MV Agusta four-stroke Grand Prix racers howling through their megaphone exhausts are legendary! Cycle World's Kevin Cameron and Mark Hoyer talk about MV from its first little modest little machine built in post-World War II Italy to world-dominating racing motorcycles that continued to compete into the 1970s. Sometimes slow to change and other times rapidly updating designs to stay competitive with upstart Honda's amazing multis of the 1960s, MV was a dominant force in GP racing until two-strokes took over in the world championship.
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SportsTranscript
00:00:00Hey, welcome back to the Cycleworld podcast.
00:00:03I'm Mark Hoyer, the editor-in-chief,
00:00:04and I'm with Kevin Cameron, our technical editor.
00:00:06Our topic this week is MV Agusta's evolution
00:00:09in Grand Prix racing from basically the 50s
00:00:12until they quit in the 70s.
00:00:14And magnificent evolution of technology.
00:00:20In the early years, they were kind of beating up on,
00:00:23I mean, they had some multi-cylinder competition,
00:00:25but MV, aircraft company, and somebody,
00:00:29the Count was wishing to have a hobby
00:00:32and was enthusiastic and invested heavily,
00:00:36as one would in doing that.
00:00:38And so MV came in and won tons of world championships,
00:00:42and obviously, you know, you had Giacomo Agostini,
00:00:44a super-talented rider, among others.
00:00:47A ton of championships.
00:00:52But then it got really serious.
00:00:54Honda came along and did some good business.
00:00:57And so anyway, we're going to talk about MV Agusta
00:00:59in Grand Prix racing,
00:01:00and Kevin happens to know something about this.
00:01:05Having just finished going through my notes,
00:01:10the thing here is, in my opinion,
00:01:16that MV, after a period of languid evolution
00:01:24resisting the wishes of riders like Bill Lomas,
00:01:28who wanted to get rid of the Earl's fork
00:01:32that MV adopted in 1953, I think,
00:01:38they built some really ugly camels in those days.
00:01:44And it had twin swing arms, the first 500.
00:01:48But anyway, back to 1948,
00:01:53even before the FIM created their class system,
00:01:56125, 250, 350, and 500,
00:02:00MV had a two-stroke 125.
00:02:04And so many companies did because it was a simple machine,
00:02:08and nobody was ready to go into production
00:02:11with anything sophisticated.
00:02:13So they were deadlocked at somewhere between 8
00:02:18and 12 horsepower with that 250 or 125 two-stroke
00:02:23because the resonant exhaust pipe had not been invented yet.
00:02:28And if you raise the exhaust port to make it rev up,
00:02:32you lost so much off the middle
00:02:34that you stopped raising the exhaust port.
00:02:38So in 1950, Count Agusta decided he would hire
00:02:45Piero Remor away from Gilera,
00:02:50and along with rider Arciso Artigiani
00:02:56and chief mechanic Arturo Magni,
00:03:00of about whom more later, were hired away from Gilera.
00:03:05And Remor designed a 125 single and a 504
00:03:14so that they could do some real racing.
00:03:17The two-stroke was seen as a sort of stopgap.
00:03:21It carries the name.
00:03:22It's not that successful.
00:03:25So what happened there was that there...
00:03:36In 1952, MV managed to win the 125 championship.
00:03:41And this little 125 was a very sophisticated machine,
00:03:46double overhead camshaft, spur gear drive,
00:03:51some downdraft from the carburetor,
00:03:53multi-speed transmission.
00:03:55It is just a beautiful little motorcycle.
00:03:59And the trouble with MV was that they really didn't want
00:04:08to argue with Remor.
00:04:11And riders did because the motorcycles didn't go that well.
00:04:15The twin swing arms were there to react the gear case torque
00:04:20because this was a shaft drive four-cylinder bike.
00:04:25A bevel gear set from the crankshaft turned the gearbox,
00:04:30whose shafts were fore and aft at 90 degrees
00:04:33to what we're familiar with.
00:04:34Oh, wow.
00:04:35And the shaft gun runs back to the rear wheel,
00:04:38and the parallel swing arms are there
00:04:40for the same reason that Dr. John Wittner ran a strut
00:04:47to his gear case on the shaft drive Moto Guzzi V-Twin
00:04:53to prevent pinion climb.
00:04:55Anyone who has an old style BMW knows that if you roll
00:04:59on the throttle, it lifts the back end.
00:05:02And when you roll up, it settles again.
00:05:05And if your purpose is to create a comic situation,
00:05:09you can do it in seconds with nothing but the throttle.
00:05:14So that's where that went.
00:05:17And Jalera was a powerful company with a lot
00:05:21of experience in 500 racing.
00:05:23So they sort of went ahead winning 500 championships
00:05:30until 1956 when the talented, opinionated John Surtees was
00:05:38hired to ride MV's 500.
00:05:41And when he arrived, he saw all this nonsense,
00:05:45these extra swing arms and friction dampers from the 1920s
00:05:50and dreadful archaisms.
00:05:55And he said, this has to go.
00:05:58And fix that pile or I ain't riding it,
00:06:02which is something we've heard on this side of the Atlantic.
00:06:06So Surtees got busy and he won 500 championship in 1956.
00:06:15And he suffered the same kind of trouble
00:06:18that many a modern rider has suffered,
00:06:20which is you go out to practice, something on this bike
00:06:24is weird.
00:06:26What is it?
00:06:27You pull into the paddock, mechanic comes up to you
00:06:30and says, oh, we put on the latest fork
00:06:32and we changed this and we changed that.
00:06:36So he got on with his work.
00:06:38At the end of the day, he said, fellas,
00:06:41it is now forbidden for any change
00:06:45to be made to the motorcycle without my knowing about it
00:06:50and giving my permission.
00:06:53So that's the way it was in future.
00:06:57And there were small improvements to the 504.
00:07:03They got rid of the twin swing arms.
00:07:05They got rid of the Earl's fork.
00:07:07They were constantly busy making a different frame
00:07:12in a process which they called Nortonization.
00:07:16Because in 1950, when MV's program,
00:07:22four stroke program began, Jeff Duke on a single cylinder
00:07:29Norton was leading the championship
00:07:32until he had tread separations on high speed circuits.
00:07:38And so Jalera were able to win the title again.
00:07:43The following year, on a different brand of tire,
00:07:46Jeff Duke, again on a single cylinder Norton,
00:07:50defeated the four cylinder bikes.
00:07:54So the Italians realized that there
00:07:58was more to motorcycle chassis than something
00:08:02welding in a bunch of poles, metal poles
00:08:05to connect the wheels and the engine and the steering.
00:08:10And they tried stuff, not always very progressively.
00:08:16Well, we should talk about that time
00:08:19because the Italians were making power.
00:08:22They were revving a multi-cylinder 500.
00:08:25And you had the Norton Manx, which
00:08:27was a very efficient 500 cc single overhead cam.
00:08:31At the peak of its development, yes.
00:08:33Yeah, it breathed well.
00:08:35And it had the featherbed chassis,
00:08:38which was my experience with, yeah.
