Anyone want to buy a 2020 Panigale WSBK?

SuperDomestique said:

Oh Craig… you don’t see Pecco on his training V4S with a special tank or extension or any other ........ stuck to this bike. In fact, I’d bet Pecco’s training bike is more lightly modified than some of the bikes on here. Makes you wonder…

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I think you have no clue how much of a gap there is between even a top amateur in any sport compared to a professional athlete. And I’m definitely not even close to a top amateur lol

If you played basketball with the last guy on the bench in the NBA you’d think you were out there with a mythical creature, a super hero with super powers compared to everyone else out there on the court, same thing if you wrestle or role JiuJitsu with a professional fighter. Both of which I’ve done when I was younger and at the height of my physical powers. The gap between someone who does something professionally fir 8 hours a day for decades compared to a weekend warrior even if that weekend warrior is very talented is monumental. It’s beyond comprehension unless you’ve directly experienced it.

For sure I agree with the base sentiment that it’s not the bike or the mods that will make most of us go faster.

But if you actually believe that setting up a bike ergonomically to fit you better isn’t a good direction to go in….

Of course it's a good idea. You want to have the most fun you can on track and do whatever you feel like doing to be comfortable and enjoy it, assuming your not competing.

As for the difference between pro and amateur, I am an ex-pro golfer (by ex-pro I mean many, many, MANY years ago - teenage years) and I'm old and rubbish now, but I can still pick up my girlfriend's little toothpick ladies driver and knock it past most decent amateurs and a good few club pros. I also haven't forgotten how to hit some tricky shots learned with the old clubs and balls that most young players wouldn't have a clue how to hit. Yes, I'm that awesome... I am also capable of some appalling shots that I couldn't have imagined hitting when I was younger, which is nice.

But yes, a pro will be able to get the absolute most out of whatever equipment you give them, but they will also go to great lengths to ensure that the equipment they use in competition works for them to the highest degree possible. When I was young we would spend hours going through boxes of shafts to find the straightest ones, then go through testing each one of them to find the one that was best... for each club.

The moral of the story is... do whatever makes you happy as the goal is to have fun.

Steven31371 said:

I think you have no clue how much of a gap there is between even a top amateur in any sport compared to a professional athlete. And I’m definitely not even close to a top amateur lol

If you played basketball with the last guy on the bench in the NBA you’d think you were out there with a mythical creature, a super hero with super powers compared to everyone else out there on the court, same thing if you wrestle or role JiuJitsu with a professional fighter. Both of which I’ve done when I was younger and at the height of my physical powers. The gap between someone who does something professionally fir 8 hours a day for decades compared to a weekend warrior even if that weekend warrior is very talented is monumental. It’s beyond comprehension unless you’ve directly experienced it.

For sure I agree with the base sentiment that it’s not the bike or the mods that will make most of us go faster.

But if you actually believe that setting up a bike ergonomically to fit you better isn’t a good direction to go in….

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Truth. I heard an interesting anecdote that reinforced this point…

When I was in college, a TA and I were talking about basketball. He told me that one of the assistant coaches (40 year old 6 ft tall white guy) for the school team had played four seasons in the NBA (on four different teams). He said the guy would routinely go 20 or 30 in a row from behind the 3-point line, miss one, and then go another 20 or 30 in a row. He said the dude was so good, that even at 40 (15 years after retiring from the NBA, he could straight embarrass the best player on this division I team.

A guy who played four seasons, on four different teams, who no one has ever heard of.

Pro athletes are amazingly skilled indeed.

craig bush said:

Truth. I heard an interesting anecdote that reinforced this point…

When I was in college, a TA and I were talking about basketball. He told me that one of the assistant coaches (40 year old 6 ft tall white guy) for the school team had played four seasons in the NBA (on four different teams). He said the guy would routinely go 20 or 30 in a row from behind the 3-point line, miss one, and then go another 20 or 30 in a row. He said the dude was so good, that even at 40 (15 years after retiring from the NBA, he could straight embarrass the best player on this division I team.

A guy who played four seasons, on four different teams, who no one has ever heard of.

Pro athletes are amazingly skilled indeed.

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My Dad was a D1 basketball player and played with Oscar Robinson at UC for a year. Basketball was never my thing but I was pretty good in pick up games, I never beat my Dad in a one on one game even when I was in my twenties and he was in his 60’s lol. My Dad played a lot of summer league pickup games where some of the NBA players would occasionally show up, mind boggling how they moved and what they could do.

