Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

~ TEST Ca .va V591 team 's last G P of the season at Le Mans to try to cure the fro n tend grip problem all Mich elin runners were by then afflicted with : actual ly, he made two between Bm o a nd Le Mans, bu t th is was the one La wso n o pted for i The result is a bike that, aga in com pared to an yth ing Cagiva had ever built before, is like night and da y, and wh ich mor eover comes o ut near the top of the class in any com pariso n with a japanese factory V-4. For a sta rt, the Cagi va seems very small for a four-cylinder 500, and it's extremely l ight a n d easy -s teering, almost like a jumped-up rather heavier 250. The car bo n fro nt brakes worked The water-cooled V4 is housed in an aluminum twinspa r frame made of Carpental 7020 alloy. Brembo brakes are utilized , front and rear. The 49& c reedvalve two-stroke pumps out 169 horsepower at 12,000rpm. The V592 was docked at 188 mph at Hockenheim last year. 14 brilliantly in spite of the lon g Pergusa straig h ts and ultr a-fast fifth- gear sweepe rs round the volcanic la ke whi ch forms the crater wh ere the trac k is situa ted, dotted wi th chicanes to break the monotony and tum a 155 mph lap speed into a 100 mph one I Even on a cold December day the br akes didn 't coo l off enough on the fast bits to give anything other than to tal response when I needed to stop for the artifical twisty section - but th e thing that impressed was th e balance Ca giva has obtained betw een sta bility and easy steeri ng. The bike sat roc k solid ro u nd th ose ul tra -fast turns, o nly a hardi sh setting o n the rear shock ca usi ng it to hop a little over the many ri pples a nd bumps in the newish tarmac. But on smooth bi ts, there was no wobble or wigg le as I m ight have expected on a bike that steers so lightly a nd quickly into a turn on the brak es, yet can be flicked fro m side to side in a chicane so easi ly. H onestl y, it's so nimble you forget it's a 500 - till you cra ck the throttle open , th at isl Do that on th e one ch icane at Pergusa tha t was totally dry for my test, and tha t's when yo u realize Cagiva's tra cti on problems a re lo ng gone: the bike puts the power down realIy welI .ou t of turns, aided by tha t lo w-down power del ivery and meaty midrange. It 's a very nice bike to ride, especialIy as a fla t track lik e Pergusa wouldn 't have exposed the front end problem which clouded the end of the Cagiva team 's '91 season - even if I'd been ab le to push the bike hard enoughto discover itl You've probably got to be a Lawson or a Doohan before this ki nd of facto r gets to be critical - or painful. This fine balance between hi ghspeed stability and low -speed steeri ng response was obtained with a steeri ng geometry that is frankly co nservative: the team did ex peri ment with a mor e extre me chass is desi gn employ i n g mor e radical geo metry, bu t Lawson didn't care for it, preferri ng instead th e current mor e stable setup, the n fin etunin g it to get the responsiveness he wanted witho ut sacrificing sta bili ty.On th e bike I rode, tha t means a 24° head angle a nd no less than 105mm of trail: the chass is is multi-adjustable for th e first time on a Cagiva, with not only the head angle variable by one degree either side of the 24° sett ing by means of different inserts which can then be ro ta ted con ica lly for fin etuning, bu t also th e swingarm pivot adjustable too . Nex t year the tearn plans to ha ve a new variation of th e chassis which will ena ble the engine location to be readily varied in any direction to optimize weigh t distribu- tion, thus eliminating the need to revamp the frame every time th ey want to try a different setup. At this stage, the Ferrari-built carbon fiber chassis em p loyed in 1990 will lik ely make a reappearance in all-new for m: the fact that it can 't be modified like an alIoy frame, but has to be co m ple tely remade, ha s prevented its use in this evo lutionary yea r. But one feature fro m the first Cagiva-Ferrari has been held over to La wson's V591, which unli ke any of its j apanese ri vals has the engine rubber-mou n ted in th e frame, to elimi na te vibration in the interests of optimizing carbura tion, says Andrea Goggi. After 10 long years of quixotic en deavour as the sole seri o us European rival to ' th e might of japan in the topmost class of motorcycle road racing, 1991 was the year the Cagiva factory finally made the grade. Aided by an FIM rule change which increased the minimum weight to 286 lb. so that for the firs t time they weren 't laboring under a weight handicap of u p to 33 lb. compared to the japanese, the Casti gl ion i bro th ers have assem bled a to p- no tch tea m of en gi neers who needed only the impetus of a gen ui nely top r id er to galva nize t he m into competi tivity. The resul ts speak for th emselves: top Michel in ru n ner on the gri d at Misano, the Cagiva at Hock en heim was trapped at 188 mph, only a couple of mph dow n o n the Honda , and during 1991 proved time and time again that only the last few refi ne ments of performance prevent it fro m emulating its Ducati sister in the Castiglioni empire and becoming a genuine chalIenger to the japanese for race hon ors at world level - a fact wh ich makes FI M P reside n t joe Vaessen's preposterous assertion that the red It alian bike is simp ly a rebadged Yamaha all the more wo unding - sin ce it happens to be completely untrue. Instead, the bike that Eddi e rides is a two -wheeled EurochalIenger to the might of japan, and with a winter of intense development ahead to refine the bike still further, improve acceleration and with Mich eli n 's he lp eradicate th a t fro nt-end handling problem, 1992 is set to be the Year of Euro pe in the 500cc GP sporting world, as much as in the Eu ropean co m m unity' s political and economic sphere. Come to th ink of it, a blue flag with those neat yellow sta rs wouldn 't look entirely ou t of place o n the flanks of the red Cagiva in 1992, signori. 01 Specifications Cagiva VS91 £DsiDe ~ .. ..•.. . .. Water-cooled 8O-degree V-4 crankcase reed-valve two-stroke with twin conttarotating crankshafts and eleetronic powervalve Bore x ItrOke .••••• ••••• 56x50.6mm ~t ••• •••. .. .•..• , . 498cc Boaapowa: .• •.••••..•.. 169bhp at -12,000 rpm e-pa euiaD ratio IH eu__ 4x.55mm MikURi dual·body with elecuonic powerjet . Ipirima .. ..... Kokkusan elecuonic programmable digital em Tran_i__ 6-speed extrlICUble Cload MultipIaIr dry (7 steel/6 fiber ) Cb.-is • •...•. Aluminum twin-spar frame in Carpental 7020 alloy Front swt'f'tllli_ • • . . . •Ohlin, OUT inverted telescopic forks Rear IAIIIpe iaD .. ....... Fabricated aluminum 5Wingarm with ungle Ohlins shodt and rising rate linkage Wheelhar 1410mm Bad ancIe 24 degrees (variable +1· 1° via insens/ea:entrlc adjustment) Trail Weipt IOSmm 286 lb. dry WeiPl Iion . ••.• ••• . 55/47'1 Front Ianb8 ••.•• 2x285mm Brm1bo Carbon diaa with four-piston Brm1bo calipers Rear IIrakea ••••• • lx220mm Brembo sIre1 diaa with two-piston Brembo calipers Front tiftlwbeeI ....... : .. 12/60-17 Michelin radial/5.50 in. Marchesini wheel a-tiftlwbeeI 1"8167-17 Michdin radialf6.00 in. MardIcsini wbm, rap.. 188 mph lHocJrrnbei m)

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