Arrabbiata1
Blue Smoker
- Joined
- Apr 29, 2008
- Messages
- 6,925
- Location
- Out of Nowhere
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Babelfish @ May 25 2008, 09:50 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>I'm kind of surpriced you even ask the questioin.
It's allways been faster to be smoth. At special occations there is one or another exception, but smothness is the key to be fast and smothnes transform into "easy" and "little effort".
And making it look like that is of course extreemly difficult. You need perfect timing and to be fast and smoth to make it stick. At the very top where these guys are they are all more or less smooth but of course there are differences. And of course. being smoth like biaggi is not nessesarily the fastest way around on a 500 or 990, but that is really about something different, a snoth style, ans sometimes that's not the fastest way, but even whan you do it different you have to be smoth at what you do.
Every racer has also experienced one or more times in their careers that pushing to hard make it look like you go fast but untidy while backing off a bit often make you actually go faster.
There was a period in the mid to late eighties where it was no longer a compliment to view a rider as simply being smooth. The orthodox technique which went by the collective colloqialism as 'Hailwooding it' defined so deftly by trad riders such as Duke, Surtees and Mike himself where cornering blended into one continuous flow was of course superseded by the American powersliding revolutionaries who widened the radius in the latter half of the turn at the expense of an acute line early on. Although branded as untidy by its detractors at the time, the proponents of this technique were in reality super precise and economical in their riding style as well, but also employed the arsenal and resources of the former flat tracker.
A rider that used to infuriate me was Christian Sarron. One of the latest brakers I have ever seen, when vying with other riders he would leave his braking so late that it would intentionally upset the classic line, and made him as slow as the tail sliders at the apex. This advantage was purely a tactical one, but time and time again you would see him block the likes of Gardner, Mamola and even Lawson who needed to slingshot their bikes through the apex at precisely the moment the Gallic goon was there. To be fair to Sarron, he could not sustain the pace on often inferior machinery, and his 'old guard' techniques were often deployed to great effect.
But I agree Babel, smoothness is everything..Freddie for example used to make the bike twitch and weave, but he himself was smooth..he steered his body and the bike responded almost in symbiosis as if as one.
In response to Tom's assertion that some riders seem not to expend the effort of others, and is that a reflection of talent - return to Bill Ivy. With little in the way of a gameplan, and seemingly limited preparation, he just got on the bike and rode it. In contrast remember Mike Baldwin...again a very smooth rider, but you always got the impression that he tried too hard. As others got faster he seemed to rely on tactics aggression and bloody minded determination more than riding skill. I think you can certainly see that in Moto GP today- but naming no names, I'll leave others to debate the who's falls into which category with respect to this
It's allways been faster to be smoth. At special occations there is one or another exception, but smothness is the key to be fast and smothnes transform into "easy" and "little effort".
And making it look like that is of course extreemly difficult. You need perfect timing and to be fast and smoth to make it stick. At the very top where these guys are they are all more or less smooth but of course there are differences. And of course. being smoth like biaggi is not nessesarily the fastest way around on a 500 or 990, but that is really about something different, a snoth style, ans sometimes that's not the fastest way, but even whan you do it different you have to be smoth at what you do.
Every racer has also experienced one or more times in their careers that pushing to hard make it look like you go fast but untidy while backing off a bit often make you actually go faster.
There was a period in the mid to late eighties where it was no longer a compliment to view a rider as simply being smooth. The orthodox technique which went by the collective colloqialism as 'Hailwooding it' defined so deftly by trad riders such as Duke, Surtees and Mike himself where cornering blended into one continuous flow was of course superseded by the American powersliding revolutionaries who widened the radius in the latter half of the turn at the expense of an acute line early on. Although branded as untidy by its detractors at the time, the proponents of this technique were in reality super precise and economical in their riding style as well, but also employed the arsenal and resources of the former flat tracker.
A rider that used to infuriate me was Christian Sarron. One of the latest brakers I have ever seen, when vying with other riders he would leave his braking so late that it would intentionally upset the classic line, and made him as slow as the tail sliders at the apex. This advantage was purely a tactical one, but time and time again you would see him block the likes of Gardner, Mamola and even Lawson who needed to slingshot their bikes through the apex at precisely the moment the Gallic goon was there. To be fair to Sarron, he could not sustain the pace on often inferior machinery, and his 'old guard' techniques were often deployed to great effect.
But I agree Babel, smoothness is everything..Freddie for example used to make the bike twitch and weave, but he himself was smooth..he steered his body and the bike responded almost in symbiosis as if as one.
In response to Tom's assertion that some riders seem not to expend the effort of others, and is that a reflection of talent - return to Bill Ivy. With little in the way of a gameplan, and seemingly limited preparation, he just got on the bike and rode it. In contrast remember Mike Baldwin...again a very smooth rider, but you always got the impression that he tried too hard. As others got faster he seemed to rely on tactics aggression and bloody minded determination more than riding skill. I think you can certainly see that in Moto GP today- but naming no names, I'll leave others to debate the who's falls into which category with respect to this