00:08:40Brand new in 1950.
00:08:42Brand new in 1950 and truly a great leap forward.
00:08:47They called it the featherbed because it was so smooth.
00:08:50It just worked.
00:08:52And there was a reason for the smoothness,
00:08:53namely all hydraulic damping.
00:08:56Long travel for the time, rear swing arm suspension,
00:09:03and telescopic fork up front.
00:09:05And so I've ridden Model 7 Nortons from the 50s
00:09:09with garden gate frames.
00:09:12And I've ridden a lot of vintage bikes from the 50s.
00:09:17And Norton Commandos.
00:09:18And Norton Commandos handle very good.
00:09:21They're good handling motorcycles.
00:09:24But they have ice elastics, so the swing arm
00:09:28isn't directly connected to the frame.
00:09:31It smooths out the vibration.
00:09:33And it works very well, especially
00:09:35if you have your ice elastics shimmed properly
00:09:37or you have the veneer adjusters.
00:09:39Yes.
00:09:40We could do a program about ice elastics.
00:09:42The point here is, I finally, years ago,
00:09:46I'd heard the lore about, oh, the magnificent featherbed
00:09:49chassis.
00:09:51And I'd never ridden a Norton with a featherbed.
00:09:53And I finally got to ride a twin with a cafe racer
00:09:57with a featherbed chassis.
00:10:00And I was blown away.
00:10:04This was ancient technology.
00:10:07I was riding this in the 90s.
00:10:10Ancient stuff.
00:10:11And it was sweet.
00:10:12It really worked.
00:10:13And it was predictable.
00:10:15And the feedback was great.
00:10:16And you could just lean the daylights out of it.
00:10:19And it was great.
00:10:21And so you had that featherbed chassis, which, I mean,
00:10:25at a time when people were still riding rigids on the street,
00:10:29swing arms were just coming out in the early 50s
00:10:32on street motorcycles.
00:10:34And some of them were horrendous.
00:10:36And you could see why someone didn't
00:10:37trust a swinging arm bike.
00:10:39Because they were terrifying, man.
00:10:42A Model 7 will just wobble all over the place.
00:10:46So it was really a thing.
00:10:49When you had a rigid bike with a girder fork,
00:10:52that's actually a beautifully handling motorcycle.
00:10:55The way that that kind of motor, like I
00:10:57had a Velocette, a 37 Velocette, it
00:11:00was rigid with a girder fork.
00:11:02And it was beautiful to ride.
00:11:04And I also have a 54 Velocette.
00:11:06Ding.
00:11:06Everybody take a drink.
00:11:08I have a 54 Velocette with a swing arm.
00:11:10It was the first swinging arm 500 that they made.
00:11:13And it's a good handling motorcycle.
00:11:17But it wasn't the same as the rigid,
00:11:21and just in terms of keeping the steering
00:11:24head in constant relationship to the swing arm.
00:11:26I mean, a thing lined up.
00:11:28Yeah, Velocette has two.
00:11:30It has a pivot shaft for the swing arm.
00:11:33And then pipes with clamps on them that are the arms.
00:11:37You clamp that to the, it's just not, it's OK.
00:11:41It's pretty good.
00:11:41I mean, a Velocette actually handles pretty darn good.
00:11:44Got to start somewhere.
00:11:45Right.
00:11:46And so the feather bed had all the confidence of a rigid,
00:11:52but it had compliance.
00:11:54And so you had a 500 making pretty good horsepower,
00:11:56but nothing like an Italian four-cylinder.
00:11:59So here's the problem.
00:12:00And the Italians are like, how do?
00:12:02Yes, that's the problem that the Italians face,
00:12:06which is on the one hand, they've
00:12:08got the Norton covered with horsepower.
00:12:11When the Norton was making 37 horsepower on that fuel,
00:12:17it used to come in a gray truck with red lettering on it
00:12:21that said pool.
00:12:22Pool petrol was 75 octane.
00:12:25Oh, yeah.
00:12:27You can't buy fuel that bad.
00:12:28Maybe from Coleman.
00:12:30Anyway, lamp oil.
00:12:34The MV people knew that they had the Nortons
00:12:37and all those singles covered with horsepower,
00:12:39but they were racetracks where the modern suspension
00:12:43bikes, particularly the Norton, still
00:12:47had tremendous advantages.
00:12:50So they knew they could win championships
00:12:54with the horsepower.
00:12:55So that sort of de-emphasized improving the handling,
00:12:59but the riders hated the handling.
00:13:00So they had to look like they were working on it.
00:13:04And so there was this long period
00:13:07when nothing much was happening with those fours.
00:13:11Meanwhile, here came the Japanese assault.
00:13:16And in 1961, Honda won the 125 and 250 classes
00:13:27with Mike Hillwood at the throttle.
00:13:31And MV had been accustomed to winning all solo classes
00:13:39after Jallera retired in 1957.
00:13:43What happened in 57 was the Italian motorcycle industry
00:13:47sort of went into miniature hibernation
00:13:52because the little Fiat automobiles
00:13:56had become affordable.
00:13:57And what people really wanted in the way of transportation
00:14:00was not to have to wear a raincoat on the vehicle.
00:14:05And so that was it.
00:14:08But MV kept on because the Count willed it so.
00:14:14And also in 1952, he had concluded a licensing agreement
00:14:21with Larry Bell of Bell Helicopters.
00:14:23And by 1955, he was producing the Model 47G.
00:14:28And Augusta Helicopters went on to design their own machines.
00:14:33And it's been quite a success story.
00:14:36And in no time, the Count had 5,000 people
00:14:40making helicopters.
00:14:42So this was a sideshow.
00:14:44But along comes Honda and takes away two of their classes.
00:14:48And the following year, somebody at Honda
00:14:51said, what if we overbore this thing one cubic centimeter?
00:14:55Oh, give them five.
00:14:57Our 250 can beat their 350 anytime.
00:15:01And what MV's 350 was, originally,
00:15:05it was a practice bike meant to give their riders another class
00:15:10to ride at a circuit so they could learn the circuit better.
00:15:14So it was overweight, weighed as much as a 500.
00:15:19And it was never intended.
00:15:21It wasn't designed as a 350.
00:15:23After a while, they did make a 354 that was purpose-built.
00:15:26But really, the 350 was an orphan class.
00:15:30And so in 1962, Honda took the 350 class.
00:15:46And they kept it.
00:15:49So MV are kind of pushed into a corner here.
00:15:53They had only one class left in which
00:16:01they were accustomed to winning.
00:16:03And they hired Mike Halewood.
00:16:07And in 1961, after his success on the 125 and 250,
00:16:17I'm going to put this thing in a glass of water.
00:16:22So they had to decide whether they were in or out.
00:16:32And somewhere around 1964, the count
00:16:38summoned his men, Arturo Magna, in this case,
00:16:45as sort of the technical leader of the race team.
00:16:49Count Augusta says, what I want to do now
00:16:54is I want to make a lightweight 350 by taking our 250 twin
00:17:01and adding a cylinder to it.
