Lucky Phil

Forget about the testing timesheet, it's largely irrelevant. The conditions are such that there is so much rubber laid down on the track that the times are misleading. Sure if you're dog slow then there's an issue but all the riders know track condition in testing aren't even close to the real world. Wonder why after 3 days testing in Qatar come race day the testing top boys are struggling? That's why. During a race week end the Moto3 bikes are out first and scrub the track clean of rubber and then the Motogp bikes go out. Non of this happens in testing so the conclusions are moot. This is why MotoGP riders also struggle when at some rounds they alter the race programme from the practice and qualifying so the Moto2 bikes race before them. They have set up their bikes during practice and qualy for a track surface scrubbed clean by Moto3 bikes then have to go out and race after the Moto2 bikes have laid down a races worth of their rubber. All the MotoGP setting are then not optimal. On top of that they all do a lot of laps and are pretty mentally and physically spent for the last 1/3 of it all. Ciao

Well there's always Remy to follow as well now. I like this kid, unpretentious, has done a lot of hard yards and in his spare time his hobbie is modifying his old Volvo Amazon in his own nicely set up workshop. His only issue swapping to MotoGP is going to be he's a "slow burner" and I'm not sure he'll get the opportunity of 2 or 3 seasons to get to grips with a MotoGP bike. He is however talented and passionate about what he does in the workshop and engineering so I see a future for him post racing as a factory engineer. Take a look at "at home with Remy Gardner" on youtube. Likeable down to earth kid. There's broadly speaking 2 types of riders at the top level, those that have an understanding of the technicalities and detail of set up and those that don't get involved and leave it too their crew chief. I dont think you can get away with being the latter anymore. Even years ago it separated riders but if you had a great crew chief you'd scape through. I don't think that applies anymore and now you not only need to be across the technical stuff as a rider but also you need to be looking in detail at every aspect of you competition as well. Thats why factory operations share all their data and a lot have rider coaches wandering the track looking at riding lines etc. I'm not sure Miller is that committed to this kind of stuff, I might be wrong but these days it's not optional anymore. I remember Carl Fogarty struggling massively in the 1996 WSB series on the RC45 Honda. It wouldn't turn for him and he was struggling with it big time. On the other side of the garage Aaron Slight was getting the job done and getting top results. About 5 races in Foggy said they finally cracked the setup by raising the ride height by around 20mm or some extraordinary amount, so it was the same as Slighty's bike. I thought when I read this, how can you be in that situation with the handling and be parked in the same garage and not see the obvious setup differences between someone who's getting results and yourself. You can see that kind of ride height difference from 50M away. You need to be studying your adversaries and learning from the faster ones even as a factory rider. Interestingly another thing is physical strength, I'm sure part and only part of the reason Rossi became so uncompetitive in the last 4 or 5 years was he just didn't have the upper body strength necessary. I saw a recent shot of him and Marquez on holidays posing for a photo together in their swimmers. One looks like a body builder and one looks like a marathon runner. Not sure you can get away with that lack of upper body mass and strength anymore either. Too many riders get to factory level and look for the edge in the bike and setup with a whole team focused on your particular needs and forget most of the gains at that level are still in the hands of the rider and his ability to adapt and learn and stay mentally focused. Ciao

Guzzi belt and braces. The sleeve installs from the drive side and the circlip is security in case it's interference fit ever degrades but it also supports the sleeve from getting displaced when big stupid apes with lump hammers fit disk side wheel bearings. You know who you are. For the Ohlins damper try fitting an oring around the spherical bearing to limit it's ability to flop around and stop it hanging. You choose a dia and cross section that goes around the outer half of the bearing and rides on the inside of the bracket so when the steering is turned and the spherical ball rotates to compensate for the angular displacement it also compresses the oring and keeps the whole thing firm but still moveable/flexible. Ciao

