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/520905
BRITTEN V-1000 RACER TEST P118 bikes on track on this first lap, and I admit it takes me another lap before I feel comfortable enough to start pushing it. However, by lap three, the tires have managed to get sufficient heat into them that I can brake late and hard, accelerate early and hard, and now it is time get down to business. Exiting the final, uphill 180° left-hand turn onto the front straight in second gear, the Britten is carrying just over 4000 rpm, which is right in the middle of a flat spot in the pow- erband thanks to the primitive electronic fuel-injection system that was another of Britten's ahead-of-its-time creations. The throttle at these revs can be a little touchy, requiring the rider to feed the power in quickly to get over this little in drive, stand the bike up on the meaty part of the tire and get the engine spinning up and driving. This engine has so much low-down torque, pulling the chassis over the crest and down the front straight. Third gear is gone in a flash on the Suzuki GS-sourced >>THE BRITTEN V-1000 CHASSIS John Britten's V-1000 engine in the grand scheme of things is not groundbreaking (it was still a DOHC four-valve V-twin), but it was for the time. What was groundbreaking, and still is, is the chassis that housed that remarkable engine. After the first V-1000 ran with a conventional chassis with telescopic forks, John decided that the new V-1000, created in 1991, should run with the engine as a stressed member with the front-end, sub-chassis and swingarm anchoring at various points on the engine. John was a firm believer in creat- ing things with a difference and his V-1000's suspension set-up was no exception. Rather than run with conventional forks, John re-worked the classic Girder fork system—one of the earliest came from the pre- war Vincent machines from which he took not inconsiderable inspiration. The rear suspension, with a single Öhlins shock, was also similarly unique and mounted at the front, beneath the front suspension, and hooked up to the swingarm via a series of linkages. John held a lifelong fascination with old HRD Vincents and took inspiration from a Norton ES2, both with uncon- ventional front-ends, but it is unclear exactly where he got the idea to run a girder front-end from. Britten used the girder system for four reasons: 1) To eliminate suspension stic- tion under heavy brake loads 2) To eliminate fork flex and chat- ter and retain a constant wheel position relative to the chassis under braking 3) The have the ability to use double wishbone geometry, in turn enabling the engineer to dial in the exact amount of squat required under braking 4) To increase overall torsional stiffness and reduce weight That final point was also hammered in with the liberal use of carbon-fiber, with the girder fork, front and rear wheel, sub-chassis, swingarm and bodywork all made from the then ultra- expensive material and process (bear in mind this machine was created only 12 months after the debut of the Cagiva 500cc Grand Prix carbon-fi- ber-framed machine). The sub-chassis included pick-up points for the front suspension's upper and lower wish- bones, which in turn were located on the cylinder head. Throughout the machine's life there would be persistent problems with front-end chatter on full lean. The cause of this was never fully rectified, and Andrew Stroud even remarked that if the Britten were to have a conventional front-end, it would prob- ably be the best handling machine in the world, not to mention one of the fastest. The Britten girder system, with its carbon-Kevlar wishbones (later con- verted to aluminum) and Öhlins shock, gave the rider 120mm of suspension travel, but the set-up allowed the en- gineers to dial in an exact amount of pro-dive and anti-dive. The first 80mm of which was pro-dive, the last 40mm anti-dive. This could be altered with the use of different wishbones. The rear suspension required a rework from previous Britten V-1000 models due to the problem of the shock overheating and losing its damping characteristics. As a result, THE SMILE STILL HASN'T LEFT MY FACE AFTER MY EXPERIENCE WITH WHAT IS UNDOUBTEDLY ONE OF THE FINEST, MOST INSPIRING MOTORCYCLES EVER CREATED.