It seems year after year bike manufacturers keep increasing HP & Torque while reducing weight of the machine. With each of these improvements, more rider aids need to be added to keep the rider safe. Question is....how far can they go? How far do we want them to go? Do you want a 500hp machine that takes 10 mins at start up to configure ride preferences or do you want a 180hp get on & ride machine where you control all external oddities?
Well mate that is a very good question indeed. I have the 2014 model with a supposed 178.3 horses and I know that I will never, ever need or use that much but it's the bike I wanted with no electronic rider aids and I love it. Before I got it I had been playing with the idea of flying microlights as there is so many different types and categories available now...if bikes keep going the way they are then it won't just be winglets they are coming with
I brought mine for the same reason And my mate works in a Ducati dealer and when I pull up on mine he couldn’t wait to ride it. Said he loved it because he had not got to take ten minutes turning everything off, just get on and ride
In my view these rider aids do not need to be added to keep a rider safe. They are merely an evolution of motorcycling that enhances the rider experience. We could say that radial tyres keep a rider safer than cross-ply. I don't think that's necessarily correct; the radial merely affords the rider better sensitivity and better capabilities. Both of those tyres will 'let go' beyond the rider's ability. We could say that electrics starts keep a rider safe by lessening the risk of ankle/leg injuries due to kick starting. I am not from the era of thumping 500cc singles and 650cc twins, but started my biking life in 1970. Since that time time we have seen continuous improvement year after year, commencing with Honda's disc brake (1969 CB750) through to twin discs, single rear shocks, single-sided swing arm, right through to computerised ignition and engine programming. Some of it, in my view, is an outright PIA. Older members will recall the times of ripping off a chrome points cover, polishing them with a bit of emery paper, setting tappets at 2 mm inlet and 3 mm exhaust, run a stroboscope (timing light) over the flywheel and set timing. Job's done. 40 mins max. Now? WTF? 3 hours? More to the point though with today's electronics. I see a lot of them as a marketing tool. Whilst I have one bike with a full electronics package, including suspension, I think for road users - whether aggressive or sedate - electronic Ohlins don't add to safety; they merely smooth out some surfaces, or as I said, 'enhance the rider experience'. Track riders might respond differently. Where we get into traction control and launch control, I am not sure those features would 'need' to be engaged in normal road use. Of course there might be some who will reply that traction control has saved them in the twisties somewhere. That would be good to hear. So all these 'accessories' come to us in a package that, for me, once set, need very little adjustment or tweaking. It would be VERY interesting to read a response from an owner who might be able to offer a direct comparison between a standard Blade and the electronically equipped SP version. @Lozzy comes to mind as an owner of such bikes.
I'm afraid my SP is the last of the analogs Nigel, so has the same set up as the black edition so I can't compare those two. I have ridden the HP4 and s1000rr and the newer AT's with electronics on but I'm in the camp of just want to get on and ride it and not be trying to find a button on increasingly massive switch gears etc while heading towards farmer Giles stationary around a bend lol Once I've got an analog bike set up suspension/ecu then it's perfect, although if you do track days the ability to change with the electronics will be a no brainer I guess. I can understand folks liking and wanting all the gadgets but for people who don't it's just pushing the prices higher and making it difficult for home or small business mechanics to fix when stuff goes wrong.
I suspect most people just find one or two modes and just flick between them, or am I like my parents with the VCR and just don't get it?
Never will be the answer your looking for... the technology will change year on year and new devices will be added and improved on... but fossil fuel will run out so the next big leap will be electric superbikes... the thing that annoys me is nearly every area on motorcycles has been massively improved on apart the weight that has increased over the years... I've conclusively proven that power to weight is so important. You don't need 200bhp when a bike weighs 160/175kgs.... with today's technology its disappointing that the manufacturers don't seem to address this! Other than increasing the horsepower..... That's another reason the Suzuki GSXR1000K5 was such a missile and still a great package by today's standards.... Go figure! I've seen wiring harnesses double or treble in weight on most bikes, add your abs pumps, and bigger exhaust systems for improving emissions etc... You only got to look at the early abs system on a blade. Think all said and done I removed 11kgs of worthless rubbish.... But your answer will still be the same.... It will never stop. Embrace and enjoy it whilst you can.
Not trying to be comedic but it seems we are on the precipice of technology with electric bikes (vehicles in general) in much the same way as people were over a 100 years ago moving from horseback to the 'motorised carriage'. Gawd help us...the technology used in vehicles now is crazy but we're heading into driverless cars etc. As an aside on formidable technology have a look at Boston Dynamics on you tube, in particular the evolution of 'Atlas'...its scary shit.
