aligning the fibers and weaves differently you get different flex rates and strength. They could, theoretically, develop a swing arm that's very vertically stiff for power control but flexes laterally when leaned over. Big development dollars though.
I've made some boats and masts with carbon fiber. Its great for custom one-offs.
You really have to wonder how Honda is making their bike so easy to ride. Ducati's frame is a marvel of simplistic engineering and it works. Aprilia and Yamaha are going high tech to reduce chatter and it hasn't worked so far.
Last edited by Smoke Eater; 01-27-2004 at 08:16 AM.
"The early bird might get the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese"
2002 Mille Silver
2002 Scary 150
1992 Ducati 900ss
1972 TR3 350 (nearly restored)
1966 BMW R50/2 with side hack
In addition to orienting the fibers the stiffness of the swingarm structure is affected by the geometry or shape as well. Even steel (E = 30 million psi, modulus of elasticty) which is very stiff, from a material property stand point can be flexible if it is a rod with a diameter of 0.005 inch. The equation for determining the bending of a part is one over the radius of curvature is equal to the bending moment divided by the product of the modulus of elasticity of the material times the moment of inertia. That last variable is where the geometry comes into play as the moment of inertia for a simple beam is the width of the beam times the height cubed divided by twelve.
Its all in the details, which is where winners of championships come from.
Alot of people assumed the Cube was just a down-on-power 98 pound weakling. Truth is it's a brutally powerful monster to race, at least partly bent on your destruction. "Abandon hope all ye who enter" should've been written above the transporter door.
In its own way, a legendary motorcycle.
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