Trying to ride a bucking bronco sitting on its’ ass wouldn’t work so well. The really fast cowboy guys (Scwantz/Doohan) on the 500’s rode them like flat-trackers. Spinning it up every corner. Keeping body weight distrubution up front closer to the tank freed up the rear to spin & slide while having more control. Sitting butt back more like today’s style wouldn’t have suited the bike setup & rider’s style.
Yup....and he'll be 40 in just over a month. If he can manage to win a race in 2019 it'll push him up to 4th oldest rider to ever win a GP race. Currently the oldest is Fergus Anderson at 44 years and like 7 months old....back in 1953 I doubt Rossi will win another title but you think he'd try to gut it out for another 4 seasons to become the oldest MotoGP race winner.....if its even still possible by then.
I recall reading an interview with Lawson back then, someone asking him about Ruggia dragging elbow. IIRC Lawson said something along the lines of 'it won't end well for him.' He was correct.
No idea if they'd be faster, per se, but competitive at the top level for sure. All those guys rode bike 4-strokes prior to GPs, and they excelled on those beasts just the same as they excelled on 500s...
That's a bit disingenuous. Lawson, Rainey and Roberts were probably not in the physical shape the current riders are in, which would mean they would have a harder time racing today's bikes than the other way around. I don't think there is anything "dumbed down" about a near 300HP motorcycle compared to the 180ish back in the day. The ability to ride these bikes on the edge is harder IMO than the older days.
The top guys from the 500 era all say that the current level of MotoGP is more competitive than what they dealt with.
That is the difference between the rider controlling wheelspin on exit and relying on electronics to do it.
Not only did he not try to drag his elbow, he was the only front runner at the time not dragging his knee.
Put down the crack pipe.... It is ignorant to beleive that the current crop of riders are more skilled than riders during the glory days. Things are certainly different today, doesnt mean they are better.
The older guys would have to be in better shape than they were - but given how many are in better shape than they were when racing (Schwantz and Russell for sure are) there's no reason they wouldn't have done it if necessary.
the progression of competition suggests they must be more skilled. the new champions usually must beat the old champions to win. so each "generation" of champions is better. and MM is standing on a lot of generations right now. plus, its silly to think that riding a machine at much faster lap times is easier by any metric. even if the machine was responsible for all of the improvement, doing the skills faster is still harder. the braking markers are deeper, the corner speeds are higher, they get on the gas sooner and harder. and a lot of it probably requires different skills that old champions simply didnt have. those old guys might have been just as talented. but they aren't as skilled. if they were in their prime, it might even take them years to reach competitive GP times, just as it does with a lot of newcomers to the class.
Problem is the new champs beat the old champs as the old champs are well...old. You cannot compare any of them in their prime that way. Yes the skills are different because of the technology - but that doesn't remotely mean the fast guys in the past couldn't have acquired those skills. It's silly to just blow off how amazing most of them were/are at operating a motorcycle - no matter what kind of bike or what they had to learn to make it go as fast as possible.
I think it was Eddie Lawson that commented in an interview that before Schwantz and Rainey came to GP's there was only a few corners that they consistently pushed the front. Within a couple races pretty much all of the fast guys were doing it because they saw that it was the fastest way around the race track. The best will almost always adapt and be competitive. It wouldn't matter what the bike was, if you could time machine all of them to the same time period it would be anyones guess who would come out on top. But they would all be competitive.