GuzziMoto

In my opinion, Jakes ability to clear off quickly at the start of a race is more about his talent and ability to go fast on cold tires and has nothing to do with the fuel. But the team running illegal fuel is illegal (obviously) and it does taint what Jake has accomplished. As to the team telling him, in my experience as a racer the team is unlikely to involve the rider in things like that. The rider has certain responsibilities, and on a big team like that what fuel the team runs is not one of them. Jake might have known that the fuel was illegal, but he likely had no involvement in that decision. Even on the small team I raced for I as the rider was not involved in deciding what fuel we ran. I did know what fuel we ran, but only because I had to help load it and unload it. I am pretty sure Jake doesn't do that at the team he rides for. They have people to do that. We had four people, including me.

Doesn't matter to me. I can figure it out. Brad Binder was a bit of a wrecking ball this past weekend. But he did pretty well despite the two long lap penalties. His hit on Oliveira didn't seem as bad to me as his hit on Marini. I respect that he apologized to Marini. His run in with Oliveira seemed more of a racing incident to me.

Jake was disqualified, from race 2 @ COTA. But the question immediately arises, how long had the team been running the illegal fuel? They really can't disqualify him from other races, although in my book they could have disqualified him from race 1 @ COTA as well since it seems likely he was running the same fuel for race 1. But that is likely strecthing things, and reality is he is only disqualified from race 2 @ COTA. But his championship is tainted now, probably through no fault of his own. The rider at that level would likely have no knowledge of what fuel was put in his bike. It seems unlikely he was involved. But he is affected, whether he knew or not. Hopefully MotoAmerica has learned a lesson from this and will actually test fuel often enough to prevent this from happening. I raced back in the days of fuel wars, and some of the fuels used were seriously nasty. But you had to run something similar, or you were going to lose. Everyone was going it. I applaud MotoAmerica doing away with the fuel wars, but if you are going to ban fuels like that you need to test fuel. I don't know what they were thinking passing a spec fuel rule and then not testing fuel at all.

Here is another link on the story that has good background info, including that apparently MotoAmerica hasn't tested fuel since the current spec fuel was introduced. It also points out the the team owner of the Yamaha team seems to have a serious dislike of the MGP fuel that VP supplies. https://www.roadracingworld.com/news/motoamerica-fresh-n-lean-progressive-yamaha-fails-fuel-test-from-cota/ Someone isn't telling the truth. And it sounds like it is the Yamaha team.

Some crazy news from MotoAmerica involving Jake Gagne and his Yamaha. https://www.roadracingworld.com/news/motoamerica-gagne-dqd-from-cota-superbike-race-two-for-non-compliant-fuel/ MotoAmerica: Gagne DQ’d From COTA Superbike Race Two For Non-Compliant Fuel and https://www.roadracingworld.com/news/motoamerica-disputes-yamaha-statement-on-gagne-penalty/ MotoAmerica Disputes Yamaha Statement On Gagne Penalty It sounds like Yamaha got caught running illegal fuel. It seems that MotoAmerica had not checked fuel in a while, so it is hard to say how long they had been running illegal fuel. Yamaha is trying to brush it off by saying that they simply ran fuel from last year. But MotoAmerica pointed out that last years fuel would have been legal, in fact any fuel since 2019 would have been legal. It seems the fuel sampled from the Yamaha contained a "foreign chemical component". The rumor mill seems to think that the fuel Yamaha were running was oxygenated. As in contained MTBE. To add to the confusion, Yamaha was in possesion of a drum of VP fuel that was supposedly mis-labeled, with the label indicating it contained fuel that had MTBE in it. VP says that the actual fuel in the drum was the correct MGP formula. So, it seems Yamaha was caught cheating. How long they have been cheating I don't know. But it seems unlikely that the first time they ran the illegal fuel was the race they were caught.

Yea, R means it is faster, and two R's (RR) means it is faster still.....

X, S, and R are all popular letters. Some letters get no love, like O or U.

The Ulysses was a decent bike for an SUV. But because of its extra height it was never going to handle as good as the standard version, and me also not being overly tall (around 5'10") it just was never practical. Besides, it was never going to be worth the sacrifices from the height because it was never going to be very capable off road. Don't get me wrong, I love a good Dual Sport. I have owned a couple and loved them. But a streetbike on stilts holds no appeal to me, it just screws up the handling and makes it harder on me. For what I can do on the typical adventure bike I could do on a normal streetbike. And most of it I could do better. I do prefer the earlier tube frame Buells, but the later aluminum framed ones were great. The engineering that went into them made them unique.