My Dad had all us boys in various martial arts since I was 3 years old. When I was a teenager I beat a guy who won a bronze medal at the Olympics and a silver medal at the PanAm games in Tae Keon Do at a tournament and got invited to train with the National Team but went to College instead. Stayed going to to gym and training, and was one of the early adopters of mixed martial arts when the UFC started. Kept it up fir a number of years. I was in those circles what they call a gym mat hero, one of the guys that never competed professionally but was known around the gyms as THE badass.

One day Rich Franklin (He’s Also from Cincinnati) comes to our gym to train, I was 25 pounds heavier than him and was pretty good, everybody in the gym was egging me on and excited to see what I could do against him. The dude spent 10 minutes rolling me up into balls submitting me at will lol, and then without taking a break did the same thing to about ten other guys in the gym back to back with each of us gassed out after a few minutes on the mat with him.

When you combine 8 o 10 hours a day of training, for years, with world class talent, and the best training science available, what you end up with is so far beyond what you think is possible that it’s mind blowing.

For the record, Fabio and Pecco have been invoked in this thread.

Steven31371 said:

I think you have no clue how much of a gap there is between even a top amateur in any sport compared to a professional athlete. And I’m definitely not even close to a top amateur lol

If you played basketball with the last guy on the bench in the NBA you’d think you were out there with a mythical creature, a super hero with super powers compared to everyone else out there on the court, same thing if you wrestle or role JiuJitsu with a professional fighter. Both of which I’ve done when I was younger and at the height of my physical powers. The gap between someone who does something professionally fir 8 hours a day for decades compared to a weekend warrior even if that weekend warrior is very talented is monumental. It’s beyond comprehension unless you’ve directly experienced it.

For sure I agree with the base sentiment that it’s not the bike or the mods that will make most of us go faster.

But if you actually believe that setting up a bike ergonomically to fit you better isn’t a good direction to go in….

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A bad mechanic always blames his tools… Ergos are important. But you need to know what you’re doing first. If you don’t even know what proper form is how are you supposed set up a bike’s ergos No offense but it is what it is

I was fortunate to be able to closely observe two European Tour players who were based at my club when I was young. One worked far harder than the other, spending entire afternoons on the green practicing six-foot putts, etc. The other had a wealthy dad who fully supported him - lovely chap and always had time for everyone - hugely talented. You can guess which one ended up playing in the Ryder Cup. He lost it after that though - bit of a tosser unfortunately.

Working harder than anyone else on the right things is usually what makes the difference, which is where modern tech used to focus training comes into it. The 'science' of success in sports is fascinating and those people would probably be successful in whatever they chose to obsess on in life. Except for Jack Nicklaus of course - he was exceptional (although he apparently didn't practice a lot he put full effort and focus into every practice shot he hit). GOAT.

Anyway, back to bashing @SuperDomestique

SuperDomestique said:

… you need to know what you’re doing first. If you don’t even know what proper form is how are you supposed set up a bike’s ergos…

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Interesting. Every expert I’ve spoken too has advised first setting up the bike to your ergos.

I’ll be sure to let them know Super-D says they’re all wrong.

craig bush said:

Interesting. Every expert I’ve spoken too has advised first setting up the bike to your ergos.

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I'd agree, and I'm no expert. At the very least you can rule out any excuses about the equipment so you know it's all your own fault.

craig bush said:

Interesting. Every expert I’ve spoken too has advised first setting up the bike to your ergos.

I’ll be sure to let them know Super-D says they’re all wrong.

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Tough to set the bike’s touch points up when the rider doesn’t know/isn’t in the proper position.

SuperDomestique said:

A bad mechanic always blames his tools… Ergos are important. But you need to know what you’re doing first. If you don’t even know what proper form is how are you supposed set up a bike’s ergos No offense but it is what it is

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That’s what coaching and using tech experts is for.

Do you play guitar?

When people first start playing they tend to buy a cheaper guitar that’s not set up well, the strings on those guitars and farther from the frets, so it’s actually much harder to LEARN to play the chords, and if it’s out of tune it makes it even harder.

A better guitar with that’s in tune, with better ergo’s (strings closer to the frets but not so close that they make a string buzz) is much EASIER to learn on because you aren’t fighting bad ergos.

SuperDomestique said:

Tough to set the bike’s touch points up when the rider doesn’t know/isn’t in the proper position.

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That’s what coaching and technical advice for a new rider is for, they know how to set up a proper baseline for the ergos for you to learn on

Steven31371 said:

That’s what coaching and technical advice for a new rider is for, they know how to set up a proper baseline for the ergos for you to learn on

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So if you have a coach/technical advice, why is your body position so off?

