Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

okay , I'll admit he's my hero, but 1 submit nobody else has the developmental skill, determination and raceriding ability to get the job done Cagiva doesn 't just need La wson on their bik e next seaso n, GP. racing as an en ti ty needs it, because Fast Eddie on a competitive Cagiva wi th the sam e tires as everyo ne else is goi ng to add tremendously to th e spectacle of GP racing as a wh ol e. And in his hands, 1 ha ve no doubt the Cagiva could be competitive: here's wh y. For a start, the 1990 Cagi va V590 has thankfully little in commo n with its '89 predecessor, a seriously flaw ed machine that, frankly, if it represented Cagiva 's p resen t level o f technical excell en ce, would m ean La wson would be crazy to take th e ride on ; But the huge advance the Varese race shop has made in the year since 1 rod e the V589at j erezcan't be understated: their ability to mov e in the righ t direction tech n ica lly a t a fast eno ugh pace, especiall y compared to th e j apan ese. . can no longe r be called into q uestio n. The V589 had a lig ht ning-fuse engine wh ich not on ly gave away aro und 10 bhp to the j apanese works bikes, but had a very small gen uine power band of not much power than 2000 rpm , with zero overrev capa bi li ty: a t 12,200 rpm , the brick wa ll syndrome became painfully ap parent. T h is was bad enough, bu t exacerbated by a very n otch y gea rbox, a nd th e lack of tra ction and sta bility offered by a flawed chassis with extreme geo metry ranging from a steep 21.3 degree head angle to a sho rt 1380mm wheelbase co up led with exa ggera ted 60/4 0% frontwards weight distr ibution. It wasn 't a very good bik e! La st winter, two men joined the Cagiva team whose skills played a significant part in producing th e 1990 V4 Cagi va whi ch p ro ved suc h a considera ble improvement over its predecessor : Fiorenzo Fanali , and Ron Haslam. Having spe nt mos t of the 80s as ch ief mechanic for T eam Agostini, working on the V4 Yamahas which the Cagivas have so o fte n cl os el y resembled, and mor e to th e point helped Eddie Lawson to three world titles in that tim e. Fanali's experience with a titl e-winning team was crucia l. With his input, the V590 becam e easier to ' work on than its predecessors, as well as more reli abl e, with quali ty the The new chassis is home to a revised engine that features a wider 70.degree cylinder angle and improved breathing from the 35mm dual-body Mikuni carbs. The crankcases are also more compact and feature redesigned contrarotating cran ks. a while back - probably, nor has hel . - but the Cagiva just gave a quick £lick of the head as it hit the dip, then tracked stable and secure under full th ro ttle all the way around and down. But th is stability hasn't been obtained at the expense of nimbleness in turns, one of the few areas whe re the V589 sho ne, but only at the expense of rather fast and unpredictable steering which made it fall into turns quite suddenly. T he newer bike is easy to tak e into a comer like th e second gear left at the end of the straight ha rd on th e brakes, without th e sort of understeer bikes Dubbed the V590, the '90 model Cagiva improved dramatically over the 1989. model. A Piero Ferrari-designed frame features aluminum honeycomb mesh with carbon fiber facing; it's helped the Cagiva's handling considerably. prime considera tion in selecting suppliers - hen ce for example, th e switch from Marell i electronic ignition this year to a Kokkusan programable CDI. " I also felt it was impo rtant to ma ke the engine easier for the riders to use," he sa ys, " so we con ce n trated on widening the power band and increasing the overrev, before worrying about getting more horsepoweer, Tha t came la ter - now we have 162 bh p at the gearbox, at 12,200 rpm, whi ch is not so far behind the japa nese. But the new chas sis allo wed th e riders to use that power to full .adva n tage, and the person who deserves the credit for th at is Ron Haslam - the new geometry was his idea, and he helped so mu ch this year to mak e the cha ssis better. It was rea lly unfortunate th at both Ron and Ra ndy injured themselves so earl y in the seaso n, because it affected our development badly at