I said simple! Is that so hard? LOL.

Ok. It doesn't literally swing. It's like the drive shaft in a car, right? The swing arm is connected to the engine? The power from the engine is what is turning the swing arm? It spins... or did you use the word pivot deliberately? (Which is slightly different from spin)
Ok... so what is connected to the rear shock? The frame or the swing arm? (I did say I was slow...)

The rest, thank god, makes sense. The frame stayed in the same spot, they just shifted the wheels forward 8mm.

Is it just me imagining it, or does Rossi this year tend to get more lift when he first hits the straights from his front tyre than he used to? Seen it happen a fair few times in races this year... and now that I'm thinking about it... don't think it happened quite so much last year... This would be a downside to putting more weight in the rear, wouldn't it?

This is all greatly appreciated! My above reply was to Tommm's explanation... but #46's was posted as I was working out what the hell a swing arm is...

But this goes some way to answering my query about the lifting of the front end... if it's more flightly and insecure... voila!

Okay... how do you push the front forks forward? WOuldn't you just make them longer? Or is it about actually making them shorter and forcing the console/handlebars etc, oh, that's right, steering column! back? No. Forward.

Ok. I'll go get an engineering degree and get back to you.

Again, thanks heaps for trying... I get the physics of it... I'm just curious about the mechanical aspects... the literal parts of the bike and what they are doing and what has changed. I think I'm getting there...

No it is not connected to the engine, the swing arm does 'swing', it's the large structure that the rear wheel sits in.

And what am I supposed to do with that picture of absolute nothing!

Got any pics of a bike without it's... "casing"... fairings... whatever the bits with the paint on it are called... the shell?

This is a motorbike 101. (Say in REALLY dopey voice.)

Right, in the top pics, the swingarm is the structure with the Bridgestone sticker on it.

One question here. Does Yamaha adopt the Ducati's arm of being bolted directly to the crank case? That was what Ducati did to stabilize the bike from getting tank slappers coming out of corners.

Do racing bikes have dampers to stabilize tank slapping, or would dampers interfere with speed and agile steering?

Ooooooooh, look who decided to stop hassling her fellow YC members about engines and went and started looking it all up!

Ok. The swing arm does swing, but only with about a what, an acute angle's worth of vertical movement. And the swing is up and down. What is pivoting is where the swing arm is connected to the frame - the pivot bolt, which is also attached to the shock absorber...

Ok. You know, the only problem that I still have... not one diagram has a wheel attached to it, so an idiot like me can see the relationship with what is going on "inside", which can be linked to what we see on the outside. But none do. They just assume you know where the axle is in relation to all of this... gawd.

I get the H shape aspect, I get the shock absorber aspect... (funny now, to read my initial response to being told what a swing arm is... SUSPENSION SYSTEM, not the drive system... lmao, lmao! Dunno if you managed to keep a straight face! hehe.)

Again, having read up on suspension... seriously, to be moving things around like that... yeah, a major engineering feat... especially when we can see the excellent results so quickly. Yamaha have done a magnificent job.

Secondly, to reiterate #46's point about Rossi's adaptability... that suspension is such a HUGE HUGE part of how a bike (or car) "feels", that he is riding his new Yam the way he is... when it would feel completely different... Bravo to him.

Now... just dead curious as to how he would handle the pain in the bum ducati... the dirtbikers might be the ones who can handle it... would Rossi?

[quote=Catty;236131]Do racing bikes have dampers to stabilize tank slapping, or would dampers interfere with speed and agile steering?

Ooooooooh, look who decided to stop hassling her fellow YC members about engines and went and started looking it all up!

I'm glad that it had increased your curiosity on technical aspect of the bike and it's good to sometime be discussing about it. No worries, I'm sure a lot of the YC members here will be willing to explain whatever question that we may have and willing to share with us.

As for the dampers, yes, they have dampers that is usually bolted from the chassis to the front fork and normally on the upper part of the fork. It's to eliminate high speed jitters that might happen when go high speed in straight lines also during heavy braking.

Rossi is always able to get the right set up of the suspension because he understands it well that he gives correct feedbacks and he gets the ohlins technicians to set it i.e, the compression and the rebound damping of the shocks to the exact requirement to be able to handle nealy every circuit characters. The suspension system is much more complicated that it may have hundreds of combination of both rebound and compression and front and rear.

I hope my explanation give some help to you or best still trigger you to do more research on this topic

Yeah, it's actually really scary to think how closed minded I've been over the years about the mechanics of the bikes. I've just liked the racing, the politics and personalities of the racing... but pretty much left it at that. But I guess with the change of class and the tyre war now, etc, it's really opened the door to having to know more about the bikes themselves.

I'm just kind of freaking out now, because I try and watch QP and think about where I'll put everyone in Team Manager... and now all I can think about is bloody suspension, etc! It's just added a whole new dimension in how to look at the races. Getting bigger than Ben Hur, I tell you! (I'm a hoarder of information... I have a mental filing cabinet that doesn't forget anything... a lot of new information at once makes me a bit dizzy for a few days, lol.)

Even to the ignoramous' like myself, Rossi's talent has been visible. But as you elaborated on, Han, to truly technically understand the sheer depth of his talent when it comes to the feel of the bike, his adaptability, his ability to translate what he feels into information for his team... obviously an art form, that... Ducati obviously weren't firing on all cylinders based on KC's feedback...

I'm sure something else will crop up about the bikes... I don't hesitate to ask... but just be ready with your answers!

I just wish we could get a really technical, good look at the workings of a motogp bike. Obviously these are state secrets, so no one is willing to show their goods... but would be sooo interesting.

Yeah, it's true Catty. The more you know the more you feel the crave of getting deeper into it. The development keeps going on not just every year but every race. Like the weight distribution, last time it used to be to get the weight centered, but now it's getting it to the rear.

When this happened not just the machine got to be sorted out, the riders themselves have to adjust to it. As for Vale, being one of the most resilient rider, he's able to adjust quickly no matter what the condition is. That is why he's the most sought after rider by manufacturers, not just because he's fast but the ability to do R & D to get the bike more competitive.

Well, I'm sure there are people in the YC that can give us distant learning classes to understand these complicated machines so that we can have better understanding when we watch the happenings during races.

So what deep understanding do we need for Valentino's second place over KC at Catalunya? NONE! He is just the best there is, oh yeah!