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One Year On by John
Well, here we are approaching the end of another year. Time to reflect on what’s past and what the future might hold too. MVAgusta.net is now around 18 months old and the 3000th member has joined us, making this a thriving and popular community. A look at the registry map shows a significant number of members in the US, Europe and Australia but there are also members in other areas too making it a truly global ‘club’
I recall looking through my local dealer’s window at two gleaming MV 750S Americas when I was a pimply 16 year old youth in the mid 1970’s. They were priced at over £3000 at a time when a Z1 Kawasaki could be had for around a third of that, but what machines they were! Shaft drive, when the only other big bike manufacturer using shaft propulsion was BMW and of course resplendent in Red and Silver. It’s nice to see that link with the past maintained by some of our members here who have examples of these bikes in their garages now.
It’s strange how things have changed over the years, back in the 70’s and even up to the mid 80’s most road bikes were un-faired and their engines air cooled. I had one of the big six cylinder CBX Hondas. No fairing at all and seemingly acres of engine fins stretching right across the front elevation of the bike. There were a few water cooled bikes around, the Suzuki GT750 (Kettle) was one, but water cooling on road going motorbikes didn’t really get established until the Yamaha RD350LC came along and astonished us all (at the time) with it’s speed, agility and handling. Fairings too were seemingly restricted to the Bikini handlebar types until we started to get a whole new generation of hyper sports bikes like the Suzuki GSXR750, the Yamaha FZR1000 and the Kawasaki ZXR range. All of a sudden, water cooling, full fairings and prone riding positions were available over the counter to us mere mortals who had previously only seen such machinery ridden by our idols on race tracks.
Another major innovation was the adoption of radial tyres and over the years, tyre compound technology has increased to such a level that we take high levels of grip and relatively high mileages for granted on sports bikes that pump out well over 100 HP. To put that into context, my old CBX would wear out a Pirelli Phantom rear tyre (the one to have in those days) in less than 1300 miles. My current F4 has the Dunlop 208RR’s fitted which are still OK after double that mileage on a bike churning out at least 50% more power than the old Honda 6!
Braking too has come on leaps and bounds, early disc brakes, especially the Japanese clad offerings, were fine in the dry, but abysmal in the wet! Now we take for granted the brakes fitted to our bikes can dissipate the high speeds the modern machines are capable of without a second thought.
Back to the present day and as we all know, the new MV Agusta revived courtesy of Messer’s Castiglioni and Tamburini are making ultra desirable sports motorcycles in the form of the F4 and Brutale designs. Much has been said on this forum about the timing and form of possible successors to these icons of Italian design. It has to be said they are now approaching their 10th year in production! But as with the 916 Ducati, the form and function of these bikes seems almost timeless to me.
If you look back at classic designs of any form of transport not just motorcycles, you can see there is a wonderful link between form and function. One person said to me many years ago, ‘If it looks right, it probably is right’ and I never heard a truer remark.
Take the Supermarine Spitfire fighter plane of WWII or the Slo-Mo-Shun Power boat racers of the 1950’s. Move up to the 1960’s and there is the E type Jaguar sports cars, the Sydney opera house, the Concorde Supersonic Jet airliner and the awesome power and majesty of the Saturn V rockets which propelled men to the moon. The seventies saw some great Pininfarina designs for Ferrari and the B2 stealth bomber in the eighties although it only became known to the public in the nineties.
I’m sorry if I missed out anyone’s particular favourites and there are many other candidates throughout the years, but the point I am trying to make is a work of art such as a painting might be beautiful in it’s own right but it just hangs on a wall in a gallery or museum and has no other function, whereas a railway locomotive, jet plane, automobile or motorcycle can have form and function too.
Like many others, I fell in love with the 916 Ducati when it first appeared, I had never seen a bike quite like it and I wanted one immediately, but I was working overseas throughout most of the nineties and it was past the millennium before I was able to purchase the 916’s successor the 996. The bike Duke was everything I thought it would be and more but Snr Tamburini had already played another ace aka the F4 MV. Again the form and function of this Ferrari of motorcycles was too much to resist and I knew I had to own one of these majestic beasts if it was at all possible to do so. When I could afford to buy one, the MV F4 became part of my life in the guise of a 750 Evo III model. In time, the 750 made way for the current incumbent of my garage a 1000S. In a world where many people have immense struggles to just put enough food on the table to survive from day to day, I consider it a rare privilege to indulge in such a machine for my personal enjoyment.
MVAgusta.net is a forum for MV enthusiasts to discuss and digest all matters relating to the bikes and the company. As mentioned above, it has become a global enterprise with people of all ages, backgrounds and professions coming together to share their experiences and thoughts about these fine motorcycles. I have been a member here myself just coming up on one year, but in that year I have made a lot of new friends all over the world who share my interest in MV Agusta and I have learned many things about the bikes I love from like minded folk.
None of us know what the future holds for certain, who knows if internal combustion engined cars and motorcycles will still be around in 30 or 40 years time as we continue to pollute our world and use up all the fossil fuels at an alarming rate. I’m no tree hugger, but I do hope we are responsible enough to leave the planet we live on in good order for our children and grand children to enjoy some of the experiences we take for granted, such as riding a fast, good handling motorcycle along a twisty challenging road.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Alvin for having the vision to put this web site together in the first instance and I wish all of you a very happy Christmas and a prosperous 2007.
John
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