a cruc ia l time: a nd in Ron 's case he never really recovered from it all season, which preve nted him giving max i mu m expressi on to his potent ial-on our bi ke which he helped to create." Once that geometry had been de termined, the Cas tig lio nis engaged the services of th eir frie nd Piero Ferrari to mak e a composite mat eri al chassis a t h is h igh-tech compa ny Ferra i En gineer in g 's Mo den a h eadqu arters, employing a lu mi n ium hon eycom b mesh wi th carbon fiber facing, the resu lt ini tially weighi ng 4 lb. more than the allo y-framed V590's 282 lb. ha lf-dry , bu t since reduced to a mere I lb'. heavier, for no less than three times the extra chassis stiffness. With the impending increase in min imum weight for th e 1991 seaso n , for four cyli nder 500s to 286 lb., th is gives Cagiva a healthy bonus, inasmuch as th eir Japanese rivals will have to add up to 33 lb. for next season , or may be more in the case of th e Suzuki which was found to be underweight at one early stage of th e season just go ne! T he Ferr ar i chassis is not made by the same peo p le responsible for the carbon -fibre monocoques employed by Mansell and Prost in th eir FI cars th is year - they ' re ac tua lly mad e a t Ferrari's Briti sh o u tpost at Guildford - but the techn iques em p loyed are the sa me, and the result has to be one of the most beautifu l Grand Prix motorcycles o f th e modern era - if not the loveli est. More to the point, it handl es almost as well as it looks, with th e most no ticeabl e benefit a roc k-like stability round fast turns, of which there ar e a couple of rea l testers at Rijeka, The qui ck rig ht lead in g on to th e p i t straight is the crucial exa m, with a dip in the apex which sets ma ny bikes int o a dramati c weave which can last all th e way down the 170 mph straight if they're particu lar ly unruly: 1 shall never forget th e sigh t of Sito Pons manfully struggli ng with a gradua lly worse ni ng speed wobble aboa rd hi s wor ks 500 Suzuki down this stra ight with more radical geometry can sometimes display. Bu t then when you let off the stoppers, it doesn't practically fall on its side .either even though you 're already cranked over into the turn - nice and neu tral -handling, in other words, and according to Alex Barros wh o of course has ridden both, the car bo n bike is act ually easier to flip from side to side in a chicane than the "stock" alloy chassis. Must be those holes in the sides of the fai rin g, ca ref u ll y sc u lp te d after Honda ap peared with them on th eir bik es at Le Mans. O n ly, being It ali a n , the Cag iva has designer ho les - rectan gu lar ones, not ro und. . , . T he Ferrari chassis is a lso extremely stab le under bra kin g , though perhaps here it's not so mu ch a functio n of the bike's impro ved stiffness to weight ratio wi th the carbon chassis as the revised weight distribution compared to last year - a much mor e rational 150,7/1 32 lb. sp lit, or a ra tio of abou t 53/ 47% frontwards . This has several benefits, not least the fact that whereas before it was all too po ssible to get the rear wh eel waving about in th e air under heavy braking - especially with th e AP carbo n discs used in '89 nowadays the Cagiva is much more co ntrolla ble, than ks mostly to th e extra weight on the back wheel. Adm ittedly, though Mam ola raced the carbo n bike ju st once, at Brno, when he q uali fied seventh ahead of R uggia and Garriga's Yama has before burn ing the clutch ou t on the line and fin ishing a disappointing l l th, it wasn't fitted wi th th e cocktail of bra kes (one carbon, one steel ) at the front that the riders favor at prese nt , but the performance of the Brembo steel discs that Cagiva have no w reverted to was q ui te impressive eno ugh for me , than ks! Bar ros says tha t while the carbo n di scs have less initial bite they do wor k better in the en d but are mu ch ha rder on the hands and wris ts, becau se you become used to grabb ing a big han dfu l and squeezing hard while the brakes servo themselves int o effectiveness. Using one of each is a usefu l com promise, offering th e sensi tivi ty of steel plus the stopping power of carbo n, at onl y a slight 17

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