It's a kind of madness
By TMX Archives on 18th Jun 08
This week JD passes comment on the new factory launches for 2009... they get earlier and earlier and is their anything really new?
IT'S June 2008 – so the official factory launches of mouth-watering, shiny new, 2009 models are now in full swing!
We are not quite half way through the year (week 25 actually, I know this as we tick-off each issue of T+MX as we begin work on it!) but already we have been able to show you a fair selection of next season's ‘must-have' models. As a f'rinstance, you will have already seen, on page three this week, the tasty 2009 Kawasaki KX250F and KX450F offerings guaranteed to have Team Green fans salivating.
We all love new bikes of course, but the headlong rush to announce next year's models seemingly earlier and earlier is a kind of madness really – and we are all on the roundabout knowing full well that it sure ain't going to stop no matter how hard you wish you could get off. Why would you not want to see piccies of lovely shiny 2009 models anyway? Well, you may well have just bought a brand spanking 2008 model and be the proud owner of the latest thing – only to discover that now it isn't! Or then again you might be a hard-working dealer with a showroom full of 2008 models sitting looking at you!
Time was when bikes were launched in August or September, you saw them in the flesh for the first time at the Bike Show and delivery was expected anytime between December and Easter. The tendency in recent years though has been new models launched to the media in June/ July and they are in the shops by the end of summer – and some riders have worn out several
by the time they hit the Dirt Bike Show in
winter.
Then again, there are new models and there are new models. We all have a nudge and a wink when we see the magic words "all new factory graphics” and "lighter and stronger.” Some wags have said that after 20 years of becoming lighter and stronger, you couldn't scratch them if you hit them with a sledge-hammer while you should have to tether your pride and joy to a stake to stop it floating away!
Each year performance is moved up/ down the rev range, suspension travel goes longer/ shorter, rear dampers are either alloy (for lightness) or steel (for strength and to aid cooling) while exhausts are long/ short/, thick-walled, thin-walled, straight/ tapered, etc, etc. Naturally suspension units are "re-valved internally” for an ever-more superior action.
It's easy to scoff, and we all do, but is there actually any doubt that in real terms overall performance really does improve as the years go by? Of course there are years when the only difference between last season's models and this is a set of stickers. Then, next year, the factories come-up with a change that really works (yes, they all tend to ‘discover' new things at the same time) and everything moves on a notch. We've had suspension revolutions, chassis revolutions, the four-stroke revolution... the latest technical upgrade is fuel injection – as fitted to the Kawasaki KX450F which you can see on page 3.
Actually, there is nothing new under the sun. Fuel injection has been around for decades. The Daimler-Benz V12 engines as fitted to Messerchmidt 109 fighter planes, which were chased around the skies by Spitfires and Hurricanes in WW2, circa 1940, were fitted with fuel injection. In fact they were first provided with fuel injection in 1936 – which is over 70 years ago! According to British pilots, this gave the Germans a vital advantage as when pitching into a vertical dive, the big Benz was straight onto full song while the carbureted Merlin engine powering the Spits and Hurricanes would splutter under fuel starvation. Similar to when your carbureted 450 stutters on landing from a big jump.
It's hard to say why it has taken off-road so long to introduce fuel-injection. Show me a car in 2008 that is fitted with a carb. And most road-going motorcycles switched to injection yonks ago. So while fuel injection is the thing to shout about for 2009, given the above history lesson, it really isn't that much of a big deal is it?
Whatever, it might only have taken 70-odd years to get off-road engines up to 1930s Luftwaffe spec but, better late than never, eh!
Meanwhile, as I've said before, however much I admire the old classic bikes, whenever I'm ever offered the chance to ride a modern piece of high-tech machinery I take it over the old-stuff any day. Modern off-road bikes are absolutely awesome and, while there are those who won't agree, considering their specs they offer mega value for money. Here's to 2009...