Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

radical steerin g geometry Capirossi favo rs over the hate Honda, but be cause th is is the Italian unde rdog Auss ie Supe rb ike star's setu p. I fro m the sm alle st -volum e motorcycle m anufacturer Th o ugh the Ducati has so me e lectro nics aimed at in MotoGP racing, a firm wh ich until that Apr il day at enhancing perfo rmanc e (tho ugh not as much as its Suzuka w as loo ked at aska nce by MotoGP's closete d Japanese rivals), t his is essentially a rea l mo torcycle, insiders, supposedly because it was on ly any good at with core engineering of the tradi tional kind. So, unlike beating itsel f to w in low -rent World Supe rb ike title s. th e Yamaha, t here are no funny digital aids to backshiftSorry guys - but maybe the Desm osedici's perfo rm , ing, meaning you have to blip the th ro tt le to downshift, ance s this seas o n have unde rlined Du cat i's proven just like o n a Superbike, wit h which it also shares the expertise at the highest level, having eviden tly applied same benchmark ra mp-s tyle slipper-cl utc h that all th e all t he right les so ns learned w inning 10 Wo rld Japanese have co pie d because it works so well. Supe rbike title s to making a Moto GP bike that went It's important to stress that you ride the Ducat i like fro m ze ro to he ro by beati ng Hon da in just six races . It's called respect . a no rmal sportbike - just a very, ve ry fast and powe reN ful one. T ho ugh the Wide- o pe n powershifter is just as snatchy and oversensitive as it always has bee n w hen fitted to Ducati's Supe rbikes, th e Desmo sedi ci also stops better than any of th e MotoGP bike s - with mo re bite from t he 305m m radia l Brembo carbo n brakes , co mple mented by ex tra eng ine braki ng from the de smo motor, w ith good stability slowing hard for a turn . Fo rt unately, the braking, be llowing, be llige re nt-so unding ex haust no te never le ts you fo rge t just what it is you're rid ing - the Grand Prix racer wit h the most extreme power-toweight ratio ever buiit . It's a bike stu ffed with raw performa nce, and as such it is very capable of outaccelerating a works Honda fro m th e last corner to the finish line, as Cap irossi did to Sete Gibe rnau in Estoril. When's the last time that ever happened to Ho nda? It' s stu ff like th at that makes on lookers Bring the no ise: More tha n its Asian competition , the sm ile when t hey see and especially hear the Desmosedici deli vers on one of the promises made Ducati in action. And that's the same thrill when the sw itch to unm uffled four-strok e s w as you get whe n you ride it. Not because we announced . Th is mutha is loud l ply well separated from the cranks haft via a wedge-shaped sump. which ensures constant oil flow by preventing the pump immersed deep within it from sucking air under the G-Ioads caused by cornering or braking - or wheelies! On the left of the crank , there's a very slim alternator, w hich presumably contains just the ignition rotor - the Desmosedici runs with extra batteries on either side of the engine - while on the opposite side there's a dry slipper dutch essentialty identical to the ramp-type one used so successfully on the desmo V-twin Superbikes (so successfully, just about every other factory has copied it , eve n for their MotoG P racers, let alone Superbikes). Cecchinelli co nfirms that this is IOO-percent mechanical in its operation - Ducati doesn't employ any electronic systems to assist the rider in changing down fo r corners by varying engine speeds, cutting out cylinders , automatically blipping the throttle, or other tricks found on some other bikes. Simple is best? But for the first time on a Ducati, the six-speed gearbox is a cassette-type extractable cluster, which Corrado says mec hanics have had to swa p around more often tha n needed this season , simply because the team was new to many of the circ uits and thus had no data on them , let alone on the bike itself. "But next season I think we will save a lot of that work, because the power band is so wide - you can pull from 5000 rpm, and there's strong power from B-90oo right up to the 16,200 rpm revllmiter," he says. "We don't change the gearbox much on our Superbikes for that reason." The De smosed ici's fuel-injection system employs a Magneti Marelli engine management ECU with four large-diameter throttle bodies (we asked, but he wouldn't tell how big),two per bank, and a single injector per cylinder positioned directly above the intake tru mpet, just as on the Superbikes. At t he ot her en d, Ducati has used the same design of four-into-two Termignon i titani um ex haust all year, with the twin megaphones exiting under the seat , again Superbike-style, but with extra under-seat foil co upled with heat shields by the ride r's inside leg measu rement, all to combat the massive heat spun off by 250 hp engine outputs - roughty 30 percent mo re specific power t han a current to p Form ula I car like the Ferrari or Williams-BMW. That' s