00:17:03So get busy.
00:17:05Oh, and another thing.
00:17:06I have a list here of features that it must have.
00:17:09And then he listed all the most dreadful features
00:17:14of the past, two valves per cylinder, wide valve angle,
00:17:20all the dreadful things that he wanted separate cylinders
00:17:23and heads, presumably for rapid replacement.
00:17:28Bad idea.
00:17:30NSU already tried that with their 500
00:17:34that they built that had all separate cylinders and heads.
00:17:39And it was a giant tuning fork.
00:17:41All those parts were waving and vibrating.
00:17:45And the riders said, I can't hold on to the handlebars.
00:17:48My hands get so hot.
00:17:50Anyway, they built this thing, a two valve 350 triple.
00:17:59And why was it a triple?
00:18:01It was a triple because the count said so.
00:18:06And other people who, to this day,
00:18:08are uncomfortable with the idea of a triple,
00:18:14the count made it work.
00:18:16So they built this engine.
00:18:18And they put it on the dyno.
00:18:20And it was terrible.
00:18:22And the count was informed about this.
00:18:26And the count breezed in and said, oh, we have to fix this.
00:18:32This is not satisfactory at all.
00:18:33I want, oh, one of the things that he wanted on the original
00:18:37was hairpin valve springs.
00:18:39Oh, gosh.
00:18:40Like you would find on a bone stock Max Norton racer.
00:18:45Well, that's bad for your guides right out of the gate
00:18:48here, folks.
00:18:49Because the hairpins, I'm going to make some hand motions.
00:18:52I'm making swirly hairpins.
00:18:54It's basically like, think of the spring in a-
00:18:56On a clothespin.
00:18:57On a clothespin, yeah.
00:18:59And that's what you're doing.
00:19:00You put one on each side of the valve.
00:19:03And then the forks come out and pick up.
00:19:06It's just a joke.
00:19:08You just can't make them concentric.
00:19:11It wears the guides faster.
00:19:12They're just not as good as a good old coil spring.
00:19:15So the count basically went through his list.
00:19:18He said, this is all nonsense.
00:19:19We're not doing this.
00:19:21Here's what I want.
00:19:22And he made a new list of modern things.
00:19:26And it is not available anywhere that I've
00:19:29been able to read exactly how he got his education.
00:19:33Did Arturo Magni whisper in his ear?
00:19:39I think probably not.
00:19:41Because the boss is a pretty big thing in 1960s Italy.
00:19:48And did the count do some reading?
00:19:51Did he call someone whom he respected?
00:19:54Maybe.
00:19:56But in any case, they now built a new 350.
00:20:02And it was five inches narrower than the old four-cylinder.
00:20:08And it had quite robust chassis, multi-tube chassis.
00:20:13After a few goes with an old 250 twin chassis,
00:20:18they built a new chassis for it.
00:20:21And then they hired young Giacomo Agostini
00:20:26to ride the thing.
00:20:28And during the year that he rode just that bike, oh, wait a minute now.
00:20:36In 65, Agostini was second in the world in 350 and 500.
00:20:44And if you get out your little red book and look these things up,
00:20:49you will find that after Agostini, there
00:20:54came single-cylinder 500s, Matchless G50s and Norton Maxxes.
00:21:01So finishing second in those championships was OK.
00:21:07But the main thing about that season was Agostini
00:21:11rode around behind Mike Hillwood and studied his technique.
00:21:20So and in the meanwhile, you will find little items
00:21:24in the historical record.
00:21:27Such and such a track on a certain date.
00:21:31The fork had a forward axle.
00:21:34On another date, it had a rearward axle.
00:21:38On yet another date, a center axle.
00:21:41They're playing with the trail.
00:21:46So I suspect that there was a lot of interaction
00:21:50between Agostini himself and the team of people
00:21:55who were continuously building this motorcycle.
00:21:59It was probably a novelty every time he rode it.
00:22:03Because what I have seen from this study
00:22:08here is that at MV, they thought nothing.
00:22:11Let's change the boring stroke.
00:22:13Let's make these dimensions.
00:22:17And they'd phone up their crankshaft supplier
00:22:21and say, make us one like this.
00:22:24Use the drawing number so-and-so.
00:22:26And it would come.
00:22:28And everything else would be ready.
00:22:29They'd assemble it, put it on the dyno.
00:22:31I think they had a lot of R&D experience
00:22:37because it was a small, close-knit group.
00:22:41But unlike the usual small race team,
00:22:43it had some real money behind it.
00:22:45It was funded, man.
00:22:46It was funded.
00:22:47And Italy at that time, and Italy today even, of course,
00:22:53had a lot of foundry people working
00:22:57on pretty exotic stuff.
00:22:59Yes, they did.
00:23:01You go to Motor Valley, Modena, and Ducati, Borgo Panigale.
00:23:08And even as recently as 2003, I was
00:23:14at the press launch for the original Multistrada
00:23:16in Cagliari, Sardinia.
00:23:19And I sat down to have coffee with Pierre Terblanche, who
00:23:23was the designer.
00:23:24And he's got a real, he loves vintage refrigerators
00:23:28and old cars.
00:23:29And he's got a really broad sense of,
00:23:33he just enjoys a variety of designs.
00:23:36And I said, hey, I've got a 1958 Thames estate van.
00:23:40And the cylinder head design is horrible.
00:23:42It's a Ford console.
00:23:43And I said, what do you think about getting
00:23:48a cylinder head made?
00:23:49And he's like, oh, we could definitely call up.
00:23:52I'll call the foundry people who work for us,
00:23:54and we'll make you a custom cylinder head.
00:23:57We just need the bore dimensions and where the water holes are.
00:24:00And he says, you don't even need to design it.
00:24:02They'll do the rest.
00:24:03They'll do the ports.
00:24:04They'll do the combustion chamber design.
00:24:07And they'll just put the push rods
00:24:08where you need them from your engine.
00:24:10We just need those dimensions.
00:24:12And we're like, well, how much will that cost?
00:24:13He's like, ah, $10,000 to $15,000.
00:24:15I'm like, hmm, that's pretty steep for a cylinder head.
00:24:17I wish I'd done it.
00:24:18There was no possible way of doing it.
00:24:20But that was the expertise that we're dealing with.
00:24:22You had people, the foundry guys,
00:24:24who would just like, foundry people were also
00:24:27part of the design team unknowingly.
00:24:30You'd have the guy sketching, here's
00:24:33my unassailable perfect design.
00:24:35And the foundry guy would be like, oh, God.
00:24:38And they would make small changes
00:24:41that would actually make the casting work
00:24:43and not crack and all that.
00:24:45John Wittner, I once asked John Wittner,
00:24:47what did you do about, when you were working
00:24:51as an engineer at Motoguzi, how did you dimension
00:24:56the various parts of the crankcase?
00:24:58And he said, ah, he said, that's determined by the foundry.
00:25:04Because they know what they can cast.
