Read more from Cycle World: https://www.cycleworld.com/
Buy Cycle World Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/cycleworld
Buy Cycle World Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/cycleworld
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 Welcome to the Cycle World Podcast. I'm Mark Hoyer, Editor-in-Chief, and I'm with, of course,
00:04 Kevin Cameron. And today, we're going to talk about the beautiful,
00:09 completely American insanity that is Moto America bagger racing.
00:13 Bagger race bikes, Kevin. Well, the thing about baggers that
00:20 strikes most people is they got to be kidding. Those things, you can't race those things. They
00:27 only lean over to 32 degrees. But the thing that's wonderful is that when a big new kind
00:34 of motorcycle shows up on the market, people are going to race it. And baggers racing arose
00:43 naturally from the activity of people who own the bikes. They thought, "Why don't we have a race?"
00:52 They weren't thinking, "These bikes are unsuitable for racing." They thought, "Which one is faster?"
00:58 And what it has come down to is that age-old question, which reverberates with us all,
01:07 "Which one, Harley Davidson or Indian?" Sure, natural rivalry.
01:14 It couldn't be better. So when people race these things on the sly,
01:22 somehow it made the big time as a one-time non-recurring show at Laguna, and people loved it
01:30 because it was such a shock. It recalls the early days of superbike when the bikes wobbled and
01:40 weaved and they slid, and the riders were bronze young gods sitting bolt upright,
01:50 as God intended, we're told, somehow keeping them gathered up and remaining in control.
01:58 And they made a wonderful sound. People love that motorboat sound.
02:03 They're two of the greatest sounding engines. Indian did a really good job differentiating
02:09 themselves from the 45-degree potato potato, but it's a beautiful sounding power plant. So
02:16 really it does come from the people. The cruiser, bagger, Harley, Indian movement has really been
02:24 headed toward performance for a long time. Performance baggers, all that stuff has really
02:30 a huge mass market appeal. Harley baggers, factory baggers from the OE, they're doing the
02:41 street glide ST now, performance bagger parts. Did you ever in your life think that we would have
02:48 race developed parts going on to bagger street bikes? I never thought I would see
02:56 Olin's reservoirs peeking out from between a saddlebag and the rear fender.
03:00 - That's just what I saw. I was on my way into Laguna paddock last year, and I heard the rumble
03:07 of a Harley behind me. And I turned around and as he swept past, I could see the gleam of the
03:13 twin Olin's reservoirs, which are what the public see as different. I got to have those men. How do
03:21 I get them? It has become a big seller for Olin's and people have got to have it. Just like the
03:34 origin of the chopper. The chopper originated as a drag bike, which was long and low. It had a
03:42 no brake front wheel. It was raked way out in front and it had the little teeny gas tank.
03:48 Somebody was sent up into the overhead of the shop, look around up there and see what kind of
03:53 gas tank you can find that's really little. And it was a Hummer tank. That was Harley's 125.
04:00 And that became a look. Oh, and the giant tire on the back. And this is what happens is that
04:08 the public looks at the racing and the things that strike them most forcefully, they want to have for
04:16 themselves. So these engines are regulated to an extent because the Harley is air cooled. They give
04:26 it 132 cubic inches roughly. And the Indian is liquid cooled. So they let them have 112 cubic
04:34 inches. And the Harley's rev limit is 7,000 and the Indians is 7,700. And they have these god awful
04:42 big block Chevy size boars. They are monsters. But when you look at the pistons from the Harley,
04:52 they look like a super bike piston and there are oil cooling jets. So all of this performance stuff
05:01 is creeping in because it works. And the thing that I loved about baggers racing when I first
05:09 saw it and which silenced forever the skeptic in me, "Oh, they only lean over 32 degrees or what
05:16 good is that? That's not racing." Was the fact that all the techniques of racing work just fine
05:24 on motorcycles that have a minimum weight of 620 pounds and typically have an American La France
05:32 wheelbase of 65 inches. I mean, it's a walk from the front wheel to the rear wheel.
05:40 Yeah, somewhere. Yeah, they're definitely very long. I think it helps them on the track a little
05:45 bit. You can get that. They're not as prone to say the quick snap. But going back to so 620 pounds
05:52 is the minimum weight for a bagger. Just for reference, the super bike minimum weight is 370.5.
05:58 The crankshaft weight on the Indian and Harley are regulated. You have to be within 10%. And I think
06:06 for the Indian, it's like 38 pounds ish. And the Harley I think is 32, somewhere in that range. But
06:12 that the crankshaft weight of the Indian is 10% of the weight of a super bike. It's just amazing.
06:19 But it's this American thing. We didn't race Mustangs or sports cars and NASCAR. It was like
06:26 the big old bangers that everybody drove. And that was kind of the appeal because if it came out of
06:33 running moonshine, you used a big car because you wanted to carry a lot.
