The Butt Stops Here
The butt stops here
UP FRONT
David Edwards
TECHNOLOGY IS A DAMN FINE THING, no argument here. Without it to improve motorcycles, we'd all be clattering around on Herr Daimler's wooden-wheeled 1885 boneshaker, waiting for some smart so-and-so to invent things like pneumatic tires, telescopic forks and swingarm rear suspensions.
And technological leaps were not limited to the early days. The Great Motorcycle Boom of the 1960s was capped off by the introduction of Honda's mighty CB750 Four, which rocked the motorcycle world back on its heels. Yet, as revolutionary as that blockbuster bike was-it was called "the finest of all production road ma chines" by the editors of this maga zine in 1969-it pumped out a claimed 67 horsepower; maybe a real-world 60 at the rear wheel. Two decades later, today's front-line 750s darn near dou ble that figure.
Reliability has jumped, as well. Sev eral years ago, Cycle World took a pair of showroom-stock Suzuki GSX R750s to a circular, 5-mile-long tiretest track in Laredo, Texas, and set a new FIM world speed record, covering 3079 miles in 24 hours. That's a 128.3-mph average including stops for refueling and tire changes, meaning that when the bikes were on the track, they were at full throttle, running 140 mph-plus hour after hour after hour. When we uncorked one of the motors afterwards to survey wear and tear, we found.. .nothing. No discernible dam age whatsoever. Try that with your BSA Gold Star sometime.
For 1993, technology's march con tinues. In this issue, you'll read about the new Yamaha GTS1000, Japan's first motorcycle with a front swingarm, which follows the ELF racebikes and the Bimota Tesi down the road of alternative front suspen sion. In an accompanying article, our Tech Editor explores the Yamaha sys tem and what this latest development means to the future of motorcycle de sign. Kevin Cameron also looks into another bit of techno-trickery, Kawasaki's ram-air intake system, re vised for `93 to yet again increase the top-speed figures of the already blaz ing ZX series of sportbikes.
This is exciting stuff, and let me be the first to applaud the hard work involved, but I wonder if all this engi neering expertise isn't a little mis placed. I mean, for most riders, is there all that much wrong with a well set up conventional front fork? More to the point, do you want to pay, what, a S2000 premium to get rid of the few flaws it does have? And I don't know about you, but I don't spend much rid ing time rocketing along at 175 mph, wondering why the hell the turkey I'm on won't crack a buck 80.
Where would I direct my eager le gions of engineers if I were the CEO of a major motorcycle manufacturer? What would be the first project I'd want to see pop off their drawing boards? Well, you'll pardon my blunt ness, but I'd take care of the tush.
Motorcycle seats haven't made any real progress in decades. In fact, it's not too hard to argue that, if anything, they've gotten worse. Observe, please, that 1969 CB750's saddle: broad, flat, deeply padded, with plen ty of room for the rider to move around. Now take a look at many of the seats bolted to modern machines: narrow, sculpted affairs that limit movement, and owe as much to the stylist's pen as to any regard for long term rider comfort.
lalk to Mike Corbin, owner of Corbin Saddles, generally regarded as the foremost maker of aftermarket seats, and he'll tell you of flexible plastic seat bases, poor-quality foam and cost-cutting vinyl covers that all work against stock saddles.
Better seats are "not a raised issue, not a high priority," for the bike-mak ers, says Corbin, because many of their customers are "dazzled with horsepower, super brakes and graph ics. A comfortable seat isn't a major concern to these guys, who don't real ly go anywhere, anyway; they just buzz around."
Well, fair enough, and no one is proposing we equip GSX-Rs with miniature La-Z-Boy recliners. But touring bikes, sport-tourers, standards and cruisers could all benefit from substantially upgraded seats. I'm not talking just better foam and more ra tional shaping here, though that wouldn't be a bad place to begin. Why not have height-adjustable seats? Not only to fit different-sized riders, but for different riding envi ronments-low for surer footing in stop-and-go traffic, high for a stretched-out riding position on the open road. Why not have electrical heating elements embedded in the seat for cold-weather riding? Are we stuck with molded-foam construction, or would an upholstered frame-andspring set-up borrowed from furni ture-makers be a better way to go? While we're cribbing from other in dustries, Reebok has done pretty well with its "The Pump" line of athletic shoes, which use an adjustable system of air bladders for a personalized fit. Wouldn't a motorcycle seat with a similar system be a hard-to-resist sales feature?
Look, I don't mean to propose that we abandon the quest for better sus pension systems or more powerful, more reliable engines. If the GTS 1000 is as good as claimed, and if Yamaha fits it with a decent set of hard lug gage, I just may have to buy one. And if our ZX-l 1 testbike doesn't ram-air its way through the 180-mph barrier, the speed demon in me will be a little disappointed. No, I'm not against new technology, but what I am suggesting is that in all the hoopla over these lat est super-systems, there are other areas long overdue for engineering at tention that go lacking.
Designing an innovative motorcycle seat would be a good way to reverse that trend.