00:25:06They know that you want it to be lightweight,
00:25:09but they also know that you don't want it to crack.
00:25:12So they have the last word on this.
00:25:15So it's not a matter of writing up rigid specifications
00:25:19and drawings and sending them out to people
00:25:23for them to scratch their heads over, what does it all mean?
00:25:28This can't be manufactured.
00:25:31But I visited a little foundry where they had a big oven
00:25:36going and the fellow reeks out with a tongs
00:25:40and opens the door and out slides a rack
00:25:44of little metal biscuits.
00:25:47And he takes a couple of the biscuits over
00:25:50to a forging machine, which is going dum-dum-dum-dum.
00:25:54It operates by pressing a foot treadle.
00:25:56And he forged a connecting rod blank.
00:26:00In seconds, and then the next biscuit,
00:26:03and then the next biscuit.
00:26:04Because somebody wanted, say, 25 of these
00:26:08or 50 or what have you.
00:26:10And in the US, when we had really big industry here,
00:26:18nobody wanted little lots of 50 items.
00:26:22Forget it, get lost.
00:26:25But that kind of thing persists in Italy today.
00:26:27So in a sense, the small size of MV's race team
00:26:33was deceptive because they could call upon
00:26:37these other people.
00:26:38For example, Ceriani, make us a fork bottom this way.
00:26:44Well, we want it that way.
00:26:46And so I think that this is how the MV Triple
00:26:52was made into a highly competitive motorcycle,
00:26:56such that when Hailwood left for Honda,
00:27:02Hailwood won four 500 championships on MV.
00:27:07Then he went to Honda for 66 and 67.
00:27:14The RC 181 Honda was a conventional design
00:27:18in the sense that it had a fairly longish wheelbase.
00:27:22The engine was fairly far back in the chassis,
00:27:26which was the style then,
00:27:29because people would say that's to improve traction.
00:27:34So the MV Triple was a step in the right,
00:27:40but opposite direction.
00:27:43In so many ways, the chassis was stiffer.
00:27:46They had worked out the steering geometry
00:27:48by constant feedback between the rider
00:27:52and the design department.
00:27:54And I think that, well, I don't have to think that.
00:27:58We know that the result was brilliant.
00:28:01And the thing about that is that it started out
00:28:05as an oversized 350.
00:28:08Let's run this in the 500 class.
00:28:12So here comes 1966.
00:28:15It is Agostini versus Hailwood.
00:28:19It is MV versus Honda.
00:28:22And you would think,
00:28:24based upon the number of engineers available to those teams,
00:28:29it should have been a Honda walk, but it wasn't.
00:28:34And the problem was not horsepower,
00:28:37because the 181 had MV covered by at least 10 horsepower.
00:28:45The problem was that the motorcycle didn't go
00:28:47behind very well.
00:28:48And when Hailwood was asked about it at the time,
00:28:51he said, it's as though there's oil on the rear tire
00:28:55and there's a hinge in the middle of the chassis.
00:28:58And every time I ride it, I wish I could be someplace else.
00:29:05But he put his back into it and did a magnificent job.
00:29:09And there were some classic battles in those years.
00:29:12One in which Agostini was winning the TT
00:29:17at the Isle of Man and his chain ran off.
00:29:23Hailwood was a towering TT specialist.
00:29:27If you don't know all of those corners in intimate detail,
00:29:32if you try to go fast and hope for the best,
00:29:36you will likely experience the worst.
00:29:40But these were two really tremendous talents.
00:29:44And the people who were able to see those races,
00:29:48myself not among them, remember them to this day.
00:29:54Unfortunately, at the time,
00:29:57Honda was preparing to enter the car business in a big way.
00:30:03And they were having a big controversy back at the factory
00:30:09because Mr. Honda wanted to build
00:30:11an air-cooled four-door sedan.
00:30:14And the production plans were made.
00:30:17The equipment was installed
00:30:20and they began to produce sample quantities,
00:30:23pre-production manufacturing.
00:30:26And the cars were terrible.
00:30:28And they kept making changes to all the parts
00:30:31and the costs were mounting and nothing was being sold.
00:30:34Finally, engineers went to the old man and they said,
00:30:38oh, please do not destroy our great company
00:30:44by insisting on air cooling.
00:30:46We have tried as best we can and we have failed.
00:30:51Let us build a liquid-cooled car.
00:30:54And he was, he sort of said, yeah, okay, do it.
00:31:00And the result was the Honda Civic with CVCC.
00:31:06So the point of this digression is
00:31:09that all those engineers who should have been working
00:31:12on the 500 Honda were working on this other project.
00:31:20So the Honda suffered at least lost two races
00:31:24by reason of gearbox failure.
00:31:26Failure to select.
00:31:28Hillwood started one race with sixth gear inaccessible.
00:31:32It was in the rain and he led the race regardless.
00:31:36The man could ride, but then the gearbox said,
00:31:41ah, but I have this card and he was out.
00:31:46And I saw the Canadian GP in 1967
00:31:51and I saw Hillwood and Agostini start the race.
00:31:57And Hillwood tried to get Agostini
00:32:02to show Mediterranean temperament.
00:32:05He tried in a variety of ways to elicit that temperament.
00:32:10Agostini rode around calmly, all I have to do is finish
00:32:16and I'm champion for a second time against Honda.
00:32:21And that's just what Ago did.
00:32:23He just tootled around.
00:32:25And I think in third place was Mike, now Michelle Duff
00:32:31on, I forget what it was,
00:32:34but then after that it was singles.
00:32:38So that was the end of that story.
00:32:42Hillwood went on to other things.
00:32:47The Japanese big three pulled out of Grand Prix racing
00:32:53and MV carried on and Agostini won everything on 350
00:32:59and 500 triples.
00:33:02He loved those triples.
00:33:05And then I think in 73, they hired Phil Reed
00:33:13and the company was building what you must call
00:33:18the new force.
00:33:19They built a new 350 four cylinder
00:33:22that produced something like 68 horsepower.
00:33:25And that was very promising.
00:33:30So they decided as they had done previously
00:33:33with the 350 triple, let's enlarge it.
00:33:38So Phil Reed on the new four managed to win two titles
00:33:49and on 500 titles.
00:33:53Meanwhile, the Japanese are invading the 500 CC class
00:34:00toe in the water, Jarno Sarnan did so well
00:34:05on Yamaha's sort of first try
00:34:09that MV were persuaded to hire Phil Reed.
00:34:14Oh, and the other thing, of course,
00:34:17in 1971 on February 29th,
00:34:24Count Augusta collapsed in a business meeting and died.
00:34:30And around that time, the Italian government decided
00:34:35that the MV Augusta helicopters were now a manufacturer
00:34:41of important to national security.
00:34:46And so they took a 51% share in the company.
00:34:52None of this was all that friendly to racing
00:34:56but they soldiered on in 74, MV hired a man Giuseppe Bocchi
00:35:05with maybe Formula One race car experience
00:35:10and he took over the new fours
00:35:12and he designed the infamous boxer four.
