Simon Green, Rizla Suzuki's Team Coordinator, recently held a technical lecture for the students of Kingston University's Motorcycle Engineering Design course, covering allbehind-the-scene aspects of top level Superbike racing.
In the first of a series of technical features, Simon talks about the differences between a road bike and its BSB championship winning variant...
The rules specify that a Superbike, whether it be a thousand cc four or twin, or a 900 cc triple, has to start life as a road bike. We took this bike (Pointing to John Reynolds 2004 championship winning Suzuki), out of a crate from Japan with road body work, lights, ignition switch and everything else on it at the end of 2003 to get it prepared as a 2004 race bike.
The only bits and pieces we keep are the parts we have to keep according to the regulations. These are the basic chassis, the engine cases and the throttle bodies.
Although saying that there are some parts we keep because they work well, they are readily available and they are cheap. 95% of the bike that comes out of the crate we will put on the shelf or sell, but it will never ever see the race bike again. Of all the parts that we have to keep, it is the engine cases that receive the most fettling.
There is a certain amount of work that goes into a bike that makes it fast, a certain amount to make it easy to work on, to make it safe and an amount to make it light and therefore faster.
It also has to be bolted together properly, it is not just a case of building a fast bike, your rider has to have confidence in you. He has to know that when he gets on this 200 mph motorcycle he is going to get to the end of the back straight, pull the brake lever and the brakes are going to work.
