Beyond the beginning of the end...

Doing a bit of reading today, came across this one:

http://www.superbikeplanet.com/2009/Jun/090622kennyrobertsju.htm

Soup: After splitting with Suzuki in 2005, Roberts Junior raced at the
front on the KR211V Honda-powered MotoGP bike in 2006, but the switch
to the 800s, advanced traction control and the new tire rules in '07
made life difficult for one of the last "normal-sized" American riders
in MotoGP. Former world champion Nick Hayden will not reveal how much
he currently weighs, but it's a safe bet that he's around twenty
pounds lighter now than he was in 2002 when he won the AMA Superbike
championship. Roberts says that he weighed around 150-160 pounds in
his final years in MotoGP.

"The problem is that you need to be fifty kilos now to ride a MotoGP
bike. They went to 800s and that was pretty much the final nail in the
coffin. If you're over 140 pounds now, you don't have a chance. I
think Valentino will be one of the last tall, lanky European riders in
MotoGP."

"I've been complaining since traction control was introduced. When it
became obvious that it was (being used) in 2002-03-04, it's like,
people need to come to a race to see riders do something that they
can't do on a bike. So if they see it go around a corner with both
wheels in line, it looks pretty easy."

Well, there you have it. And then this from Kropotkin's Assen
preview:

"His team mate Niccolo Canepa comes to Assen also hoping for some
improvement, and at least the Italian rookie knows the track. Canepa
raced here in 2007, the year he won the FIM Superstock 1000 Cup,
though he finished just 6th here in that race. Going on the Italian's
form so far this year, it will be his one and only season in MotoGP,
and he will return either to a testing role or to World Superbikes
next season.

"Another rider likely to head to World Superbikes in 2010 is James
Toseland. The two-time World Superbike champion has failed to get on
with the Bridgestone spec tires, and is languishing in the lower half
of the field. He may have made small steps forward recently, but with
the Fiat Yamaha team finishing on the podium in every race (both of
them in four out of six races) and his Tech 3 team mate Colin Edwards
consistently in the top 7, Toseland is manifestly falling well short
of the bike's potential. Toseland's name has been linked with Ten
Kate, Yamaha Motor Italia, Suzuki, even Aprilia, so at least he is
assured of a top ride if he does return to the World Superbike
paddock.

"If JT does go back to World Superbikes, he could be joined by Chris
Vermeulen. The Australian has done little better than Toseland this
year, and like the Yorkshireman, Vermeulen is sitting in another
favorite rookie destination. Suzuki are exempt from the so-called
rookie rule, which prevents new entrants into MotoGP signing directly
with a factory team, and as such there are riders such as Alvaro
Bautista eyeing Vermeulen's ride. Assen is a track that Vermeulen
likes and goes well at, and he may get a helping hand from Assen's
weather. If, as predicted, the race is disrupted by rain showers on
Saturday, Vermeulen might just feature at the front again. But it will
take more than another strong result in the rain for Vermeulen to keep
his job. Suzuki are starting to feel they need more than just a one-
trick pony."

Hmm. Throw in Hayden's woes and the picture becomes quite clear -
MotoGP is all about 125/250-bred midgets moreso every day. And we may
well be only a year or two away from a true freak show, a full field
of motorcycle jockeys. And Dorna is apparently now trying to cover it
up - somehow Lorenzo has ballooned from 55kg to 65kg in one year,
according to the MotoGP website, and Dovizioso's weight has now
reappeared at 63kg; last time I saw it that was 54kg. Funny business,
that. The new 600cc GP2 machines couldn't possibly arrive fast enough.
Even if the team structure will be dominated by the same old EuroMed
crowd...

Otherwise, great win by Johnny Rea at Misano, really nice stuff. Too
bad for Ben that another mechanical issue might have cost him the
double, though. At least he closed the points gap slightly. And
somehow two entirely different races both really dominated by Ducatis
ended up with fours taking the wins. Now we have Donington and Blake
Young, from my hometown, joining Hacking, who looked very good in the
wet at Misano, and Spies, who qualified very well here in MGP in the
rain last year. And rain forecasted for Sunday, I assume?

This WSB business is getting really interesting to me, as opposed to
GP (even with the great race for the win last time out), a bit like
1995 all over again...

 

Glastonbury
Fri - Heavy Rain
Sat - Sun
Sun - Light Rain

Derby,
Fri - Heavy Rain
Sat - Heavy Rain
Sun - Drizzle

Amsterdam (Assen)
Thur - Sun
Fri - Sun
Sat - Heavy Rain

Guess where I'll be. In my wellys and hiding from the rain in the Dance
Lounge tent.

WSB is getting short of places and good rides. As well as MotoGP
refugees feeding it from the top, there are WSB retirees (Lanzi?) trying
to get back in the game, at least one more BSB guy (Camier) trying to
get in from below and Crutchlow/Laverty trying to get a ride from WSS.
Not to mention various ex-AMA riders as well. It's going to be hard for
the Euro backmarkers to keep their rides and it'll push the quality
further back down the field.