06:36 Carry a big tank. Yeah.
06:39 So it's just so beautifully American. And it was the early races and the early bikes were like,
06:49 "Hey, well, let's raise them up a little bit and let's get these shocks on them. And what kind of
06:52 fork can we use?" And now they've evolved into essentially V-twin super bikes. I talked to the
07:00 crew chief on one of the Harleys and he's like, "Yeah, I can change the entire front end in 17
07:05 minutes." Everything about it. I love it because there's no rider aids. I'm all for rider aids.
07:17 Safety makes me go faster, lets me burn the tire more consistently and more easily coming off of a
07:24 corner. But when you get riders of the talent, you get a Jeremy McWilliams and you get a Kyle
07:30 Wyman and you get those and all those guys. I mean, James Ristoli and Hayden Gilliam and
07:35 everybody out there is doing amazing things on a great big bagger and they are leaning them.
07:41 You say, "Oh, 32 degrees." And well, now they're 45 plus.
07:45 45 plus. Yeah.
07:47 And the comical part of that is the seat heights. They have to raise the things. They raise the
07:55 entire bike so high. Do you have some stats on the-
07:57 I did. I measured after a conversation with Jeremy McWilliams, he said he has to adopt an
08:04 extreme side saddle position to hold the thing up on the starting line. But the foot pegs are 20
08:12 inches off the ground and the seat is another 17 inches beyond that. So those things are way up
08:20 there. 37 inches. And he's small. He's a very,
08:23 he is the classic jockey road racer type. Motorcycle.
08:26 Motorcycle sized man. Yeah.
08:28 So in the process of raising these bikes, they're discovering the value of weight transfer. If you
08:37 have a very long low bike like a dragster, the weight you put on the rear wheel is what you get.
08:45 And having essentially 100% of the weight on the drive wheel is important for a dragster.
08:54 Initially, when these bikes weren't raised up as much, they didn't transfer as much weight to the
08:59 rear. And that's turning out to be crucial for getting off of corners. Does it do weight transfer?
09:06 The taller you can make the bike, the more weight transfer you get when you either accelerate or
09:12 brake. It's because you've got the center of mass up here and the forces are all being exerted down
09:20 at ground level. So that is a lever. You push hard enough on that lever and the front wheel will
09:26 come up. Yeah. It starts driving it into the pavement when you're on the gas.
09:31 Yep. So weight transfer is good. I had this experience of walking past the Honda pits
09:42 when they had just adopted the RC 51 V-twin for Supermark. And they had the old, the terrible
09:50 45 sitting outside the pit area on a stand. And I thought, "Ah, wait, I'll measure the
09:57 crankshaft height." And I went over and did that. Then I went to Muzzy and I said,
10:01 "Here, I've measured the crankshaft height on that thing." "Oh," Muzzy said, "Let's do it here."
10:06 So we measured his. And of course, the Kawasaki is an inline four, so it's really wide. You have
10:12 to mount the engine way up high. It turns out the Kawasaki's crankshaft height was
10:18 two and a half inches lower than the crankshaft height of the Honda RC 45. And the reason was
10:26 the two different styles of riding. Doug Chandler, corner speed, long and low.
10:32 Miguel, point and shoot. What you want is weight transfer right now. Guns blazing,
10:42 Miguel de Jomo. Point and shoot everywhere. Yep. And so all those arguments about low center
10:52 of gravity just poof. They disappear. They don't have any importance. And it's work to get those
11:02 big bikes up high. And it's work to make them narrow enough to lean 45 degrees. With the Indian,
11:11 they've got that sort of coal shovel up in front of the engine. Right, where they enclosed the
11:16 radiator, they had those bits coming down. And I know they've been able to squeeze those in a
11:22 little bit per the rules. I was talking to Al Luddington, who's an old-time AMA crew chief,
11:27 and he said, "Well, these guys are real nervous about the rules, but it's not cheating until
11:33 they catch you." If it was up to me, I'd have those parts off there and narrow them down,
11:37 and it would look stock as hell, but it would be an inch narrower overall.
11:42 So it's a lot of... And I see they're writing it into the rules saying that,
11:47 "What is the main frame?" The main frame does not include those
11:51 engine hangers. The main frame is the big chunk. Yeah. I mean, you're debating the color brown
12:01 at that point, right? Yeah, sure. So, but yeah, I mean, that is one of the rules. The base rule
12:07 is you have to use the main frame. The swing arms are free, which is a funny way of putting it,
12:14 because the cost limit is $8,000, but they are free to be whatever you want them to be. I like
12:19 how Indian says, "Oh, we use our stock swing arm," and then you see the swing arm. And somewhere in
12:24 there is, yes, there is a stock swing arm, but they've got acres of sheet metal built up all
12:29 around to weld it in and to reinforce it. And it's narrow like a super bike in this direction,
12:35 but it's quite tall. So that the swing arm beams can do this. Yeah, just a little bit. And the
12:41 bike is leaned over. It acts as a suspension. Yeah. The Harley is just chipped out of a big
12:47 block and it's gorgeous. It's a wonderful filigree. Yeah. I'd like to have one and just
12:52 hang it on the wall. I think my wife... I had a pile of brake discs in here for a Comparo that
12:59 we were doing years ago, and she said, "Why did you have to send those back? I thought those
13:04 were pretty good looking." Yeah. Yes, they are. So it's pretty neat going into the paddock in
13:11 either one of the pit lanes, in either one of their pit setups. It's magnificent to see...