As a former motorcycle racer who traveled this country racing for peanuts, I really don't think learning the tracks in Europe is key to getting an American racing in MotoGP. Learning tracks is not that hard for a talented racer. If learning tracks is holding you back, you may not have enough talent. I raced local racers at their home track, a track that I had never been to or a track that I had only been to once before, and was still able to race them and often beat them. And I was not MotoGP caliber. Some racers learn new tracks faster then others, but at that level all of them should have no issues learning a new track in a day or two. There are Americans like Joe Roberts running in Moto2, but sadly he is not overly impressive. You could say he went over there too soon, but then had he not gone as soon as he did people would say he went there too late. PJ Jacobson went over there fairly early as well, but came back and is now honing his skills and improving. What could have been had he done that first. The pressure is to go to Europe as soon as you can, but it is such a meat grinder that you may kill your career if you don't get the right ride quick enough. The reality is, at one time the world looked to America for the next hot talent. Now they do not. We have incredibly talented racers here, but they tend to be over looked. As they say, talent is universally distributed, but opportunity is not. The lack of American talent in MotoGP is mainly down to a lack of opportunity in my opinion. But it is what it is. I also think the current feeder system is suspect, with success or failure in Moto3 or Moto2 not being a good indicator of potential in MotoGP. Moto2 is closer then it was with the Honda inline 4, but the Triumph triple is a very different animal then what you have in MotoGP.

I doubt the US will have a serious entry into MotoGP anytime soon. Our better chance is in WSBK, where Gerloff is gaining his footing on the BMW. Joe Roberts continues to run mid-pack in Moto2, sadly he was never one of our better racers. He is good enough to be in Moto2, but it seems unlikely he will do enough to get promoted to MotoGP. Reality is currently that success or failure in Moto2 seems to have little bearing on success or failure in MotoGP. It is possible that Joe Roberts could be amazing in MotoGP, but unless he does better and earns a shot we will never know. And I can't see him earning that shot.

Land Rover still has a "Defender". It is not like it used to be, the current version being all swanky and complicated while the old one was rugged and stone axe simple. But it is still a name in use by them.

No doubt Fabio Di Giannantonio would like a spot in all this shuffling. He may have to settle for going to WSBK. I think the old Marc Marquez would be a serious threat on the current Ducati. Not sure how well the current Marc Marquez will do on it. I suspect he will do well, but I am not confident he will win the title on it. It could happen, but it is not highly likely in my book, just possible. I think the winner in all this is the fans.

I think Zarco will move up from LCR to HRC next year, and Lacuona will move from WSBK back to MotoGP to ride the LCR bike Zarco was going to ride. I would love for Vinales to go to Honda, that would free up a spot on an Aprilia for someone else. While Vinales will always have those occasional great races where he does amazingly well, all to often he struggles in the races. I would be happy to see his seat go to someone else with more consistent talent. I think Quartararo would do well on the Ape. It will be interesting to see how Marc Marquez does on the Ducati. I don't think he is the all conquering racer he once was. But he clearly still has talent.

It varies from one manufacturer to another, but generally a 170 will fit on the same wheel a 180 will fit on. The later V11's have a 5.5" wide rear wheel. Here is a screen shot of a chart on the Dunlop website listing recommended wheel widths. You can see that both the 170 and 180 are listed for a 5.5" wide wheel, and the 160 is listed as fitting a 4.5" or 5" wide wheel. The 170 will also fit a 4.5" wide rear wheel, which was the original tire size for V11's that came with the 4.5" rear wheel. But in both cases, using the narrower tire for that wheel width will result in lighter steering. That is not something everyone wants, but many do.

I would not run the 160 unless you have the 4.5" wide rear wheel. The wider 5.5" rear wheel is not really suited to the 160. To deal with tire wear I recommend the multi-compound tire options. They seem to really help with tire wear. A 500+ pound bike is going to wear its tires.

As mentioned, there are two different rear wheel widths for the V11, a 4.5" wide rear wheel on the earlier V11's and a 5.5" wide rear wheel on the later V11's. You do not want to install a 160 on a 5.5" wide wheel, but it works great on a 4.5" wide wheel. If you have the 5.5" wide rear wheel you can go with a 180 or a 170, either should fit that rear wheel just fine. I would prefer the narrower 170, as it will give lighter handling all else being equal. And reality is the V11 does not make more power than you can comfortably use with a 170 rear tire. That said, some people like the wider rear tire and the way it makes the bike feel and look.

