Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127827
RACER TEST
ty I'm not sure a rider could ever really
get used to ·it. You'd have to be very
brave to tell yourself 'I've got traction .
control' and keep the throttle wound
wide open all the time! When tires start
smoking up on TV, there's not a lot of
traction control on view, and that all
adds to the spectacle and hopefully is
one of my strong points."
50 does Mick short-shift all through
the gearbox to 'keep riding the power
curve?
"Well, what I call short-shifting
would only be 1000 revs off normal changing up at eleven-five instead of
around 12,500 rpm, as usual. In higher
gears like fourth and fifth,. I'll take it
higher, and try to rev it through to
about 13,000, so it carries the gear higher. I don't hold a gear so much as other
Honda riders do, though - but most of
them grew up in the 125 and 250 class,
where you have to rev 'ern right out. I'll
upshift, then backshift - but I have been
known to rev it as high as 14,000, but by
then you're well and truly out of the
power. That's why I told you off a couple of years ago for overrevving it there's no paint doing it, becauS!'! it's not
making any power up t]jere, and on a
straight you're just losing time doing
that.
Twelve thousand five hundred to
12,800 is a good shift area - but if you're
in, say, a third-gear turn and you're
geared to 66 feet from the apex, 1 guess
it's easier to hold the gear and rev the
bike, or if there's a kink in a straight section and you roll on and off the side of
the tires and the revs rise and fall - that's
what the overrev is for. It's safe power
up there, though, because it hasn't got
(Above) You want power? The
NSR now delivers roughly 400
horsepower per liter from its
SOOcc V-four.
(Left) Costly Mitsubishi carbonfiber discs and Brembo calipers
are the best - ever.
enough to break the rear wheel away,
and if it does, it's got nowhere to go. Do
the same thing 3000 rpm lower down,
and you're going to be flyi.ng pretty
high."
A constant reminder of Doohan's terrible '92 injury is a locked-solid right
ankle which in turn resulted in the
famous thumb-brake for the rear wheel,
developed from a personal watercraft
throttle and since copied by many other
And the
.ractical exam...
O
14
kay, first the theory - now the practice. Time to put the
lessons of Mick's master class into effect. Only one prob.
Jem: I had just five laps to do it in, on an Eastern Creek
circuit 1'd seen for the first time that morning.
Back to basics. No greater test of the NSR500's chameleon
character could be made than to use it for course learning, in
preparation for my day's other duties - track testing the new
breed of V-twin Honda GP bikes. Bit of an insult, though.
Rather like using Damon Hill's world champion F-I Williams to
run to the market.
It's a mark of how brilliant a piece of empirical development
the decade-old NSR500 design is that, while you certainly
couldn't think of driving the Williams anywhere furthet offtrack than the Silverstone parking lot, the Honda would make a
phenomenal road bike - just so long as you never took it more
than two-thirds of the way to its redline, and never out of third
gear. Oh, yes - and you'd need to find somewhere to mount the
license plate,
Wobbling around my first lap of the Eastern Creek infield in
second gear, course-learning in company with Australian
Motorcycle News editor Ken Wootton on Mick's identical spare
bike, underlined what a pussycat of a panther the NSR500 is - SO
long as you have the throttle no more.than hali-open.
After one lap of course-learning almost under my wheels it
was time to gas it up hard down the long front straight, with
that wicked left-hand kink just past the pits, Ohmigawd. Dr,
Jekyll quickly becomes Mr. Hyde. Cranked over around the
long left leading onto the straight, gradually feeding in the
power as the track opens up, the Honda that pulled cleanly and
smoothly out of hairpin turns from as low as 6000 rpm started
to change personality as soon as the tacho needle hit nine grand.
Five hundred rpm later, it just took off.
The -engine starts to accelerate very quickly from there on
up, switching into interplanetary mode from 10,500 rpm when
your view of the world around. you goes into overdrive, The
front wheel pops up in third gear while you're still slightly
cranked over, the engine note hardens as the revs mount, the
wind batters your body as you try manfully to struggle down
behind the screen while still more or less pointing this missile in
the right direction, and you shift up through the gear.; on the
still swprisingly mechanical-feeling shift action - remembering
to back off the throttle slightly each time, rather than keep it
gassed wide open like on other makes of bike.
•
perfectly fit riders, including teammate
Alex Criville and the new World 5uperbike champion, fellow Aussie Troy
Corser. Is this such a smart piece of kit 1
need to practice getting used to using it?
Mick smiles.
"1 need the back brake on the way
into a turn because if I just use the front,
it means the front suspension's loaded
all the way in, so there's more chance of
it pushing and unloading the tire," he
Then. suddenly, it's time to think about backing off a little,
even by my novice speeds, for turn one, then getting hard on
the brakes and zipping down through the gears for the tum-two
hairpin - taking only a moment of glee to imagine the consternation on the faces of HRC bosses as Wootton and I zapped past
the pits together, dre