Great physical effort is required to go fast on a motorcycle. Riders don't just sit on their saddles, watching the landscape pass by. If you observe closely, controlling and exploiting the full potential of a racing motorcycle requires inordinate effort and exhausting concentration.
Watching a motorcycle race on Sunday after dinner, sitting quietly on your sofa, we tend to say to ourselves that this sport is precise, graceful, acrobatic.
But looking more closely, it is a demanding, intense and exhausting gymnastics session on a moving, hot and vibrating mechanical object of almost 300hp. Watch how quickly riders change position on their motorcycles when changing direction. Yes, they have to do this precisely because so much of their effort passes through their hands – which remain devoted to the task of staying precisely in line.
The handlebars on racing motorcycles are so-called bracelets, half-handlebars arranged at the end of the right and left fork tubes. And turning requires riders inordinate effort to combat the powerful gyroscopic force of the spinning wheels and the inertia of the entire bike and its fuel. The driver must fight his machine to go as quickly as possible from one corner to the next.
Steering with precision while combating acceleration forces requires extraordinary fitness and strength.
But what happens if the pilot is not strong and durable enough? He may not be able to turn early enough and will widen his turn, or even go off the track. What is the remedy in this case? Slow down enough to give him more time to make this change of direction. Without control, power is nothing: to pass quickly, you have to be strong!
Being a pilot means being a complete athlete
Why do modern racing motorcycles have magnesium or carbon fiber wheels, with the lightest carbon brake rotors possible? Because much of a motorcycle's cornering strength lies in the gyroscopic stability of its front wheel. Erik Buell, during his time as a motorcycle manufacturer, measured the stresses a motorcycle underwent – for the motorcycle as a whole and also for the wheels alone – so that his engineers could reduce its weight in any way possible. The goal was to create a motorcycle that was more agile and easier to ride.
If we observe drivers on slow turns – where the breakdown of the movement is more fluid, and therefore easier to appreciate without the slow motion shown on television – at the end of the braking phase, the drivers reposition themselves towards the front to put weight on the front wheel with the aim of countering the effects of strong acceleration. When the front wheel lifts, that's all there is to it. Accelerating even harder only adds to the lack of control. The pilot only stops himself from going backwards by the strength of his arms. Imagine, it's like trying to do pull-ups with your arms slightly bent, while "weighing" 140% of your normal weight (1,4G is a fair estimate of what pilots experience when accelerating). And you have to steer precisely at the same time.
The same driver, at the same turn, but positioned a little further back will see his front wheel lift off the ground. Coming out of the curve, the motorcycle no longer follows the ideal trajectory, the electronic aids get involved – anti-wheeling and possibly traction control – and the rider loses time, in addition to fighting against his motorcycle. Result: the times are worse.
Danilo Petrucci's position when braking on the Red Bull Ring is impressive: from the angle, with his leg out, the effort on the arms is significant!
What can we say about braking, where the maximum braking intensity generates efforts of around 2.5G for the driver! Danilo Petrucci's wrists, for example, must hold 195kg, he who normally weighs 78kg – he is one of the heaviest riders on the MotoGP field. This explains why many of them have problems with their arms!
That's why today's top drivers all undergo intensive physical training programs - to give them the strength and endurance to quickly put their weight where it needs to be: right, left, forward, back – while maintaining the precision necessary to maintain the trajectory. Not everyone is a World Champion!
When motorcycles don't handle ideally – a pumping shock absorber, an overly soft chassis, or when tires slip and then regain grip – rider control is threatened. Jack Miller was recently seen leaning on his ankles and letting his motorcycle steer violently. This also happened last year to Fabio Quartararo, where during a ride, he did not move his elbows away from the tank, which temporarily compromised his ability to steer the bike.
The ability to instantly move wherever you are on the motorcycle requires physical strength and endurance.
As you approach the dancers, you can hear the grunts of effort and see the intense muscular efforts required to move and swirl, which from a distance seem so graceful. It's an art. Motorcycle drivers are like them, with the addition of an ultra-powerful mechanical monster to master to achieve the best time and win a race.
