It's been out of action for a while....
I'll delete this topic if it turns out to be nothing, because I know it's a waste. I'm really just interested to see whether you guy can still check in over there, because then I'll know that my 2 stroke views have resulted in my second ban over there!
Meanwhile, I'll post what might have gotten me banned off Vital here. I wanted to make a short reply because of some 2 stroke bashing that was going on there, but then my keyboard hit the "powerbands", and I ended up venting.
Yeah, RMGSXR's Right!!!
The resale on an RD or RZ350 or a TZR250/RGV250 is really high!
Nobody want's one of those fart bikes if they can have a superior 2 Stroke bike to ride on the road!
4 stroke dirt bikes are OK too, they're just really boring compared to the 2 stroke alternatives. They kind of make it feel like you are always riding in mud or sugar sand, even when your not. They feel cloddy... Not so much when you're on the gas hard, because they do have amazing power, it's more in the way they feel at all times other than that.
Also, it's amazing how the KTM150SX outpowers the 250SXF even though it's so much smaller. It's not actually a 150 even, it's only 143.6cc and the dirt rider test said it would walk away from the 250SXF in the taller gears on the straights. That's really a miserable showing for the oversized 4 stroke FOOPER that those not in the know believe to be so much more powerful.
Some people prefer the power characteristics of a FOOPER... and that's OK to each his own. But the superior machine is easy to spot.
And that's the reason why people try so hard to keep 2 strokes out of professional racing, because when they are both out there in front of the public, the 2 stroke wins hands down with people, and that doesn't line up with and provide the most benefit to the commercial interests at this time.
Didn't you ever wonder why Chad and Ricky and EVERYONE switched to FOOPERS for Supercross 06???
In 05 with all the top guys other than Kevin Winham on 2 strokes, Ricky, Chad and James literraly layed waste to everyone. Chad and Ricky lapped everyone all the way up to 3rd place at San Diego and the top 4 stroke finisher was KDub, who was lapped and way outside the top 3 without a crash by the way...
Then along comes 06 and all of a sudden, everyone's on a FOOPER... Huh?... What??...
Had the 06 FOOPERS suddenly improved exponentially? Nope... but something HAD changed. Something no one mentioned at the time, because it's all part of the big sales presentation, not part of bike racing. The major difference between 05 and 06 wasn't the bikes, or the rider's tastes. It was that in 05 you could get factory pay to ride a 2 stroke, and in 06 you couldn't. They got MC to do little TV interviews that year where he said things like, "It's great to ride the fabulous Honda CRF450. Excellent, Great, Super, Light, Airy, Shiny, Supercalafragilistic....." "Gush!" And I also remember some weird things in magazines from that time where they would have Ricky saying things like, "So we're going to look like we're going slower, but we're actually going faster..." and other assorted nonsense, and the tracks dumbed down considetably right in step with the wholesale switch to 4 strokes. A lot of planning went into that sales pitch.
What it came down to was that no amount of marketing could get everyone aboard a FOOPER while the top FOOPER rider, a very fast and well-respected pro in his prime on a roughly x2 oversized bike, was getting lapped by guys on 2 strokes OR being dusted off pretty bad by them on the regular. The Marketing guys or sales department guys were probably thinking to themselves, "Wait just a minute!... No one who sees Chad Reed lap all the way up to 3rd on a YZ is going to want a new 450-FOOPER they're gonna want a YZ250! OR...(cue spooky organ music) they might just keep the one they have already!!!..." So, all the big manufacturers apparently decided that pro racing needed to be "All (4 stroke/FOOPER), all the time..."
"Out of sight, out of mind!" was the apparent, yet unspoken 4 stroke promotional battle cry... And it worked on lots of people. I've read that 06 was the year when sales parity was finally reached.
Fortunately, not everyone's fooled so easily.
Thanks,
Jim