Mick Doohan was just an animal on a race track. I'd love to see Jack do well but I don't see him riding a works Ducati next season. Too many young fast guys in the Ducati stable and Jack like the majority seems to lack that last 1/2% needed to be a superstar and that's all that separates all of them these days. I always use this as an explanation. The average race track lap is around 100 seconds give or take and with .4 of a second covering the first 5 rows these days that means the guy in 15th position on the grid with basically no chance of getting on the podium is less than 1/2% slower than the pole man and the other guys further up the grid are obviously even less than that. There's not much margin between podium placer and also ran these days. Millers biggest issue is tyre preservation. All these guys can lay down a lap time and Miller better than most at dragging out a quick one off lap but the the real skill is in maintaining your speed and managing tyres come race day. No good having a bike setting that gets you onto the front row which you can't use during the race because it's too aggressive a set up for the tyres and then losing your speed advantage from qualifying because you can't produce the race speed with a race setup. In other word you need to be fast with the qualifying setting and also with the race/tyre preservation setting. I worry that Miller doesn't have the "adaptability" in his style to take the final step. He seems to be more an "instinct" rider and that takes you to 99.7% not 100% where you need to be. He should look at some of the images taken of himself and Pecco at the same corners and the vast differences in their body positioning on the bike if he wants to eek out another little bit. Peccos fast and preserves the tyres so Miller might want to study and adapt his riding position to someone on the same equipment that's obviously got an advantage over him. Having said all of that nothings from this coming season would surprise me and I wouldn't dare make any sort of predictions. Ciao

Lorenzo is your typical "soggy cornflakes" GP rider. If the starts are aligned, the moons in the right phase, the bike is spot on, the track has the grip he likes etc etc, he's untouchable. BUT if he gets up in the morning and the "cornflakes are soggy" it's all over for the weekend may as well leave before the race. Stoner was the exact opposite as a rider. He would just adapt to the situation he was in, bike set up, conditions, tyres, grip, adaption is the key. Guys like Lorenzo need everything to be perfect then they're fast, not perfect, forget it. Troy Corser was another one and Troy Bayliss was the exact opposite, like Stoner. Ciao

If you rely on your car or motorcycle to "get the girls" you're already a lost cause. Ciao

That and the extra trail. Ciao

Fast in, slow out. Nothing ever changes. Ciao

Maybe a translation thing but I'm not sure about "less", ie reduced "handling" whatever "handling" is defined to be. My 1198 has reduced offset triple clamps down from 36 to 30mm. The std 36mm offset road clamps means the bike doesn't finish off the corner well and has a tendency to run wide exiting corners under power. The increased trail and added weight on the front wheel corrects this by and large. It's noticeable on the track but not the road, as you're not pushing that hard on the road. There are a lot of compromises made in the set up and dimensions of older road bikes to accommodate for pillions, different weight riders and the highly variable conditions all the bikes sold will be ridden in around the world. Some of the reason modern bikes handle so well is because the manufacturers have gradually narrowed down the compromises which is great for particular riders and environments but not for others. They then drag it back a little by electronically tailored adjustability. Ciao

You only need to cure VHT engine enamel for "Chemical resistance" read gasoline resistance. You could probably get away without the heat curing but if you have an oven and an understanding wife then it can't hurt anything. Personally I'd stay away from wrinkle finish paint. It collects dirt too easily and is hard to clean. looks nice but not in the "real world" Ciao

I suspect the Dynotec "special" triple clamps are just 40mm offset same as the std slightly later V11 clamps but reduced from the probable earlier 45mm clamps. Ciao

On the front subframe. Ciao

Check the relay holder, connectors and the wiring behind it. Ciao

I own one because I'm into self flagellation. Ciao

Well you could try a 7/64 allan key which is a fraction smaller than a 3m or you could apply some corse water based valve grinding paste to the 2.5 key tip to give it some grip. Note water based not oil based grinding paste. Available at any auto spares store. Ciao