13:19 These are really the two factory race teams. There's factory supported racing and super bikes,
13:25 but this is where money's going. And so many riders want to race them now because it is where
13:32 the money's going. And the attention of the fans is on it so intensely. And every race... I went to
13:39 Road America and Laguna Seca, and it's happening everywhere. The parking lot is filled with
13:46 Harleys when it was not before. It's like an outreach program. You're getting a motorcycle
13:52 enthusiast resonating with the look of the bike and the sound and that community that
14:01 cruisers and baggers and all that have, like the bar community, the riding community,
14:09 we ride in groups, and the socialization of those people, and then the self-image.
14:15 And you can click all of that into this... And unseen, the phone circles and the email circles
14:23 of all these people talking about these things. "Well, next year I'm going to do this to my bike.
14:28 And I've got this on order. I can't afford that thing, but I'm going to get this thing."
14:33 And it's exciting. I remember being a young man in his 20s, going through the Webco book and
14:41 looking at all the pistons and the camshafts and all this, the aluminum clutch basket for a Triumph.
14:48 Who would want it now? But it was so beautiful. It was irresistible.
14:52 Yeah. So you're getting baggers from the factory that are inspired and tied to the race bikes.
15:00 You're getting actual parts. We've ridden the 135 cubic inch crate motor that Harley sells,
15:10 and it is sharing the ring pack. It's the racing ring pack that works great over the durability.
15:18 Like the durability test, the crate engine, the 135, just like a factory motor. So when you go
15:23 to the dealer, you can get it installed. It's 8,000 bucks and you can get it installed and
15:29 it has a factory warranty and it's emissions compliant and all the things. So it's the
15:34 ring pack from the race bike that they developed for the racer. There's a billet intake that they
15:41 flew it to, or they sent it away. I think it was Rota Atlanta, but they sent it. They said,
15:49 "This is the intake to work." And they sent that back to the factory and said, "This is the intake
15:53 we're putting on this engine." It's just very cool drawing a straight line into production.
15:59 By the way, these giant headphones, just as a quick aside, these are Grado headphones. They're
16:05 made in Brooklyn. Grado makes beautiful stuff. We're not sponsored by Grado, I should call them.
16:10 But these are pistons. These are actual B-Twin pistons, custom made for us by Grado a few years
16:17 ago. I wore them in honor of the baggers racing conversation. So going back to walking into the
16:28 tent where they're working on the bikes, either one, Immaculate Workstations, it's a full super
16:35 bike effort. Immaculate Workstations, perfectly clean parts, very bang, bang, bang routine.
16:41 All the data analysis, all the things going on that happen in any world-class racing effort,
16:49 it's spectacular. It actually, it is most impressive. I found that the Indian transport
16:56 trailer is 54 feet long. And that thing is chock full when they're traveling. One of the things
17:04 that they pull out is their engine cabinet that has the fresh engines in it. It's on wheels.
17:10 They have it standing there to frighten the demons away from the engines that are actually in the
17:16 bikes. You behave yourself or we'll put one of these in there. Well, I think they have their
17:22 act down now. In the early rounds, they were still figuring out what the durability, how long are we
17:30 going to run these parts? How high can we rev them? How high should we rev them? When they get
17:34 the rev limit, of course, they tune. Everything tunes to the rev limit. You're trying to build
17:40 the power curve to make the most of the area that you have to work. And they really have their act
17:45 down now. We're not oiling the track or doing anything like that. And they've got the regimen.
17:52 One thing I observed in one of the paddocks was those temperature strips that you can stick on
17:58 things and it's the telltale. It'll tell you how hot it got. There was one on a primary drive that
18:05 said 300 degrees Fahrenheit, which is pretty darn hot. And oil, I think you could probably speak to
18:12 this, but oil doesn't really like necessarily being at such a high temperature and certainly
18:18 the parts. And so they have a very, as you would in racing, they work those parts through. They
18:27 run them a certain amount and they take that apart and service it. And they put the clutch in and
18:31 slipper clutch. I'm not sure if they're using slipper clutch. Are they using slipper clutches?