00:35:17Now we know that it's difficult to make a short wheelbase
00:35:24with a 90 degree V twin Ducati tried and tried
00:35:29but there's that long cylinder sticking forward.
00:35:32And then you've got to have the gearbox behind the crankcase
00:35:35and the other cylinders sticking up more or less vertically
00:35:38but the boxer four had cylinders pointing forward,
00:35:41two of them and cylinders pointing backward.
00:35:44So it was not a motorcycle engine at all.
00:35:48Crazy.
00:35:49And two of those engines still exist
00:35:53there at Robert Iannucci shop.
00:35:56And supposedly they have been run.
00:36:01They were run on carburetors.
00:36:03The fuel injection was provided for them at a point
00:36:07but to my knowledge, there was no full vehicle testing.
00:36:12How far did MV get against the two strokes?
00:36:18Around, I think the early 504 made somewhere
00:36:23in the high nineties for horsepower.
00:36:25And you will find people who will tell you
00:36:27they never made a single horsepower more than that.
00:36:33But on the official record
00:36:35you will find all these different claims
00:36:37that eventually they got to 105 horsepower
00:36:41in their last year, which was 76.
00:36:45They won their last race in 1976.
00:36:48And the trouble was that MV encountered the big problems
00:36:56of high powered four strokes in racing,
00:36:59namely engine braking.
00:37:02And lack of weave stability.
00:37:09And Phil Reed had brought disc brakes,
00:37:14modern disc brakes and cast wheels
00:37:17and had said, put these on my motorcycle.
00:37:22Because of course he saw what was happening everywhere.
00:37:26He could see the rest of the world rushing
00:37:28past them on both sides.
00:37:30Here comes Barry Sheen, he's world champion at a point.
00:37:38And I think in 74 Agostini won the 350 title on a Yamaha.
00:37:46So Ago couldn't quite decide where his advantage lay.
00:37:51At one point he was riding MVs in one class
00:37:54and Yamaha in another.
00:37:57And here comes Barry Sheen on the Suzuki,
00:38:01basically an RG 500.
00:38:03And they overcame their shifting problems
00:38:06that they'd had in their first year or so.
00:38:10And then they just suddenly,
00:38:14it was a list of when Suzuki made their production racer,
00:38:18the whole 500 class was taken over by those things.
00:38:23And MV became superfluous.
00:38:29Well, it's to Agostini's credit
00:38:31that he was a supremely talented rider.
00:38:37Unbelievable, yes.
00:38:39Because the temptation is to regard him
00:38:42as a man who always knew where the camera lenses were
00:38:46and was bound and determined
00:38:49that they should all be pointing at him.
00:38:51And you could see that.
00:38:55There are people who even now
00:38:57who are looking throughout history for the perfect person
00:39:02and they're going to have trouble with that.
00:39:05So Agostini may have been a grandstander
00:39:09but it didn't interfere with his riding a bit.
00:39:14And he was intent on winning races.
00:39:19Now, Hailwood was just as intent on winning races
00:39:23but he was swinging three bats
00:39:26because when Redmond had his crash
00:39:30which disabled his arm and shoulder
00:39:32and sort of compelled him to retire,
00:39:37Honda said to Hailwood,
00:39:38now you also ride 500
00:39:41because Hailwood was riding the 256 and the 350.
00:39:46So now he's going to ride three races
00:39:49at every GP and he did his best.
00:39:53And in his manager's sort of biography
00:39:59or description of Hailwood's way of going at life,
00:40:03he described Hailwood in his hotel room at the CT
00:40:07who he has received the first warning,
00:40:10you're calling us to the grid.
00:40:14He has his little radio playing in his hotel room.
00:40:18He's wearing a long underwear like garment
00:40:22as the undersuit for his leathers.
00:40:25He's walking up and down, chewing his nails.
00:40:30He's not a happy person.
00:40:34But just like the stories that we've told here about,
00:40:38for example, Freddie Spencer saying to his manager,
00:40:43his technical manager, Irv Panamoto,
00:40:47I don't think we ought to be here,
00:40:50but then going out and doing a fantastic race.
00:40:54And this is what Hailwood did as well.
00:40:57I think these people and currently,
00:41:00Jorge Martin, who is the current world champion in MotoGP
00:41:05is a nervous man.
00:41:07He's suffered, I think, the torments of Job
00:41:13in trying to separate that part of his mind,
00:41:18which is just dominated by performance anxiety
00:41:23from the cool, able and determined half that wins races.
00:41:31And all of these great champions have learned to do that
00:41:37because on the one hand,
00:41:42you're fearful.
00:41:43I'm going to screw up today.
00:41:45I'm going to slide off the racetrack and hit a post.
00:41:50It'll be all over.
00:41:53On the other hand, they know their own ability
00:41:58and they know how to use it.
00:42:00And they know that they will use it.
00:42:01Somehow by effort of mind,
00:42:05they're able to exclude that stuff.
00:42:09Kenny Roberts calls this concentration.
00:42:13He says, even what he ate for breakfast
00:42:17affected his ability to focus himself on the task
00:42:23and not give in to all those little fingers of doubt
00:42:27that are coming.
00:42:29So, if there's anything heroic, that has to be it.
00:42:36That you're frightened, you fear failure,
00:42:41you have all these misgivings
00:42:43and you go out and perform wonderfully.
00:42:47That's a miracle.
00:42:48Yeah, it is.
00:42:49It's the same in club racing, just whatever degree.
00:42:51You know, we're not Jorge MartÃn and we're not Mark Marquez
00:42:55and we're not Mike Hailwood, June O'Connor.
00:42:58But we are chewing on our nails
00:43:00and we go out and we wanna race bikes.
00:43:03You just gotta.
00:43:04If you gotta, you gotta, right?
00:43:07And so you go out and you do it.
00:43:09And you have all the nerves in the world,
00:43:10but that's the beauty of riding.
00:43:12I think for me anyway, the beauty of riding is that you,
00:43:17particularly in racing, is you go fast enough
00:43:20to forget about everything except what you're doing,
00:43:23what you need to do.
00:43:24And that's focusing on what the bike is telling you.
00:43:26And if you have a reasonable motorcycle
00:43:28that isn't surprising you or scaring you,
00:43:31that's doing things that you're asking it to do
00:43:34reasonably well, then you have something to work with.
00:43:37And then you just start using that information
00:43:39and looking at the people around you and riding.
00:43:41And I can't speak for Agostini or other geniuses,
00:43:46but certainly I like to think I'm getting a piece of that,
00:43:50some small molecule.
00:43:51Every motorcyclist, every motorcyclist.
00:43:55A man that I spent some conversation with
00:43:57was a dyed-in-the-wool BMW rider.
00:44:01One of the people who can't understand
00:44:03how anyone would ever want a motorcycle
00:44:08other than a BMW is just a puzzle for him.
00:44:11Chemical engineer.
00:44:14He said, I would come upon a problem.
00:44:17I'd work on it in the office.
00:44:19I'd work on it at home.
00:44:21The solution wasn't coming.