I've always liked this colour. Even looks great on a car. Ciao

I'm not even all that sure the additional frame member on the later bikes is anything to do with mitigating gearbox cracking. I postulated a few years ago that when they added this they also at the same time changed the front engine support frame to one which was less triangulated and maybe the gearbox brace was to regain some fore and aft support due to this. Dunno. Mario at Thunderbikes Perth an old style Guzzi shop and at one time the original sole importer for Australia has been around Guzzi's for well over 30 years and was closely involved with Ted Stolaski who originally owned the place. Ted had close ties to the factory and Dr John and Magni and was supplied with pre production prototype Daytona engines straight out of the factory and also the same for the Magni Australia bikes to race here and in Daytona. Anyway Mario goes right back to that era and before in the early 90's with Ted and Guzzi. I spoke to him about the gearbox cracking issue and he'd never heard of it! I'd be interested to see how many and what models had actually had issues. It's easy here on social media for things to seem more common than they actually are. There must be thousands of bikes out there with no cracking issues still running around. Ciao

My early 2000 doesn't have the bosses nor does the Centauro engine now in the bike or the 2 other centy cases I have. Personally I dont quite understand the extra bracing but then again the engineering rationale that goes on inside Guzzi often leaves me confused. There's so much internal and local politics in Mandello it's sometimes hard to rationalise engineering decisions. I personally would simply have added extra material around the upper mount area and eliminated the sudden cross sectional change and invested about $100 in a few bull nosed cutters for machining the mount faces to remove the total engineering fopar of the sharp edge on a stressed mount. That in particular is such a rookie mistake engineering wise. Ducati coped with engine case cracking for years on the belt engines and just added extra material and webbing in a quite a few updates which solved the problems. No need for heavy clunky extra bracing when some minor adjustments to casting and machining would solve the issue. Guzzi, try working them out. Ciao

They'll just end up in the bottom of the sump and picked up by the mag plug. Ciao

My "belief" was put out there as an engineering opinion for others to consider and believe or not believe based on actual hard physical evidence from a repair. It's not the same as "having a stab" based on no measurements or physical evidence or even verified information from a reliable source. By all means give us your thoughts on materials/housing designs/availability from outside suppliers but it needs to be more than "a thought I had at the time" you need to back it with some evidence, measurements, information from a supplier, what you found from a repair etc, otherwise it's just guesswork and suspect information that muddies the waters. So currently we are chasing down the "triple tree stagger" theory and postulating various scenarios but the outcome will be based on measurements I will eventually take when I pull my bike apart. Why are we in this situation? Because someone years ago "threw out there" a theory without physical evidence of a change. Extricated a "truth" based on hearsay and part number variations. I've never seen or heard of any differences in any way shape or form for gearbox housings from anyone except you. So far you have put out there, different materials, remanufactured housings, and design changes. All I'm saying is, you may be absolutely correct but where is your information coming from or is it just a "theory" you have with nothing to validate it. No measurements, no skilled welder thats weld repaired both old and new housings and can tell the difference in material etc. This is not a point scoring argument but an effort to sort fact from assumption. Ciao

If your 2005 Coppa Italia has no additional gearbox support from the pork chops to the engine cases then I'd suggest it's not a genuine Coppa Italia. Ciao

Thanks for the images. The casting details around the mounts looks identical to the earlier gearboxes. Ciao

Or the fact the later bikes have additional gearbox supports via extra frame members. If you have "theory's" you should be specific about labelling them as such not present them as some sort of information you have. Give us the theory and explain why you have it so it can be tested otherwise it just ends up as a more "fake facts" and confuses people trying to fix and troubleshoot issues with the bikes and wastes time as was the case here. HMB sourced their gearbox housings from the factory and haven't had them for approx 3 years. Ciao

So why postulate it if you don't know? It's a thought bubble thrown out there by you alone and just leads to confusion. You could have measured the ones you had and compared them to original early gearbox cases of course and that would be some solid information but that's not the case. So it's in effect typical internet scuttlebutt without any proven merit. Ciao

I'm looking at this image and thinking, wow, "what mufflers are those" they look great. Seriously, anyone know what those cans are? Ciao