18:37 The Indian guys told me last summer that they had one coming. And I don't know about Harley,
18:44 whether they are using one or not. But of course, the wonderful thing about a slipper clutch is
18:49 when you close the throttle on a big high compression engine, the rear wheel is having
18:54 to spin that engine against its compression, even though the throttle is closed, there's something
18:59 there. And what can happen is the rear wheel slips or it hops, or if you're already angling
19:06 over into the turn, it makes the back end slide out. Looks like you're going for the thumb brake.
19:13 And they have to, slipper clutches is one step toward being protected against that.
19:22 Also makes heat though. Yes, it sure does. Because anytime the clutch is slipping,
19:29 that means that much horsepower is going into the clutch instead of to the rear wheel or wherever.
19:35 The other thing is probably that's an oil bath primary. And if you let moving
19:42 parts touch oil, there's going to be heating happening. Because I remember when Kawasaki
19:50 made their little KR250, the gearbox casing was tight around the gears. And the early engines
19:58 were filled up to 1400 cc's of oil, right up to the center line. And they burned the paint
20:05 off the gearbox. And people who were doing dyno work at Harley told me that you didn't want to
20:13 touch the gearbox after several dyno runs because it was really hot. What that heat means, it means
20:20 power. 746 watts is one horsepower. And to get that right in your mind, a kitchen toaster is 746
20:29 watts. All those red hot little wires in there making your breakfast for you. So the ideal way
20:39 to lubricate those moving parts is an air oil mist. And they'll get to it. Because anybody that goes
20:47 up to a bike with a heat gun and sees some primary chain is getting hot, that's a power loss. Let's
20:54 stop it. Put that wire to work. Many years ago I had a car, a Triumph TR6 car, and I had it up on
21:02 jack stands and I was putting the transmission back into it after putting some bearings and
21:07 rebuilding the main shaft and all that stuff. And I got it all together and I was about to put the
21:12 top case on and it's a big square opening, you know, it's real big. And I decided I'd like to
21:19 see what it looks like in there when it's running and it's in gear. And I didn't realize I needed to
21:23 put it in gear first. I started it and then of course the input shaft is turning but nothing
21:28 else is turning. And I was like, well, I should maybe should wrap this in Saran Wrap so in case
21:35 you know it gets a little frothy. And so I moved one of the selectors, I put it into fourth gear
21:40 because I thought, well, let's move some stuff, turn it up. And I wrapped it in Saran Wrap and
21:45 I started the car and I let the clutch out in fourth and I wrapped it up a little bit and I
21:50 was shocked at how violent and how the oil just reacted and how it pushed, it frost so much it
21:57 stretched out the plastic wrap and oil was still going everywhere. And there was a really good
22:03 lesson for the violence that's happening inside the cases and how much heat that would generate.
22:09 So inside a primary, especially with the chain, you know, big high bow type wide chain, imagine
22:18 the churn. And of course, if you're familiar with the 500 GP bikes of the previous era
22:25 that ended in 2001, all of those bikes had an oil way across the top of the gearbox with an oil jet
22:34 into each gear mesh. So there were six jets across the top of each gearbox and a little tiny
22:41 gear rotor pump pumping the oil up there. And the level of the oil was way below the gear so it
22:48 never touched them. That was the only oil they got. Plus oil down the center of the shaft for
22:54 the gears that spin. Yeah, I mean, the common, you know, why do we like dry sumps? Because
23:01 there isn't all that stuff frothing around and there's been all the schemes inside of an engine
23:05 to keep the oil from being hit by the rotating parts and getting it to run down screens on the
23:12 side that grab it and let it run down the cases to the vacuum pump to clear the crankcase of all
23:18 that stuff and put the oil precisely where we want it rather than having it just whipping around
23:23 everywhere. And just the amount needed. Yeah. Not vastly too much. So we're seeing really good
23:31 racing out of it. And I, you know, one of the questions that's been on my mind for a long time
23:36 now is like, what is the premier class in motor America? And I would say still from a technical
23:45 standpoint, from the classical racing standpoint, we think super bikes. Yeah. Because we do have
23:50 factory supported teams. They are turning the fastest lap times, not by a huge margin, in fact,
23:56 but and then I think, well, so that is the, that is sort of the most technically advanced and it's
24:04 the lightest weight and it's the purest form. And then I think about, I think about popular music
24:09 and I think about, you know, Rachmaninoff or something, you know, really complicated classical
24:14 music, because I'm going to go see someone play Rachmaninoff piano concerto number three.
24:20 And I think there were still seats available for that show. And it's, you know, it's just coming
24:24 right up. There's still seats available. And I wonder, good to know. Right. But I,
24:29 I just think about it that way. I think like, well, classical music, I love classical music,
24:34 but it isn't widely popular. And is super bike racing becoming like the classical music of
24:39 racing, you know, there's the old story about a factory that was in the doldrums of low productivity
24:48 and they gave inspiring speeches to the work people and the work people just said,
24:54 you guys want to just jack their profits up and make us go home real tired. And so
25:00 they got a motivational guy in and the motivational guy said, paint the machines a bright color.