a lot, even before taking into account the massive difference in powe r-to -we ight ratios that make MotoGP motorcycles the ultimate racers and F I cars their poo r re lations - even if Corrado admits the Desmosed ici is a slightly over the 3 I9-po und fou rcylinder minimum weig ht limit . "But this is no t so important - we're not so far away, and for next season we' ll be bette r, for sure ," he pro mises . TIN -coated 1.68-inch Oh hns upside -down forks with five inches of travel comprise the fro nt suspe nsion on the De srnosedlct, w ith a variable hea d angle over a range of two degrees ob tained via eccentr ics, as on the Superbike, and obviously the usual cho ice of trail via offsets. Bayliss o pts for a life's rich passion, MotoGP style - right?! In fact, Capi rossi 's rear brake is purely deccratfve.whereas Bayliss uses it very hard , opting for a slightly bigger disc and fie rcer act ion, and his rear suspension link is more progressive - probably a function of his Superbike riding style. The Ducarl's lead ing-edge rear suspension design is broadly similar to that of the Ho nda RC2 11'! and CBR600RR 5upersport, and it features a single fully adjustable Ohlins shock anchored at both ends to the heavily braced fabricated swingarm . rather than the top end mounted to the chassis , as o n more conventio nal monos hock designs. This means both ends of t he shock move upward o n the stroke of the wheel, though the bottom end at a higher rate, states Cecchinelli, and it was chosen to save weight on the chassis design as well as provide the spin-off benefit of extra room for the exhaust. Interestingfy, ano ther feature t he Desmosedici shares with Ho nda's V-fIVe is the lack of an adjustable swingarm pivot in the chassis, since it pivots in the crankcases, and the engine position is fixed in the chassis. "I think it's the possi bility to adjust the pivot location that prov ides the problem, not the other way aroun d," says Co r rado with on ly the trace of a smile on his face . "We try to keep the opportunity for adj ustment to a reasonable minimum, which means everything that's really necessary but not a single thing more. We see it that if you start playing with sma ll t hings like this, you can in theory gain a tenth of a second if you get it just right, but if you get it wrong, you can lose one whole second and lots of time finding o ut w hat mistake you made!" This pragmatic approach is typical of Ducati's real-world race face that has stood it in such good stead in 15 years of Superbike racing - but even so, surely with all that power and to rque, it has to be careful to get the suspen sion dialed in correctly and to choose the right tire to put this to the ground. "That's part of the problem," says Corrado, "but to me th ere 's somethi ng that comes be fore that, which is geometry and weight balance. I'd be happy to be at a level where we just need to get the suspension setup right - but we 're not there yet, and for next season this is a big o bjective . To me, based on my ex perience, when you have pro blem s you can solve by adjusti ng the suspe nsion, this means they are sm all pro blems and are more rela ted to riding style or prefe re nce, rather tha n fundamental ones. Le t's take wheelies, fo r example: If yo u have these, you should add weigh t in the front or lengt hen the swingarm, not tu ne the rear shock - but when you stop it, then you can start working on the suspension , not be fore . We 're still ex pe rimenti ng a lot w ith this, by mo ving both wheels or with d iffere nt-length swingarms because we're no t convinced the present weigh t d istribut ion is th e best - but change s like this can't be do ne at th e racetrack, only at the worksho p in des igning an evoluzione of the bike for next season , and we have a whole list of such things that we w ill be trying to res olve in ou r new bike for next year." O kay, but pre sum ab ty develop ing the system of traction con tro l, which Ducati is re puted to be higher front end with stiffer springs but less damping (he weighs more than Capirossi), says Corrado, usingalready as evidenced by Bayliss' stellar GP starts from the third row of the grid to lead into the w hereas Capiross i's preferred steering geometry o n a bike th at is shorter (because of the steeper head angle) and low e r at the fron t than Troy's, making it fron t end heavy, sees a steeper head angle on the forks, with les s trai l. This makes the Desmosedici eas ier to change d irection w ith in turns, at some cost in high-speed stability and under heavy braking. But, hey, backing it into turns is all part of first turn, w illhe lp wit h this? "Look, we do n't say anything about the engine management system on this bike - but I can tell you that we do m uch less t han what car man ufacturers use on che ap cars!" As in, the only tractio n control is in the rider 's right hand ... ! www.cyclenews.com CYCLE NEWS • JA N UARY 14, 2004 37

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