Safety features are there in the background. You might wear a crash helmet but you don't use it unless you have an accident and bang your head. You don't actually use a seat belt and airbags until you crash, when you do they're a life saver. So as an older rider I'll take everything I can get.
The one thing people on here haven’t mentioned is that if modern 1000cc sport bikes had no electronics, and 1-1 throttles they would be totally unrideable, completely unmanageable without a throttle that has about a 360 degree rotation
That's a fair point and true with ride-by-wire throttles. The electronic ramp is designed to simulate a cable throttle. You can remap it to 1:1 but it would be almost like cracking a cable throttle wide open every time you turned the twist grip. A cable throttle perhaps shouldn't be referred to as 1:1 since its input is still controlled on an electronically managed fuel injected bike. The power delivery is graduated - albeit at the other end of the cable - otherwise, as above, it would be like slamming the throttle wide open every time you touched it. Even with a cable the fuel delivery is still being managed. The problem comes when manufacturers make a poor job of setting up RBW throttles, often as an easy way of meeting emissions regulations. 990 KTMs were notorious for extremely snatchy throttles, as are some Yamahas and Suzukis now. My old 1050 Speed Triple was quite bad as well, particularly the transition from fully closed to just open at slow speeds. It felt like a cable throttle with too much slack. It was snatchy until you got on the power and then it all smoothed out. The 1260 Diavels are the same, cured by a simple throttle spacer to take out the slack at the twist grip. Some bikes are the other way round. Every BMW 1200/1250 boxer I've ridden (I haven't ridden the 1300) felt too soft and gentlemanly low down at small throttle openings. I hated the throttle on my gen 1 1290 Superduke. It wasn't snatchy, just completely unintuitive. A bit like having the 360 degree rotation you mentioned. It was woolly so I never knew where I was with the power delivery and didn't feel like my right hand was connected to the rear tyre. I had it remapped and asked for a 1:1 throttle ramp and the tuner made much the same point you have. He said 1:1 wouldn't give a cable throttle feel, it would make it an on/off switch. So he sharpened it up making the ramp a straight line with no dips and steeper than original so it felt like a cable, but he stopped short of the point where it would have become snatchy. It also a fair point about the other rider aids on super sports bikes. They're designed to be ridden at peak power for track/race riding so the delivery has to be controlled. You could ride a 200 bhp sports bike with no electronic rider aids at all but you wouldn't be able to access and control peak power, you'd just be bimbling along so there'd be no point in having the thing.
You don't even need modern tech to get a non-linear ramp throttle, I have seen eccentric throttle wheels on carburetted engines before. Gives longer travel for low throttle openings to aid with drivability.
There’s not a rider aid within about 70 years of this. Handles like a barge, no suspension, no brakes and way faster than it should be. Apparently Burt Munro (of the World’s Fastest Indian fame) got 138mph out of one. Nutter. Forget your Panigales, if you want an adrenalin rush, get this up to 60.
Yep, it’s a 500 MSS Velocette. Everyone should ride one of these at least once just so they know how good absolutely anything else is. A mate has a 16H Norton, similar kind of thing. He lasted about 400 yards on this before accusing me of trying to kill him
The only Velo I ever had was a 350 Viper. The kickstart ratchet had a nasty habit of slipping with no warning, playing havoc with my knee. I'm currently running a 1948 BSA ZB32 Competition.