25:06 They said, well, worth a try. They painted machines, all these different bright colors.
25:13 Production went up 15%. But over the ensuing months, it came back down.
25:20 So then they painted the machines gray again. Production went up 15%. People like novelty.
25:29 And baggers are the new hot thing. They're the thing that excite people. And this is why
25:40 any racing organization has to consider having new classes in seedling stage.
25:48 The ones that grow well, you keep the ones that don't grow, you toss them out just like any good
25:55 gardener would do. Yeah. And I'm thinking they, for instance, in MotoGP, they say they're going
26:03 to slow them down in 2027. How will they do it? They might change the class. Now, uh,
26:13 wouldn't you have to slow World Superbike down too, because you can't have World Superbikes.
26:19 You have to think about this holistically, right? You can't have World Superbikes.
26:23 Don't want to market against yourself. So, but when it comes, by the way, I just think if you're
26:30 going to see this concert, my uncle, um, years, years and years ago was a stage hand at a theater
26:41 in, um, in Kentucky and Louisville and Rachmaninoff came to play.
26:49 And afterwards they, as a special favor and a treat for this stage personnel, they had a little
26:58 conversation with, with rock and some starry eyed woman said, Oh, it's so wonderful to see you out
27:08 there playing this wonderful music. What must be going through your head when you create such
27:13 excellence? And he said, I'm counting the house because I've been cheated too many times.
27:21 When I, when I get done, I know exactly how many people have paid admission and what my share is.
27:29 Yeah. Well, they're really good people. It's easy. It just comes out of them. They can think
27:33 about grocery shopping or that they want to stake later and, and Rachmaninoff can play the most
27:38 complicated piano pieces in the world. This brings up a point that I usually, uh, I share with my
27:44 friends, uh, see that was Rachmaninoff. You got to go. Someone was there to go see Rachmaninoff
27:49 plays music. And really what I'm seeing is a Rachmaninoff cover band. You can tell you it's
27:53 I mean, they're a really good cover band, but it's not like Rachmaninoff.
27:58 But what we're orbiting around here is the idea that the public like something new.
28:05 They like something that is stunningly different and that's what baggers has proved to be.
28:12 And also, but don't you think it's, it's easy to grasp. That's what I love about it is, is really,
28:18 I mean, I love, I love MotoGP. I love the technology. We sat there at Kota with the
28:24 crew chief for Aprilia. Um, do you remember his name? I don't remember his name, but
28:29 we were, well, anyway, we were sitting there and he was talking about the, uh, the ignition schemes
28:37 and the control schemes on applying power when the rider turned the torque rheostat, right? When we
28:43 turned the torque rheostat that they had a scheme that first took up the mesh in the gear smoothly
28:50 so that it wouldn't disturb the bike as the rider was peeling it in. That was the backlash in the,
28:55 in the dogs, the backlash. Yeah. The backlash that, that, that they're controlling that. I think that
29:02 is beautiful, but it's also something we don't necessarily readily understand. And where,
29:08 whereas with baggers, it's like, yeah, no rider aids. It's just me and the bike.
29:12 And it's this bagger and it's a big booming V twin. And you just go, yeah, this is cool. Like
29:20 it's, it's completely, it's, I don't know. It's, I don't know if it's less cerebral,
29:24 which is cool. Like that's, what's cool about it. It's just, it's, it's putting us in touch
29:30 with the primary variables. Yeah. We're seeing it's like a steam locomotive. Yeah. There are
29:37 the side rods. There are the huge cylinders. There are the, there's the valve gear, all those
29:42 rods and levers that are going backwards and forwards. And when the thing starts off,
29:48 sometimes it slips, the wheels slip and the it's, it's quite marvelous to see
29:55 it all in front of you. And these things slide, they slide very controllably.
30:02 They, they don't appear to wreck the tires because they're not constantly spinning.
30:07 And it's surprising to think that because of their great weight, they actually have a superior
30:17 unsprung weight ratio. And I remember Kelker others saying in general, a motorcycle handles
30:23 better under a big man than it does under a little man. Well, why don't you, that's a beautiful,
30:28 lean, muscular way of expressing that. But what do you, what do you mean by that?
