Mr. Dazzle wrote: ↑Sun Jul 18, 2021 10:35 pm
I remember those....I thought I'd imagined it, cause whenever I've looked in bike mags recently (not that often TBF) they didn't have them. ISTR it was standard practice in the oft repeated 600 shootout etc.
If I may beat the same old drum again: EVs will change all this. They'll give you maximum thrust across a huge speed range with no need to change gear.
I first saw them in Motorcycle Mechanics which morphed into Performing Berks.
But not seen one for a long time. Unfortunately, if the mags (or online articles) don't explain why thrust curves are so useful, no-one looks at them because they don't understand them. But give 'em a big BHP number and they get all excited.
As I've said before, how much faster can you accelerate than a wheelie? It's not huge power that makes for fun, it's the gearing.
Re the electric bikes. The race bikes have had to use gearboxes, simply because there's a limit to how fast an electric motor can spin. Interestingly Kawasaki have been testing an electric motor / four speed gearbox set up. If I remember right it was seen shoe-horned into a Ninja 400... yes, just checked... I talked about it on my Elevenses webcast on April 24 last year. The rationale is that it allows the use of a smaller and lighter electric motor.