SuperDomestique said:

So if you have a coach/technical advice, why is your body position so off?

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I was thinking about that, at lean my body position was off directly because of ergos, that’s solved now. With regard to the tuck, I was wondering why nobody had told me I need to get my ass out over the tail to get flat on the bike. Honestly I think it just never occurred to them because all these guys are much shorter, and very rarely coach a guy my size.

The video Karl posted was super helpful.

Steven31371 said:

I was thinking about that, at lean my body position was off directly because of ergos, that’s solved now. With regard to the tuck, I was wondering why nobody had told me I need to get my ass out over the tail to get flat on the bike. Honestly I think it just never occurred to them because all these guys are much shorter, and very rarely coach a guy my size.

The video Karl posted was super helpful.

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Really no offense intended, but I think that has a lot to do with your gut. I’m close to your size and weight and I don’t feel like I need to exaggerate my seating position as much to get in a tuck. I’m 6’2” and currently pushing 240 lbs nekkid, but I’m still fairly athletic even though I could benefit from cutting 10 lbs. Working on getting back in shape now.

Taz said:

Really no offense intended, but I think that has a lot to do with your gut. I’m close to your size and weight and I don’t feel like I need to exaggerate my seating position as much to get in a tuck. I’m 6’2” and currently pushing 240 lbs nekkid, but I’m still fairly athletic even though I could benefit from cutting 10 lbs. Working on getting back in shape now.

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No offense taken brother.

The weight and gut is of course an issue that needs to be resolved. I peaked at 270 and am down to 246 this morning. Will go down to about 210.

I’m at about 18.6% body fat so I defenatly need to work on that, but I don’t have as big a gut as one might think



I’m fat but not a complete fat ass lol

My chest and my belly are about the same circumference, I certainly let things go for a few years there but so much that’s it’s not recoverable lol

hmm it doesnt have CF wheels and for that reason im out.

Steven31371 said:

I think you have no clue how much of a gap there is between even a top amateur in any sport compared to a professional athlete. And I’m definitely not even close to a top amateur lol

If you played basketball with the last guy on the bench in the NBA you’d think you were out there with a mythical creature, a super hero with super powers compared to everyone else out there on the court, same thing if you wrestle or role JiuJitsu with a professional fighter. Both of which I’ve done when I was younger and at the height of my physical powers. The gap between someone who does something professionally fir 8 hours a day for decades compared to a weekend warrior even if that weekend warrior is very talented is monumental. It’s beyond comprehension unless you’ve directly experienced it.

For sure I agree with the base sentiment that it’s not the bike or the mods that will make most of us go faster.

But if you actually believe that setting up a bike ergonomically to fit you better isn’t a good direction to go in….

Click to expand...

I wouldn't go that far. In the early 2000's, I was regularly at the UCLA men's practice gym hoopin. Me n my "crew". Competition was definitely fierce. One of those if your team loses, just go home or go somewhere else because it'll be couple hours before you're up again. And almost every time we'd be there in their off season, you'd see someone either on the team or fresh young nba players. I've played against a couple of guys who have had a pretty decent career in the nba as well as decent college players who didn't really end up doing as well in the pros (Baron Davis, even played against him in a tournament my senior year in high school...my gawddd was this guy a problem guarding, Matt Barnes, Earl watson to name a few. Of course pros are amazing athletes but i wouldn't say mythical creatures. Maybe we were just that good to be kinda competitive but i can say the most obvious advantage a few of those guys had at the time was size, not so much skill, meaning the skill difference was heavily amplified by size rather than skill alone. Today's game is a different story. I was a point/shooting guard and at 6ft tall, i didn't stand much chance guarding the big guards but on the other end, i tried to be a problem for them with my smaller size n shootin.

Steven31371 said:

That’s what coaching and using tech experts is for.

Do you play guitar?

When people first start playing they tend to buy a cheaper guitar that’s not set up well, the strings on those guitars and farther from the frets, so it’s actually much harder to LEARN to play the chords, and if it’s out of tune it makes it even harder.

A better guitar with that’s in tune, with better ergo’s (strings closer to the frets but not so close that they make a string buzz) is much EASIER to learn on because you aren’t fighting bad ergos.

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A cheap guitar can be setup (if done properly) to play and feel just as great so it doesn't really matter too much about a cheaper priced guitar than one that's thousands of dollars. Even those need to be setup properly before getting the most out of it, just like most instruments.

Yep, speaking from experience