30:33 I mean that the, the wheels of the motorcycle have mass. So when they hit a bump, they tend to be
30:43 thrown up in the air and you get airtime. The lighter you can make the wheels, the better chance
30:51 the spring and the damper have of prevent of shortening that airtime so that you have good
30:57 traction. And in the old days of disc records, sound recordings, you wanted the Sapphire or
31:08 diamond stylus to have essentially no mass so that as it was being thrown from side to side by the,
31:15 the graphical sound wave that is the groove in the record, that it didn't cut chips out of the
31:22 record, that it was light enough to follow that contour. And so unsprung weight ratio in a
31:30 motorcycle means making the wheels and their brakes as light as possible so that they can be,
31:37 the springs and dampers can make them accurately follow the road profile and have no airtime at
31:43 all. That would be the ideal. It's never achieved. But, uh, well, and it's less likely to, if the,
31:52 if the chassis itself and the engine and all that stuff is also then heavier,
31:56 it's less likely to move the chassis. So you're isolating that work to the suspension and not
32:04 moving the mass of the motorcycle. And you're increasing your mechanical grip. That is the
32:09 following of the pavement profile by the, by the wheel and tire. And I think that makes those big
32:15 controllable slides possible. Well, when you see the motorcycle doing this, what I like to think
32:20 about is professional surfers, uh, gymnasts and all of that. What are they doing that allows them
32:28 to flip their bodies all over the place? They're making their head follow an incredibly smooth path.
32:34 If you watch a professional surfer, the head is at the middle of all the action.
32:39 Ah, it's still moving, but it moves incredibly slowly. And as soon as the head gets out of whack,
32:44 everything goes crazy. And I think of the motorcycle and you know, that's, that's the head.
32:49 And then the body's doing the suspension work, so to speak.
32:52 In a job that I had years ago, we were testing a two foot cube, uh, filled with water and we were
33:02 going to produce oscillations on the surface of this. It's a classical experiment from long time
33:07 ago. And in the process of working up the equipment, I got on the turntable, the box of
33:14 liquid wasn't built yet. And I wrote on there at 60 RPM. And I found that as long as I held my head
33:20 perfectly level, I could read a book. I could thread a needle. But if I did this, I was instantly
33:29 sick. Because spinning at that rate, if you suddenly change the axis, everything in your
33:37 inner ear, the cochlea signals disaster, panic time. And so that was very instructive. And I
33:47 think that what, what pilots do when they take, um, magazine editors up in their jet,
33:54 um, the pilots are all winking and nodding at each other and say, make them good and sick.
33:59 Pilots don't move their heads when the airplane is doing all that stuff. They're holding their
34:04 heads perfectly still. But the, the novice is looking out the windows and makes himself sick
34:13 or herself. Yeah. It's a, it's a, uh, like touring bikes, people talk about touring bikes. Oh,
34:21 they're 800 pounds. And why can't they make them lighter? It's like, it's actually not bad.
34:25 You have the wheelbase, you can fit two people. And then the percentage difference
34:29 when you add luggage and you add another person on a touring bike, the percentage difference in
34:35 the weight of the bike allows that suspension to be better. It compensates better. It's,
34:42 yeah, it's a smaller percentage. So having some of that weight, yeah, it just allows the
34:48 motorcycle to be more flexible from a load perspective. I don't think they're carrying
34:53 anything in those saddlebags on the race bikes though. They're, they're made out of that potato
34:57 chip, thin carbon fiber. They're beautiful. They're tucked up lean and tight and they're very
35:02 high. Um, they did switch to slicks, which I think, you know, I don't think they have any,
35:09 you know, we're not even pretending. Are we pretending that these are street bikes? You
35:13 know, some of the D O T classes, I mean, slicks here make perfect sense just because the,
35:17 the weight and the predictability and the beautiful feel, I think you get
35:22 pretty good racing out of a slick tire. They're the most competent tire because
35:27 having no pattern, the pattern is only there for water drainage. That's its only purpose.
35:36 The edge of those tread blocks do not cut into the asphalt and generate traction. Um,
35:42 in the early days they were fearful. Firestone guys were fearful of testing actual slicks
35:49 because they thought that rubber coming off of the tread would form little ball bearings.
35:55 And if there were no grooves for the ball bearings to fall into,
35:58 traction would be destroyed, but it doesn't work that way. That was just a bad dream.
36:05 I couldn't believe the first time I ever rode on slicks, man, the front end feel the, the ability
36:11 to put the bike in the corner and to have the feedback. And then when the front let go, cause
36:15 I was like, I was so impressed. I just kept driving it in harder. And then the front leg go.
36:20 And I just froze. I mean, luck made me a hero here. I just froze. I didn't, I didn't panic
36:24 or I did panic, but I didn't do anything crazy. And I just sat there and it scrubbed and the speed
36:30 went off and then the bike continued to turn. And it was all very predictable and the bike didn't go
36:34 anywhere. Slicks are get yourself some slicks people. Don't use them on the road.
36:38 Well, that's just what happened to Mike Baldwin. He said that he lost the front, uh, in there in
36:48 the eight hour at Suzuka. And he said, I must've gone 200 feet like that with the front end feeling
36:56 all light. And they said, I just, I just held perfectly still. And I thought friction will
37:03 save me. Friction will slow the bike down until the thing grips again. And it did.