 

3 great races all for entirely different reasons. I found the 2nd WSB
fascinating watching three very different riding styles and two
contrasting machine strengths and weaknesses. All running inches apart.
Big Balls vs Craziness vs Mad Skillz. Squared corners vs smooth lines

As for WSS, Crutchlow and Laverty are making everyone else look
decidedly average. Which is really quite strange considering it's
usually a highly competitive class and people like Ten Kate, Pitt,
Sofuoglu would normally be dominating it.

 

Champ, I know you're getting desperate when you resort to using
Pablo's arguments! Again, it's all relative, and the fundamental
difference here is that the riders in MotoGP are now smaller than they
hever have been before, and perhaps by some margin. And that trend is
getting ever more pronounced by the year. So basically we're very
rapidly heading toward the premier championship including riders who
have never raced professionally anywhere but in GP, who came into the
series as teenagers, who have never raced on anything but 125s and
250s prior to moving to MotoGP, who are on average notably smaller
than the average rider in any other series of note. That would be a
staggering level of isolation for what is supposed to be the pinnacle
of bike racing, leaving it with almost no relevance to racing
elsewhere in the world.

Anyway, what I found interesting here was that for perhaps the first
time we have someone of real note who is mincing no words on the
matter; for the most part to this point there has been silence on this
issue, from what I can guess is mostly due to vested interest. And I
think it's inaccurate to refer to Mamola as ever being skinny,
although, like Roberts Sr., he's certainly much chubbier than he once
was; I think of him as one of the short, stocky guys, like Gardner.
And my recollection of that comment was it being made by Lawson when
they were teammates, and Lawson was no shrimp, what it reflects was
how large Big Rob Mac really was, in racing terms.

Seems like you're real argument is with Julian, in that case! I agree
that there are many aspects to racing that are found to be appealing,
and I don't think bikes visibly on the edge of control is any more a
requirement than having multiple bikes fighting over the lead on every
lap. But on a visceral level it does make the sport more exciting,
particularly to a newcomer to it. And it's really another aspect of
the same issue Roberts was mentioning before that, the Incerdible
Shrinking MotoGP Racer - little guys can apply their weight and
aerodynamic advanatages exactly because of the electronic rider aids,
these bikes are physically easier to ride so they no longer have that
disadvantage. Which I would think to most people, excepting those
whose interest in the sport is only the machinery, would be a
disturbing trend.

Anyway, I suspect you're belittling negative developments mostly
because you don't want to accept them, or maybe just admit to them,
yes?

 

Given the current rise of WSB (and WSS) I wonder about the size issue
there. It's noticeable that people like Corser are looking gaunt and
thin, like they've been training too hard. Haga, Rea, Crutchlow, Haslam,
Biaggi, Nakano (to name a few), are hardly big guys.

That may be, but it sure doesn't look like it. Stoner especially seems
to put a *lot* of physical effort in. To some extent, /C racing has
always favoured small riders. Even without the Red Bull Rookies, Spanish
championship, 125, 250 career path, it wouldn't surprise me if the
pinnacle of motorcycle racing development would have arrived where we
are now with midget jockeys. Maybe the only way to avoid it is to weight
handicap them the same way they do with 125GP and F1. Have a min weight
for bike+rider+fluids.

 

Although it has been addressed in other fashions (ease of rideability by
going from 2 strokes to 4 strokes and increased electronic engine
management), noone challenged the fallacy that tiny riders didn't have
the strength or stamina to handle a big bike for an entire race. People
scoffed all the way up to Pedrosa's 2nd place in his first race. That
opened the floodgates. Had the fallacy been challenged sooner, it is
entirely possible that the whole "this is a big riders' championship"
entitlement could well be moot.

And that's what it is, an entitlement for a specific size range based on
history because certain people like that segment of history. Nothing
else. No one is bellyaching that Yao Ming might be a road racing world
champion but his size gives him an unfair disadvantage.

 

I think that is part of growing professionalism in racing and the
training that's getting to be part of the sport these days, plus it's
kind of trendy, something I think rolls downhill from MotoGP - guys
like Hayden and Vermeulen and Toseland are leaning out arising from
necessity, and that spreads from there into their old stomping ground.
We saw that over here last year with the Bostrom Bros. and others.
Haslam isn't a very big guy, but he sure has a build that isn't
targeted at minimum weight with a pretty muscular upper body. Biaggi
and Nakano are ex-GP and in particular ex-250, and the last weight I
saw on Max was 66kg, which would put him in the upper third in MotoGP
today or close to that, and he doesn't look any different than he did
years ago. On the other hand, Xaus was a guy who looked noticably
thinner at Miller than I remember him at Laguna in 03-04. In any case
it's all relative, the flow into WSB isn't really anything like the
flow into MotoGP, guys like Spies and Neukirchner are old-school big,
even if thinner than a decade ago.

One of the things that's going to be interesting is who ends up in GP2
in the next couple years. There will be the ussual flow from 125, of
course, but it seems like a viable spot for guys from supersport
racing and guys who haven't quite cut it in WSB or MotoGP. Two guys
mentioned recently were Fonsi Nieto and de Angelis, ex-250 guys and
not exactly midgets, but I'd expect some surprises with the big field
that's projected.

