?,

You make a good point and, for the most part, that’s the way it has been. Companies will release an all-new machine and then fine tune it for two to four years before releasing another revised version. KTM have cut that time way down by essentially releasing two bikes per season, drastically steepening their development curve. It’s hard to say if they will continue down that path or if that was just a good way for them to get caught up back in the early Ryan Dungey era. Remember, it wasn’t that long ago that KTM was the laughing stock in the premier class over here. Flash forward, they have won the last five supercross titles in a row. Not much laughing going on now. Suzuki seems to be having trouble getting their feet under them the last handful of years, but they’ve had incredible success in the past. Obviously, it would be bad for the sport if they were to fold, but I don’t see that happening. Things have a tendency to change, if you haven’t noticed. Honda, for instance, used to be the superpower in the 1980s and 1990s, but they are on a dry streak right now that would send the most self-respecting man to the showers with a Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition and a bottle of Jergens faster than you can say “hairy palms.”

Give it some time and the tides will turn once again. #yellowmagic

PING 

Dear Ping,

Long time reader here first time asking a question. Actually, I have some questions about the practice bikes. How do they (the teams) keep updated the setups between the practice bikes and the race bikes? Do they use the same bikes for SX and MX? At the end of the season the rider has to return the practice bike to the team? What do the teams do with the bikes from previous seasons? Thanks in advance.

Best regards,
Jose Leon

Jose,

This isn’t a cut-and-dry answer. Each team does it a little differently based on their budget, where the riders live, how many riders they have, etc. For the most part, teams do their best to keep the practice bike and race bike very similar. There are often small differences for better reliability or simple cost, but for the most part they are close. Riders will often go through a couple different race bikes during each series and the old race bike will replace the practice bike, so there is a rotation. Again, not all teams do it this way, but it has been a common practice. At the end of the season all bikes are returned to the team and they put them back to stock and sell them. Factories send those bikes to a loan pool to be sold to dealers as used bikes and support teams sell the bikes and pocket the money.

PING

Dear David,

How many times have you seen this unfold during a race? Rider crashes—not necessarily a bad crash, maybe just a simple washout in a turn. Rider picks up his bike, remounts and takes off. Rider immediately realizes the front brake/clutch lever has been rotated up/down in the crash and is essentially unusable in its current position. Rider starts banging the front brake/clutch lever up/down in order to try and get it into some position where he can actually use said lever during the remainder of the race. Rider keeps trying, finally giving up (or pulling into the mechanics area if it happens to be close by at that moment) to get assistance.

I wish I had a dollar for every time I've seen the above play out. Why do mechanics insist on torqueing down these pinch bolts to 300ft/lbs when the levers routinely get knocked out of position in a crash anyway and then it's impossible to get the lever back into a usable position by the rider? This is probably one of those questions where you now go on to explain a really obvious reason I'm not thinking of but I'm at a loss here. Seems like you should be able to have the levers tight to the point they don't move during a race but if you fall and they get moved (and they almost always do move), you can hit them a couple of times with an open palm and you're good to go.

Kent Downs
Columbia CT