I don't think you can go wrong with any of the major players. The Dunlops are fine tires. So are Michelin, Bridgestone, and Pirelli. I like the multi-compound tires they have nowadays. For road bikes they are a step up. I also prefer a narrower tire for the rear, the V11 doesn't need more than a 160. It just doesn't have that much power. But you should pick the tire size based on the wheel size. A 4.5" wheel fits a 160, a 5.5" wheel fits a 180.

While that is sound advice, that is usually more important for car brake rotors where they are turned down to resurface. There is a limit to how much you can turn them down before the reach their minimum thickness. Motorcycle brake rotors rarely wear enough for thickness to be an issue. I would say, if you have no braking issues you don't need to replace the rotors. If you have any pulsing or vibration in the brakes and it isn't the pads I would look into the rotors being the cause. To be fair, I haven't turned down car brake rotors in a long time. They have gotten cheap enough that I just replace them. Some car manufacturers don't even allow for turning down the rotors, they just replace them with the pads. Odd side note, as a brake rotor wears it looses mass. That reduced mass can lead to the brakes running hotter, the same amount of heat fed into a rotor with less mass results in the rotors temp being higher.

Also, personally I would only buy Brembo parts from trustable sources. There is a market in counterfeit Brembo parts made in China.

It was the first Moto Guzzi I ever rode....

Sure, but a 1200cc Buell will easily loft the front wheel with all that torque. You just have to ride it accordingly. The V11 is likely just as fast, but the low end power of the Harley engine in the Buell will pull out stumps. The V11 engine is something of a mid-range beast. It doesn't need to rev as high as some twins to make power, but it also doesn't have the low end power that a big twin can have. Perhaps it is the best compromise. But that Buell with the torque it had and the handling just this side of a TZ250, it was great. Sadly, it had issues keeping internal fluids internal.

Yeah, Binder had his best lap in qualifying interrupted by a yellow flag. That put him further back on the grid. But he still did a good job making his way forward.

The snorkel is number 8 in the diagram, the airbox lid itself is number 7. The airbox lid and snorkel are under the front of the seat. You can remove the snorkel from the top of the airbox, it is rubber.

The intake noise is pretty much the same between the two. As Pete said, if you remove the airbox snorkel on the Griso that muffles the intake noise it is going to make more intake noise. My Griso has an aftermarket airbox lid that is an open filter, so it has even more intake noise. The wifes V11 also has an aftermarket airbox lid that is open, but many here just cut holes into the stock lid. One glitch with the V11 running an open airbox lid is there is heat reflective material on the underside of the fuel tank. With an open airbox lid that material can fall down onto the air filter and block airflow. If you want to open up the airbox, make sure that heat barrier is properly attached to the underside of the gas tank. The Griso with its two into one exhaust will sound different then the two into two of the V11. But I actually prefer the Griso's two into one exhaust (especially with an aftermarket set up that is more open). It has a little more of a snarl, sounding meaner than the V11. But both sound great.

Not sure it is more than a rumor at this point. It is a serious rumor and it may pan out to be true, but so far it is still a rumor. All Ducati said is they hear what we all hear, but they have no say it Gresini's rider choice. But they did say Gresini should get the best rider they can. Many are taking that to be an endorsement of Marc going to Gresini. But I suspect whether or not Marc leaves Honda has more to do with whether or not he ends up at Gresini. If he leaves Honda Gresini is about the only place he CAN go. But if he can't or won't leave Honda he obviously won't be at Gresini. I too hope Marc stays at Honda. They did show him a massive amount of loyalty, but to be fair what else were they going to do. They did not have anyone else that had the talent he has. Although even he doesn't seem to have the talent he used to have. The Honda is off from the sharp end of the field, but it is not that far off. People seem to think Honda needs to re-invent the wheel, but this past weekend showed that Honda is a small amount off, and a different track, tire choice, or set up, can put them back in competition. Not just with Marc, but with Joan Mir. Jake is killing it, but Cam hurting himself helped. I think next year, with Cam being healthy and better adapted to the BMW will be interesting. I don't think it will be as easy for Jake next year.