That's why I said UK and used the past tense. Not taken seriously. I've had a GSXRthou, RSV1000R, zxr400, cbr600 etc. Ridden the nurburgring briskly and completed 3 full seasons of club racing whilst I was at it. I like sportsbikes too.

Exactly they're currently expensive and deemed irrelevant to sportsbikes. I'm interested in ideas here. Things that will make bikes BETTER and flexibility is one of them - the option of auto for town and manual for the racetrack etc.. This was not an economics example but an innovation one. I don't need to labour the point here as thankfully Honda (for one) have finally turned up with an ABS that people actually want (more on traction control later) and I see 'semi'-autogearboxes will also follow suit. Included flexibility to make our lives easier and attract new bikers.

Tired, tired, tired old cliche. My car has wheels but that doesn't mean the manufacturer employed the original Mesopatanian chariot wheel designer. F1 is necessary to showcase the optimisation of the current technology but as a true innovator and view into the future of transport it is not. Besides Toyota had sold 1/4million Prius' before KERS arrived in F1 and the Isle of Man ran their first electric Grand Prix!

Yes, and so it should be. These ideas have been around for years and the irony is that both F1, MotoGP and WSB are struggling to find ways to "put the genie back in the lamp" because of calls that the sports are too expensive, too technologically focused and becoming too boring and too predictable (to the average joe). Hence the incessant rule tinkering. I'm also an Engineer and enjoy motorsport not because of what I see now but because it makes me look to the future.

A faired one, yes. I agree, out of the current crop it is a fantastic bike. Bear in mind that the current bike is basically unchanged since 2006 and it still only does about 40mpg. Where's the magic in a retuned old R1 lump? You're unlikely to attain any vision of the new by just refining the old.

WE ARE the consumers. That's what we're doing now, isn't it? Dealers are like doctors, they see the symptoms but are rarely the right people to develop the cure because their knowledge is too broad - it just isn't their job. But like Doctors talking to the drugs companies, they are very important in channelling all that feedback and influencing what the public actually do.

I think I may have laboured the point here

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www.brighton2expeditions.co.uk