It's really hard to say, if the old school was doing the winning and
leading development over the 990 era I'm not sure that they wouldn't
have turned out somewhat different, not to mention that Dorna or
whomever might not have pushed quite so hard for 800s. I think there's
a certain amount of cause-and-effect in Honda's "compact bikes for the
compact riders of the future", but that doesn't mean there's not a
chicken-or-egg question as well. One thing to keep in mind is that 125
and 250 riders have been shrinking as well over the years, it's not
like the top 250 riders always weighed in at 55kg or less. Now that
could be hiring decisions these days as much as actual benefit, I
suppose, starting way down at the RBRC rider selections.

In the final analysis it hardly matters why it is happening, what
matters is that it's happening, and is it a good thing? I don't think
it is, because seeing a bunch of jockeys racing isn't as good as
seeing a variety of physical types including more average-sized people
over the entire fanbase. It's certainly not good that some riders
might be starving themselves down to their minimum weight, which is
why the package weight minimum was put into the 125 rules at one
point. But I don't agree with a package minimum, as I've said before,
because that allows a factory or team to trade expensive machine
weight savings for cheaper rider weight savings. What they should do
is establish separate minimums for each, and then ballast machines to
balance the difference. And the 125 minimum doesn't really do that
much, because it's simply too low, it has to be at a real-world level
that results in most of the bike-rider packages weighting about the
same. There'a really no question that Simoncelli was at a material
disadvantage in 125, for example, and that's probably part of the
reason he never had all that much success.

 

And now he's off to Gresini-San Carlo-MotoGP on the "factory" Honda.

 

Mark N says:

Have you ever stood next to Eddie Lawson? I'm 5'11" and
skinny and at Daytona last year he won I towered over him and
looked fat compared to him. He must be 5'6"ish and couldn't
have weighed more than 150 lb. Tiny for fat 'ole USA.

and ::

Special class for fat guys? It's racing, guys that are the right size
for today's best bikes, and have the best skills, and the best team,
are going to be the best. I don't care if they're green, fat, tiny,
or
have lots of nose hair, if they are the best we'll have good racing.
They've always been small, so what? KrJr is just whinging.


Go fast. Take chances
Mike S.

 

You guys are delusional and need to recalibrate your fatness meters:

5'6", 150 lbs = 24.2 BMI

BMI Categories:

* Underweight = <18.5
* Normal weight = 18.5-24.9
* Overweight = 25-29.9
* Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater

http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/

 

Carl Sundquist notes:

I agree. But I'm used to fat, definately skews your calibration.
Just checked mine and while people insist I'm 'skinny', my
BMI is 24.5.


Go fast. Take chances.
Mike S.

 

I keep getting perilously close to the rev-limiter at 30.

--
Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO#003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

Dr Ivan D. Reid tops out:

Back off, back off, back off, AIEEEEEEEEEEEE

splat


Go fast. Take chances.
Mike S.

 

BMI Categories:

Whoever makes those tables is smoking crack. I'm 6' 2" and according
to that table the lower range for "normal" for me would be 144 lb!
Can you imagine somebody who's 6' 2" and 145 lb?

-Dirt-

 

No way Lawson is 5-6, my guess would have been 5-10 but he could be
more like 5-9, I suppose. I've seen him up pretty close but never
stood right next to him. I've also seen pictures of him standing next
to Spencer, Roberts and Mamola, and he's notably taller than Randy and
Kenny, and they're not Dani-like Lilliputians, and nearly as tall as
Spencer, who isn't a shrimp either. He was/is thin, and 150 lbs
wouldn't surprise me at all, my guess would have been a fighting
weight somewhere in the 145-155 range.

Your argument is still-born if it includes calling anyone at the world
level "fat", that is clearly an act of desperation and denial. And
you're just bitter because you've claimed the optimum size for MotoGP
was around 160 lbs, which is and has been absolutely absurd. If your
personal taste runs to midgets, fine, that's your business, but if
MotoGP ever ends up being all sub-130 lb EuroMeds, I sure as hell
won't be watching. And neither of us will be attending, because Laguna
and Indy will have shut it down due to a distinct lack of interest...

 

I'm 6' 3" and managed to get down to 135 lbs back when I was in
school. Of course the speed might have had something to do with
that Currently weigh 185 lb.

 

I guess you missed this: "Body mass index (BMI) is a measure of body fat
based on height and weight that applies to both adult men and women."

 

It just seems to me that a healthy weight for someone 6'2" should be
above 165 lb. Below that may not be unhealthy but I'd sure consider
those people shy of a proper amount of muscle mass. For my own part
I've never been below 185 lb since I made it to high school, and I was
pretty slim back then. I've been back to 185 once in college but I
found it impossible to maintain without being hungry constantly.

-Dirt-

 

I did, indeed.

-Dirt-

 

You an me both. I hit the far side of 15-1/2 stone once and I can't
seem to get below 15 stone now no matter how much I try.

Then there's the other end of the spectrum. My project director is
probably 18 stone now, **after** losing 15 stone in the past few
years.

-Dirt-