00:44:22I'd get on my motorcycle and go for an all-day ride.
00:44:28And when I came home, I would have the solution.
00:44:32Because as you commented,
00:44:34the need to focus on the motorcycle
00:44:37can drive out unnecessary program steps,
00:44:42just like you're writing software.
00:44:45And it's good.
00:44:48And I think that's a major reason
00:44:50why a lot of people ride motorcycles
00:44:53is because it allows you to separate your life,
00:44:57to run it through a filter
00:44:59so that the part that you need is actually available to you.
00:45:06And that business of availability.
00:45:09My eldest son, who is slightly autistic,
00:45:13came home from school on a home study program,
00:45:21which the school board authorized.
00:45:24And for six months, he couldn't read.
00:45:28He'd been through all the classes, but he couldn't read.
00:45:32After he'd rested for a period, he could read suddenly.
00:45:38And what had changed?
00:45:40His reading ability was no longer denied to him
00:45:46by some switch in his forehead.
00:45:50It was all there.
00:45:51The school had succeeded in teaching him to read.
00:45:56He had to get access to that ability.
00:46:00And he's been able to read ever since.
00:46:03So brains are pretty wonderful things.
00:46:07Yeah.
00:46:10And I think that this aspect of the motorcycle is important
00:46:14because in a car, you're basically in a living room.
00:46:18Oh, yeah, I'm getting off the shoulder here a little bit.
00:46:22I'm gonna, oh, I'm gonna text so-and-so.
00:46:24But on a motorcycle,
00:46:27you're like a squirrel running across the grass.
00:46:29Where are the predators?
00:46:32They're coming to get me.
00:46:34And the squirrel is alert.
00:46:37Motorcycles have to be alert.
00:46:39That alertness squeezes out irrelevant thoughts
00:46:44and leaves you relaxed.
00:46:48Good thing.
00:46:49Yeah.
00:46:51Yeah, I love cars.
00:46:52I love driving.
00:46:53I've driven on tracks,
00:46:54and I've certainly got significantly more seat time
00:46:57on a motorcycle.
00:46:58But the level of engagement,
00:47:00even with my ability driving in a car,
00:47:05I tested cars for some magazines back in the day,
00:47:08and we did some track testing.
00:47:11And when we would go do a track test,
00:47:14we would start at sunrise and we'd do photos.
00:47:17And the track would be cold, the bikes would be cold.
00:47:20We'd do statics to make sure we had those in the can.
00:47:22And then we'd start riding action,
00:47:25group action shots and all of that.
00:47:28And then you started testing in earnest.
00:47:30And when we'd go out to streets of Willow or something,
00:47:34it would be 110 degrees by midday or 90, whatever it was.
00:47:38And you're wearing leather
00:47:39and you never take off your suit
00:47:40because you're constantly doing that.
00:47:42You're drinking as much water as you can
00:47:44so you don't tip over.
00:47:46You got to remember to bring the sandwiches.
00:47:48And you do all that.
00:47:50And then by sunset at 8.30 at night,
00:47:53you're still doing photos
00:47:54and you're pushing the bikes around for statics.
00:47:57And that's your day and you're completely smoked.
00:47:59And you're lucky you're not cramping
00:48:03and then you're riding for lap times
00:48:05and during the middle of the day, all that stuff.
00:48:08And I went out to do some car tests
00:48:09at streets of Willow on a hot day.
00:48:12And I was mentally prepared for that.
00:48:14And what I found out was like,
00:48:16when I'm not trying to drive a lap time,
00:48:19I can have the air conditioning on.
00:48:20You know, when I'm trying to feel what the car,
00:48:22you know, I'm driving around and I'm wearing shorts.
00:48:24I'm not wearing a full leather suit
00:48:25in 90 degree heat or a hundred degree heat.
00:48:28I'm sitting in an air conditioned car
00:48:30and I'm wearing shorts and then I'm getting out
00:48:31and sitting under the awning.
00:48:32And it was just a much different, not that racing,
00:48:36obviously, you know, Formula One and rally racers,
00:48:39everybody's working hard and they get sweaty and all that,
00:48:41but you're sitting, the level of engagement
00:48:45that you're working with on a motorcycle
00:48:47where you're placing your body,
00:48:51it's so different.
00:48:54Are your arms straight?
00:48:55Are they bent?
00:48:56Are they like this?
00:48:57Your arms are an extension of the front suspension.
00:49:00You're counter-steering, you're weighting your pegs,
00:49:03you're lifting off the seat because it's shaking.
00:49:05And if you get your ass off the seat,
00:49:06you become like a damper and the bike can be stable.
00:49:09There's just so much you can compensate for.
00:49:12There's so much you can influence negatively
00:49:14if you do it wrong.
00:49:16Man, it is just, it is another level of engagement.
00:49:19And again, I love cars, all respect fast car drivers
00:49:22because I am not one.
00:49:24Certainly it's a lot of work, you know,
00:49:26it's a lot of work to race a car at a very high level,
00:49:28but the dimensionality,
00:49:32there's that extra dimension of movement.
00:49:34And I think for pilots, you add another dimension of-
00:49:38Third dimension, yes.
00:49:40Another dimension of that that's-
00:49:42You mentioned standing up on the seat
00:49:45to stabilize the motorcycle.
00:49:47Everyone does this when necessary.
00:49:52And Eric Bostrom told me that when he had his first ride
00:49:56on Kawasaki after he was fired by Honda,
00:50:04he said that bike had real problems with pumping.
00:50:08And I found out that if I just hovered above the seat,
00:50:12it would settle down.
00:50:13So he said, I rode 200 miles like that.
00:50:19Oh man, he was-
00:50:21Because you put your butt back down on the seat.
00:50:24Yeah.
00:50:26And it starts to weave again.
00:50:31So these are shared experiences.
00:50:35All motorcyclists have had very similar experiences
00:50:39because the MotoGP bike of today
00:50:43and your ancient Velocette are still two casters
00:50:49joined at a common pivot.
00:50:53An engine, two wheels, and a place to sit.
00:50:56And the behavior of those machines
00:50:58is what caused Bill Dutcher,
00:51:00who for years put on the Aspencade,
00:51:04to say a motorcycle is a motorcycle.
00:51:07Somebody who can ride one discipline,
00:51:09don't be surprised if he or she can do really well
00:51:12in any of the other disciplines
00:51:15because they all share common characteristics.
00:51:21So now the MVs went off to various collectors
00:51:26Robert Iannucci bought the contents of the race shop
00:51:31at one point.
00:51:32And he has that stuff in the New York area.
00:51:36And he has kept those machines in usable condition
00:51:43so that on several occasions,
00:51:46Agostini has made laps of honor
00:51:51at different circuits and different motorcycle celebrations.
00:51:55He's probably done more traveling in that undertaking
00:51:59than he ever did when he was racing.
00:52:02But the motorcycles can still be heard
00:52:08and they have the ability to produce megaphone music,
00:52:12which MotoGP bikes don't.