37:10 There he is counting the house, right? He's trying to make sure everyone's paid.
37:14 He's got the, the, the ability to think that through, like, let's just wait. I didn't think
37:19 it through much. It went away. I froze. It came back. You did the right thing, but without
37:24 intending to. Sure. Yeah. Um, so I want to talk a little bit about numbers here because, um,
37:30 are we not going 180 at Daytona on these things? Daytona is coming up in March. We'll find out for
37:37 sure. But last year, the Indian went 180 miles an hour. Daytona. Yeah. I mean,
37:44 and why shouldn't it? I mean, crushing air is why, I mean, my God, well, the barn door,
37:50 you know, they've got that frigid air on the front of them and it's like, you know, so wide and
37:56 really aerodynamically ugly, but, um, super bike, they, the AMA called it a silhouette class,
38:05 meaning that it had to closely resemble the street bike in order to keep the attention of
38:13 the spectators. And I think that it's possible that some spectators are tired of super bike.
38:23 They know that it's very sophisticated. The lap times are wonderful. The riders are great.
38:27 Well, what do you do if you, if you find your interest going somewhere else, that's how life
38:35 goes. Uh, we have a nature. We can't always be forcing ourselves to do the right thing.
38:43 So, um, I just, I'm delighted with, with baggers for that reason. And it's a fresh opportunity to
38:52 learn something. Think of the people on those crews and of the riders, they have those conferences,
38:58 you know, it's, it's like Jesus and the disciples, the rider is at the center and there's this ring
39:04 of, of people who are waiting for the pearls of wisdom. What's happening in turn three.
39:11 And the rider speaks the fresh data. People are filling up with ideas. This is a wonderful time
39:19 for this class and it doesn't last forever. Yeah. And invariably, you know, a lot of times
39:27 Harley and Indian don't really get credit for the engineering or engineers that they have. And
39:34 the bottom line is, is that almost everybody, let's say a huge percentage of people I've talked
39:40 to who work in product planning, product development, engineering design, have a
39:44 racing background. You know, they race, they race at road America. They race club, they club race,
39:50 all kinds of different bikes or road racers. And they want, you know, there, there existed in,
39:57 I think it was Jason Kales, a desktop computer. So Jason's a principal guy on the Harley team. He's
40:03 the manager of the team basically. And, uh, he works in the screaming Eagle and the,
40:09 in the aftermarket parts. And he had, uh, they had the knee, knee dragging, knee,
40:14 knee dragger bag or something like that as a concept long before they were going bag racing.
40:20 And then now they have this opportunity and all these people have this background of,
40:25 of racing and data acquisition and all those things. And they're,
40:29 they're downloading all this stuff and analyzing data. And they're trying, you know,
40:33 as soon as, as soon as they go out, like before the first session, the bikes are clean,
40:38 everything's aired up. It's all perfect. And then as soon as they go out on the track,
40:44 everyone's calm, they're relatively calm. Nothing's happening because there's nothing
40:48 to talk about yet. But as soon as they go out on the track, everybody, you see everybody,
40:55 everybody grunts and they get all wound up. And then if the things aren't going right and they're
41:00 not getting the time, or even if they are, man, they come back and it's just constant
41:04 staring at the screen and analysis and talking, looking at the bike. And it is just nonstop. Try
41:09 to get an interview during all that. Oh yeah. You know, so an Indian, uh, of course they also have
41:16 the hooligan bikes there. Uh, and they were trying some ideas on the Hooli
41:24 and transferring them to the bagger. And one of the things that was working was slowing the rate
41:31 of front fork compression so that you didn't have a sort of inertial thump at the end of the travel.