This really alarms me because not only will we have to accept the risk of 'driverless cars', we will still have the age-old problem of negotiating female drivers.
Right here goes... Looking deep into my Crystal ball this is how I see it... In the next 5/10 years.... Seamless gearbox’s, Plus electric hybrid technology with integrated regeneration systems. Just like hybrid cars but on a more technical scale. Fingerprint/ iris scanner type interface that will link to your phone and access everything from route and conditions. Adaptive lights and radar including HUD Heads up display. Gone will be your slow 6 axis IMU! That will be taken over by several main processes that will be far quicker than any human brain could ever imagine. It will control every associated aspect of bike movement, It will be called (IIDS) Intelligent Integrated Dynamic System and will monitor every part and make adjustments to not just the suspension but also the weight bias including active Yaw, Pitch control and braking. Gone will be conventional hydraulic type brakes, These will be replaced by linear active electronic interfaces that will produce the braking to your callipers via one of the processes, This will also be interlinked with every parameter from the sub systems that will measure every aspect, Including global position and even the weather. It will also consist of dynamic telepathic camera systems that will collect the surrounding data and make adjustments to avoid collisions or any danger. Forget fly by wire and cables going to stepper motors! This will be on another level. The bridge between mechanical moving parts and electronics will be vastly improved, As will aerodynamics and safety.
How come one of the biggest growing sectors is Retro ? Massive power, massive electronics is a sector but not the only or even most important sector. Triumph do a pretty comprehensive line up of twins of various sizes and power. Kawasaki do their Z900 which is very popular. But even with these "Retros" people seem to want the electronics - they are not that "Retro" - nobody seems to be asking for cables and carbs. The whole green thing is a political project and not backed up by demand. They keep finding new oil decades after warnings of no new oil. It is bureaucrats and politics and it will end in expensive and disastrous incompetence to be expected from government interference. Personally the analogue mantra of - you can have big lean or big power, but not big lean AND big power is still somehow deeply rooted in my brain ! The electronic wizardry allows for shorter wheelbases and big power, that would not be possible in the analogue era. You get fast sweet handling bikes as a result - without even knowing.
what gets me is this whole switch to electric vehicles crap,where do people think the power is going to come from to charge these things up....the power station of course,plus you have to mine the stuff for the batteries,ship it half way around the world to be processed before shipping it to the end user,and that's an awfully big carbon footprint right there before you charge the bloody things up! the option we could consider is hydrogen technology although you have to mine it,once its burned as fuel the by product is water,petrol stations can be easily converted to dispense it,(see California are already doing this)and you not worrying where your next charge is coming from as currently there is not enough charging points and not all manufacturers use the same socket. apart from that were all going to hell in a handcart anyhow
Whilst electric may be ok for shorter runs it is useless once you get to the limit if it's range. OK you can do quick(ish) charging but as I understand it you can only do that once per day and it reduces battery life. Then there is the question of the number of charging points and the time needed. A petrol (or hydrogen) pump has you stopped refulled and on your way in under 5 minutes, a quick turnaround but you still get queues. Now imagine if people have to wait 2 hours, ok that is 2 hours they are captive to fuel station prices and amenities, but how many vehicles will they be avke to cope with at a time? Personally I'm not interested in electric, possibly hybrid on a car but why would I want that extra weight on a bike?
I remember being in Texas in 2012 and the guy I was there to work with drove us down to Louisiana in a new hybrid. At the time this was white mans magic as it was a company car at over $40k when they were available at $20k from other manufacturers. (But the company was punting then on cheap to all the guys as they had tech in them and were promoting them big style). Well back then I had zero Scooby Doo about this and asked how far we would get on the battery. 70 miles he says but we had like 200 to get to Broussard??? WTF me says in standard Scottish lilt. Don’t worry he says the engine will kick in when the battery gets low. So on we go zooming away at anywhere between 70 - 90 mph. Surprise surprise with hardly any noise. Now me being uneducated hadn’t a clue, I was expecting the battery to run out and then a 2 litre lump to kick in and we would continue as normal. Oh, but no!! As the battery got low, a tiny 125cc starts up and begins charging the batteries and we continue the whole way with less than a US gallon used in total. That was my one and only experience with batteries but I guess 7 years on they must be better??
Interesting viewpoint, Dave. 'Smaller' might be the operative word, because previous turbos were not enthusiastically embraced by the public. The two main contenders (in my era) were Honda's 1982 CX500 Turbo and Kawasaki's GPZ750 Turbo of 1983 - 85.Whilst they were dearer than the normal models, the murmurs of the time were that they would not be reliable. There was a Nissan car of the time that continually 'blew' turbos, and that perceived 'unreliability' spilled into the bike market.