00:52:16They're designed to keep the tire hooked up
00:52:20because they have so much, too much power.
00:52:24What are you going to do with 300 horsepower
00:52:26at exiting an 80 mile an hour corner?
00:52:30Nothing.
00:52:33But that whole thing is just an exercise
00:52:42in how to increase the amount of power
00:52:45you can get to the ground.
00:52:47And modern motorcycles, whether they're production
00:52:50or whether they are racers,
00:52:52are tremendous improvements over the past.
00:52:56Many of the things that define late model motorcycles
00:53:02are not really visible.
00:53:06But the change goes on constantly.
00:53:08Tires being the major thing.
00:53:11Tires are really the choke point for performance.
00:53:17If you can improve tires,
00:53:20then you can improve all the rest.
00:53:22You can use more power.
00:53:23You can ignore certain kinds of situations
00:53:27that used to induce instability.
00:53:30Well, you're forced to improve the rest.
00:53:34I mean, we could talk about the,
00:53:37oh, I don't remember which tire.
00:53:38It might've been D364 to D207.
00:53:43But Honda suddenly had a motorcycle that chattered.
00:53:46Their 600 was chattering like crazy.
00:53:50And like, how do you fix that?
00:53:52And the first round of testing,
00:53:56engineers with clipboards said,
00:53:58go back to the old tires and the chatter goes away.
00:54:00But no, we can't get the lap time.
00:54:02So yeah, it forces the evolution.
00:54:07What else did they do?
00:54:08Didn't they run wire spoke wheels, like laced wheels?
00:54:11They did.
00:54:13The only thing that,
00:54:14they went through the whole front end piece by piece
00:54:17and they made improved or stiffer or whatever,
00:54:21different parts for everything.
00:54:22And nothing produced a change except wire wheel.
00:54:27And so the race team began, let's write this up.
00:54:31Maybe we can call it a heritage model.
00:54:33We've got to get this homologated.
00:54:35CVR 600 with wire spoke wheels.
00:54:37But it was that, I mean,
00:54:38a wire spoke wheel has some qualities
00:54:40that we would still love.
00:54:43And that sort of flexibility,
00:54:46flexibility, damping to go with it.
00:54:49Because all of those spokes are squeaking away
00:54:52in their little holes that they're in.
00:54:55So, yes.
00:54:57But tires will force evolution, yeah.
00:55:01Progress benefits and it also takes away.
00:55:05Something is lost.
00:55:07We have to accept that.
00:55:08Yeah.
00:55:10So.
00:55:12I mean, think of the Earl's fork.
00:55:13We were talking about that earlier in this program
00:55:15about an MV Agusta with an Earl's fork
00:55:17and where it puts the mass.
00:55:19It puts a tremendous, it becomes a pendulum behind.
00:55:23When you lean over, yes.
00:55:25Yeah, behind the axis of steering and it hits a bump.
00:55:28And it's, I mean, what a horrifying thing that is.
00:55:32The feeling that that would give.
00:55:33And it's a great sidecar fork.
00:55:36And if you're just rattling down the highway, fine.
00:55:39But, you know, it's the same issue that Indian,
00:55:43when they were re-engineering,
00:55:45when they were engineering Indian motorcycles,
00:55:48you know, at Polaris.
00:55:50Yeah.
00:55:51And they're putting skirted fenders.
00:55:54They have to build this bike.
00:55:56They have to do something
00:55:57that honors the heritage of Indian
00:56:00and reintroduces it to the modern world.
00:56:03And we all have that image of balanced fenders
00:56:07and they gotta be steel.
00:56:08We cannot make a carbon fiber fender or a plastic fender.
00:56:12This is America.
00:56:13This is America, man.
00:56:14And it's gotta, it's gotta, it's gotta,
00:56:15so you gotta have a steel fender.
00:56:17And, you know, that could end up really horrible.
00:56:20And I rode the prototypes.
00:56:21I rode early prototypes and man,
00:56:23it was a beautifully steering motorcycle and it was light
00:56:26and it didn't do anything really wrong.
00:56:28I was like, wow, this is really great.
00:56:30How'd you do that with all this garbage?
00:56:31You know, sorry, no offense folks.
00:56:34All this extra trash on the front end here,
00:56:36like covering the entire wheel.
00:56:38And they did it by centering the mass
00:56:41as close to the axis of steering as possible.
00:56:44So it's your classic analogy or comparison
00:56:47of holding a 25 pound bowling ball and rotating,
00:56:50which you hold it on your body and rotate.
00:56:52You can do that.
00:56:53And then you get a ladder, 25 pounds.
00:56:56Try to turn as fast and then stop that.
00:56:58Yep.
00:56:59Forget it.
00:57:00And that's what's happening.
00:57:01You know, it's basically a one,
00:57:02what's the Earl's fork is a one-sided ladder.
00:57:05It's like holding the ladder at the end
00:57:07and trying to swing it.
00:57:08You know, it's just, it's a nightmare.
00:57:10And, but it was good enough.
00:57:12It was good enough to do the thing.
00:57:14And then, but tires improved
00:57:15and then all those other bits, brakes.
00:57:19Yeah.
00:57:20And of course, there are people,
00:57:23there have always been people, Eric Buell among them.
00:57:26And I've known several revolutionaries
00:57:30who earnestly wanted to transform the motorcycle
00:57:34by giving it the technology
00:57:35that is apparently missing from it.
00:57:39It doesn't look like a Formula One car.
00:57:41It doesn't have all kinds of rods and levers and linkages.
00:57:46But the way the motorcycle progresses
00:57:51is you try to do something with it and it won't do it.
00:57:56That's a problem.
00:57:57It won't do this.
00:57:59You work on that.
00:58:01Once you solve that problem,
00:58:05you come up against the next problem
00:58:07and you solve that problem.
00:58:10Many, in many cases, these problems are invisible.
00:58:15But all the same, there is important
00:58:19and in fact, essential development
00:58:23and progress made in these invisible things.
00:58:28So also, it's interesting to note that
00:58:34back in the period when Agostini was riding MVs,
00:58:41they tried downforce airfoils on the front,
00:58:45looking very much like what Aprilia have
00:58:49this year and last year, and they rejected it.
00:58:54And of course, the reason to reject it was
00:58:58that motorcycle, the three-cylinder motorcycle,
00:59:01eventually made something like 83 horsepower.
00:59:04So wheelies were not the terrible problem
00:59:09that they became when motorcycles began
00:59:11to make 180 horsepower, 220 horsepower, 260 horsepower,
00:59:17where all you have to do to raise the front end
00:59:22at 200 miles an hour is to turn the throttle.
00:59:25And eventually, the combination of the wind force
00:59:29tending to blow you over backwards
00:59:31and the acceleration, just the front end just comes up.
00:59:34You could keep on accelerating
00:59:37if you had something to push it back down.
00:59:40And that is what the airfoils are for.
00:59:43And you have traction to take it.
00:59:45I mean, you have the traction to take advantage of that.
00:59:47Yes, you have to have the tire that can do it.
