World Superbike Championship

A slightly lesser known form of Motorcycle racing aside from the MotoGP is the World Superbike Championship, or WSBK, and its supporting races World Supersport, Superstock 1000 and Superstock 600. These races are carried out over 13 rounds of famous international circuits starting in Australia’s Phillip Island and finishing in Qatar, with 2 races held at each circuit per class.

The WSBK format involves engine capacities of between 750cc and 1200cc depending on the number of cylinders. In this format, the bikes are tuned versions of production bikes, in contrast to the MotoGP in which they race purpose built, million dollar machines. These modifications are fairly limited, as the WSBK aims to remain relatively close to factory to promote manufacturers to develop better technologies for public motorbikes. Main modifications include exhaust work, ECU, suspension, brakes, and some engine parts such as conrods (must be same weight), and porting heads (no welding). The current bikes and manufacturers in the 2015 season are as follows; Kawasaki: ZX10R, Ducati: Panigale R 1199, Aprilia: RSV4 RF, Honda: CBR1000RR, Suzuki: GSXR1000, BMW: S1000RR, MV Agusta: 1000 F4, EBR: 1190RX, Yamaha: YZF-R1. The Superstock 1000 class consists of the same format, with no modifications, racing with stock, factory bikes.

The World Superbike Championship format has similar ruling to the WSBK, aside from engine capacities between 400cc to 750cc which classes the bike as a Supersport. Like with the 1000cc class races, the Superstock 600’s race stock factory bikes, with tires available to the public, and not slick racing tires. The current 2015 season bikes and manufacturers in this class include; Honda: CBR600RR, Kawasaki: ZX6R, MV Agusta: F3 675, Suzuki: GSXR600, Triumph: Daytona 675 and Yamaha: YZF-R6.

WSBK Bikes on turn 1.

Who's Your favourite Motorbike manufacturer?

Information Sourced from:

• Official World SBK website
• World SSP Wikipedia page
• WSBK Wikipedia

RC213V-S MotoGP bike for the streets!

Last year in November, Honda unveiled its prototype RC213V-S, a street legal machine that’s “closer to a MotoGP bike than any road-going model ever offered to the public”. And their right. This bike blows away Yamaha’s R1M, which before the RC213V-S was the closest production bike to a proper MotoGP bike, in terms of handling and cornering, as well as suspension and breaking.

Source: Wikipedia

The RC213V-S is modeled after the RC213V, Honda Racing Corporation’s current MotoGP bike, with the frame, rear sets, exhaust, swing arm, wheels, suspension and body work being pretty much identical using top of the line items and materials. All of the geometry of the frame is identical to the MotoGP bike, and is setup to be like Marc Marquez’s RC213V. The main differences, besides the road legal items (Number plate, indicators, lights, kickstand) include all the consumable items, such as brakes, which are steel disks, as opposed to ceramic, and engine components. Honda has switched out the pneumatic valves for more conventional coil springs and their seamless shift transmission gearbox for a more traditional one. This along with piston design was done for sensibility reasons, and for longer service interval materials and design, as it wouldn’t make sense to rebuild the bikes components after every few rides.

Source: RC213V-S

The price of this bike, when released on July 12nd is sold for $184,000 euros, with the sports package an extra $12,000, which, apart from the carbon pattern fairings, will increase the ~159 bhp bike @ 11,000 rpm to ~215 bhp @ 14,000 rpm. This bike will likely only be sold for this year, and estimated 250 units will be produced by a team of 2-3 specialists at Kumamoto Factory in Japan.

Source: Cycle World

Information Sourced from:

• Motorcyle News coverage on RC213V-S
• Official RC213V-S page

MotoGP Phillip Island

Counting down the number of days till the MotoGP in Phillip Island, where the best riders in the world will battle it out over 27 laps of Australia’s legendary MotoGP track in Phillip Island.

The iconic 4.445 km asphalt road racing track has 12 turns and has the highest average speed of any circuit of the MotoGP calendar (182.1 km/h by Lorenzo, 2013). With very fast flowing and very fluid corners, the riders can really push their corner speeds and provide some very spectacular high speed racing. Track width of 13m, and longest straight 900m long, where riders easily reach speeds over 300km/h. The 16th circuit on the 18 circuit calendar for the 2015 MotoGP season.

This MotoGP season, Movistar Yamaha teammates Jorge Lorenzo and current season points leader Valentino Rossi will battle it out to see who will gain the most points for the championship, only 14 points between them, and last years world champion Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda) currently in third place championship standings, only 79 points behind Rossi, needing to take the win at Phillip Island to have a chance and stay in the game for the championship or secure his Podium standing this season.

Teammates Lorenzo and Rossi.

Source: Autosport

16th – 18th October, the dates to watch for the MotoGP in Phillip Island, aswell as Moto2 and Moto3 races

Information Sourced from:

• MotoGP Phillip Island information and stats
• Wikipedia of Phillip Island
• MotoGP calendar
• Current Championship standings

The Ghost Rider

Top gear has always had their Enigmatic, mute persona and racing driver, The Stig. Many have asked the question, “Who is the Stig?”, but when it comes to bikes, I want to ask the question “Who is the Ghost Rider”. The Ghost Rider is a mysterious man who is clad in black riding leathers, similarly to the Stig in his white race suit, who resides in Sweden. He is notoriously known for performing illegal maneuvers at very high speeds on public roads.

The Ghost Rider has released 6 DVD’s for entertainment and showcasing some of his shenanigans with his first DVD released in 2002, “Ghost Rider: The Final Ride” and his latest “Ghost Rider 6.66: What the F***” released in 2012.

Some of the Ghost Rider’s notable exploits include the Uppsala run (From Stockholm to Uppsala) in 14m 53s, The Paris Peripherique (Ring road in Paris) in 9m 57s (As tribute to a French street racer “Le Prince Noir “Black Prince”) and from Rotterdam to Amsterdam in the Netherlands in 20m 32s.

Like the Stig, the identity of the Ghost rider was also revealed as Ex racer, stunt rider and mechanic Patrik Furstenhoff, a man who fits the bill and also has the Guinness World Record for the fastest wheelie at 346 km/h on his 499bhp (372 kW) Turbo Suzuki Hayabusa.

Ghost Rider's Turbo 'Busa

Source: Ghost Rider Movie Website

Information sourced from:

• The Stig
• Ghost Rider
• The Ghost Rider Website