41:39 And, um, this is something that every race team has worked with. It's a universal,
41:46 a cultural universal in that culture. And when it comes to people like Paul James,
41:51 who's from a racing background and had a long career at Harley Davidson, I think
41:56 that those racing people are not only desirable, but essential in the motorcycle industry
42:04 because they have within them a driving force of enthusiasm. They are not just guys that answered
42:13 or gals that answered a want ad, wanted help, wanted ad, uh, oh, the pay looks good. Uh, the
42:21 working conditions, it's can work from home sometimes. Yeah. Okay. I'll, I'll check that
42:27 off. It's, it's not like that. And that's what, what happened in California with the majors when,
42:34 uh, racing got turned off is that, uh, when, when American Honda's great team manager, um,
42:44 Gary Mathers retired, I was thinking to myself, who are they going to, who are they going to get
42:50 to put in this place? And they never got anybody. They had people in the job, but they were just,
42:56 uh, Joe and Bob and Pete sent over from HR and, yeah. Uh, you need, you need what you say is
43:04 true. You, it, it has to be imperative to you, right? Yes. I think so. Because who else,
43:10 you know, I'm working on my 95 Ducati and I really, I want it. I want to set a sniffer up
43:16 on the stock exhaust system, but it's got, you know, one eighth 27 NPT threads. So no two sensor
43:23 doesn't fit. And I'm, damn it. I'm going to figure out a way. Like I've got, I've got the fittings
43:27 coming. Like it runs great, but I still want to know things. I still want to see what the balance
43:33 of the carburetor is. And I think, uh, that essential, that imperative drive, you just got
43:38 it. Like, that's like, why would you get in a van in March when it's snowing and then drive all
43:44 night to get to Daytona to unload your car to 50 to have a blow up in the first practice and then
43:51 rebuilt? Like, sure. Why? Because you got it. Like, it's just too good. You know? Well, I,
43:57 I wrote a TDC about that years ago at, uh, at cycle in which I proposed that if we all did not
44:06 go one year, that there would be a glaciation that the winter would never end and that humanity
44:14 would be lost. It was our duty to go to Daytona in the springtime. Sure. Um, yeah, so spectacular
44:23 racing, uh, super interesting class factory teams, uh, Harley versus Indian. It is jobs for riders,
44:34 jobs for good jobs for riders. Terry Vance said back in the day, you know, when he was doing the
44:40 Vance and Heinz Ducati, his, uh, his rider budget was $3 million. Yeah. Uh, it's not like that
44:46 anymore, but if you're looking for a paycheck, baggers is not a bad place to get one. There's,
44:52 there's money in it. And, uh, you know, you take somebody like Kyle Wyman, Kyle Wyman was running
44:56 his own race team. Like he was running his own race team and riding the bike and like talking
45:01 to him at Laguna last year. He's just like, man, this is so nice. You know, this is, I'm like,
45:06 it's a dream job because you get to actually focus on being the rider and you don't have to worry
45:12 about like midway through the season, man, I better start thinking about next season. Like
45:16 it's just eyes on the job, eyes on the prize. And then you have the support system around you and
45:21 you have, you know, his, his, uh, crew chief, Dave comes from Isle of Man TT and British super bike.
45:26 And, uh, he too never thought he would be, you know, working on baggers full-time as race bike.
45:33 But, uh, I think it's, uh, it's a beautiful addition to the class, um, or to Moto America.
45:40 Um, I think overall that they're doing a very good job with the entertainment aspect of racing and,
45:46 and making an interest to us and keeping the, you know, keeping, keeping classes that
45:52 are classically interesting and then adding things like baggers, like not,
45:56 it would be easy to look down your nose as a, as a classic technical racing enthusiast.
46:04 It's easy to look down your nose at these things, but you cannot deny the professionalism, the
46:10 racing quality of racing and the effort and the interest. It's just spectacular. And I think,
46:17 I think it's one of its great appeals is how just beautifully American, you know, it's like, Hey,
46:22 we got some American pressers, let's race them. You know, you just put these huge things and then
46:28 what do you get out of it? Massive amounts of torque. You get a beautifully controllable
46:33 amount of torque at a long wheelbase and you can, and then you've got these huge bikes,
46:38 like vying for position out, trying to outbreak into the corners or out accelerate coming off the
46:44 corner. And it's just not slow coming down the corkscrew. They flop over right now. Yeah. It's
46:51 remarkable. It is. And the lap times are, are seconds off. I mean, we could, we could qualify
46:57 a bagger in a super bike race, right? And, and, uh, the baggers Laguna lap record is quicker
47:06 than the lap record set by, uh, Eddie Lawson in 1988 on a 500 two-stroke Grand Prix bike.
47:14 Now tires are probably responsible for most of that, but that is a very respectable accomplishment.
47:22 286 pound motorcycle with, yes, with a significant high amount of horsepower. Well, I think, uh,
47:30 yeah, I'm, um, I'm excited to see the season start March, uh, this March, March 8th is the 200. And,
47:40 uh, it'll be, uh, another interesting season of bagger racing. Uh, and I know that, uh, I know
47:48 that Dorn is trying to get it to, uh, be an exhibition class at some MotoGPs and there's
47:54 talks about taking it to Europe to show it off and do things with it. So team America, here we go.
48:00 Coca-Cola and Hershey chocolate once again. So it's a, it's pretty cool. If a little is good
48:07 and more is better, too much is just enough. Well, thanks for listening, everybody. We're,
48:14 uh, glad to have you here. We love talking about motorcycles. If you want to, uh, have us talk
48:20 about something, get the old Kevin Cameron brain working on a, on a story or a solution or a
48:25 problem, uh, just throw down in the comments and, uh, like us subscribe and, and, uh, we're going
48:30 to keep, keep doing these and, uh, talk to you about motorcycles. Thanks so much. Thank you.