00:59:50So these solutions are often invisible,
00:59:57but they are real and they continue.
01:00:00The way forward is to find the problem
01:00:03that's holding performance back,
01:00:07essential performance is holding it back at this moment.
01:00:11You solve that problem
01:00:13and come to rest against the next problem.
01:00:16That is practical progress.
01:00:18Simply making a complicated front end
01:00:21or an X form dual swing arms
01:00:25or a chassis that is made like the type 61 Maserati
01:00:30out of lots of little five eighths inch pipe.
01:00:34Those are exercises in complexity, which some people enjoy,
01:00:38but they are not addressing a specific problem.
01:00:43And if no problem is solved, it is not progress.
01:00:47It is just complexity.
01:00:49Yeah, you're just massaging your brain
01:00:50because you enjoy it.
01:00:51Yeah, lots of people like to go in the shop
01:00:55and weld junk together.
01:00:57And some of those things can be quite compelling,
01:01:00those weird welded art stuff.
01:01:03In fact, Professor Taylor at MIT years ago,
01:01:10he lived to be like way over a hundred years old.
01:01:15He turned to welded sculpture after he retired from MIT.
01:01:21So.
01:01:23Yeah, I have to admit that I like going in the shop
01:01:25and I just take a piece of a scrap sheet metal
01:01:29and I keep the ground for my welder, my TIG welder.
01:01:32I keep the ground on my metal workbench
01:01:35and I've got a 316 plate that I welded
01:01:37to the top of the workbench.
01:01:38So it's real sturdy.
01:01:41And I keep the ground clipped to the bench
01:01:44and I just throw a piece of sheet metal down
01:01:45and I, without rod, I just lay a succession of beads
01:01:53because it feels good.
01:01:54And it helps you look at the puddle.
01:01:57I mean, steel is nice because it has this color change.
01:02:02As you can watch the color change and it helps,
01:02:04it just helps you manage the puddle.
01:02:05Whereas like aluminum, it's just sort of,
01:02:08you really have to pay attention to the actual puddle
01:02:11rather than the color.
01:02:12But it's satisfying.
01:02:14I'm not making art,
01:02:15but I am making art also at the same time.
01:02:17You're doing something and it has no other purpose
01:02:22other than being a joy.
01:02:26You're exerting control and having fun doing it.
01:02:30I knew a welder who did aluminum radiator course
01:02:37and he would sit watching TV in the evening
01:02:40with a piece of rod in his hand
01:02:44and he would just feed it with motions of his fingers.
01:02:49And when he had the whole rod out,
01:02:51then he would start again.
01:02:53And it was just a, it had become second nature for him.
01:03:00So we're all very peculiar, aren't we?
01:03:06Well, I'd love to.
01:03:07I mean, it would have been wonderful
01:03:09if you could have explored some of these topics
01:03:11with somebody like Arturo Mani,
01:03:12who was basically the crew chief and technical officer
01:03:17for the MV Agusta for many, many years.
01:03:20And then he went on to do Mani
01:03:23and they made all these beautiful fairings.
01:03:25And he was, they were making,
01:03:27I believe his son is still doing Mani stuff
01:03:30where they're making frames and putting modern engines
01:03:34in classic styled frames
01:03:37and they're still making fairings.
01:03:39I had a Mani fairing on my Moto Guzzi V11 Sport.
01:03:45You know, it's just that classic.
01:03:46It was, you know, it was a neat looking bike
01:03:48and it was a green, this kind of green,
01:03:50this sort of acid green color with a red frame.
01:03:53And, you know, the fairing was that same thing
01:03:56and it was very classically 1960s styled.
01:03:59And what was cool about it is it wasn't finished.
01:04:01You were getting the fiberglass part
01:04:05and you were also getting the bubble windscreen
01:04:09that went with it and you had to drill it.
01:04:11Ooh.
01:04:12And, you know, and you want it to, you know,
01:04:14you want the ends to match the end of the fairing.
01:04:17So the plexi has to be centered
01:04:19and you can't start at one end.
01:04:21No, because your embers accumulate.
01:04:24Yeah, it's just, it's really,
01:04:26so you have to like center it
01:04:28and then you're going to do the bolt in the beginning
01:04:30and you don't want it to have waves
01:04:32and you got to use tape everywhere so you don't get cracks.
01:04:35And then, gosh, there's a lot to it.
01:04:38And I wish you could,
01:04:40I've always been fascinated with guys like Irv Canemoto
01:04:43and guys like you.
01:04:45You obviously think about it
01:04:47and you communicate all that stuff,
01:04:48but someone like Irv or Arturo Mani
01:04:51and understanding the process and drive
01:04:56that makes all of those things happen.
01:05:00Well, there's a terrible punishment
01:05:02if you don't get it right,
01:05:04which is that you may.
01:05:06Back in the days of man in a van with a plan,
01:05:10you may be sitting there driving the van
01:05:13and looking in the mirror
01:05:14and you can see that the windscreen
01:05:17is a little bit crooked.
01:05:19And having to look at that
01:05:22for a thousand miles is punishment.
01:05:25It is.
01:05:26Because you did it.
01:05:28You let that happen.
01:05:29Yeah.
01:05:31Not again.
01:05:33And of course, there are cheaters called clicos,
01:05:36which are like a temporary bolt.
01:05:39You squeeze it,
01:05:40you push the probe through the hole
01:05:42and it let it go
01:05:43and it clamps the two surfaces together.
01:05:47Oh, clicos are miracles.
01:05:49You need a million clicos.
01:05:50How many clicos do you need in your toolbox?
01:05:52The answer is one more, at least.
01:05:54And it's how many you got.
01:05:56It's like clamps.
01:05:58Like it.
01:05:58It's clamps for woodworkers.
01:06:00No, you need more clamps.
01:06:02Because you can never have enough clamps
01:06:04if you're building boxes.
01:06:07I built a stereo stand, you know?
01:06:09It's really interesting.
01:06:10And now we've wandered a little bit off
01:06:12from MV Agusta as we do.
01:06:16We hope you enjoyed it nonetheless.
01:06:21Evolution MV in Grand Prix racing
01:06:23was pretty miraculous.
01:06:24And I think we got Giacomo Agostini out of the deal.
01:06:30He was a massively talented rider
01:06:33and he won on a two-stroke as well.
01:06:35So pretty amazing.
01:06:37We hope you enjoyed the program today.
01:06:39We appreciate you listening.
01:06:41There's a link down in the description
01:06:42that you can go to octane.co.
01:06:47It's a prequaliflex link, we call it.
01:06:49Go check it out.
01:06:50You can shop for a motorcycle.
01:06:52You can get pre-qualified
01:06:53and you can go to a dealership
01:06:54with the ability to know your buying power
01:06:58and you can negotiate your price with the dealer.
01:07:01So go check that out, check out the tool.
01:07:03Octane Lending is an ongoing supporter of us 100% here.
01:07:07So we appreciate the effort.
01:07:09Thanks for listening.
01:07:11Click that link and we will catch you next time.