"The Racing Motorcycle"
a review by Classic Racers magazine

Every so often a motorcycle book comes along that stands out from the rest as a must-have addition to the serious enthusiast's bookcase. This is one of those literally indispensable books if you want to extend your understanding of how bikes work and why.

The best compliment I can pay "The Racing Motorcycle" is to say that, on the basis of producing it, author John Bradley deserves to be ranked right up there alongside Phil Irving as a writer gifted with the capability of explaining complicated technical concepts in a way laymen can understand. Like the author of "Tuning for Speed" and "Speed - and how to Obtain it", Bradley writes in a direct, straightforward style about a wide range of aspects of contemporary motorcycle design, scorning the use of jargon or esoteric terminology in favour of plain English. "The drag area of a medium sized classic bike with no form of streamlining is about 0.35m**2 with the rider prone and about 0.55m**2 0.60m**2 with the rider sitting upright. As you can see, these figures are a reasonable reflection of the drag area represented by "average man" along". This comes as part of a fascinating exploraton of the origins of drag and how to combat it in turn a vital topic for anyone interested in racing. Those of us with, er, above average personal bulk may not necessarily find the conclusions encouraging....!

The subtitle, "A technical guide for constructors", is a bit of a red herring, because really the book is a bible for anyone interested in understanding why the people who built a bike did so the way that they did (mistakes and all!), rather than seeking to do so oneself. On the other hand it's a great how-to manual: I invite anyone to read the chapter on Swinging Arm Geometry to resist checking out and almost cerainly modifying their own bike after doing so.

This is intended to be the first of two companion volumes, here relating to "Gearing, geometry, aerodynamics and suspension" - 400 pages on these topics alone, replete with graphs, tables and a well-chosen selection of photos to illustrate key points (look at the photo of World 80cc Champion Santiago Herreros standing alongside his works Derbi, to understand all the points made about moulding the bike to the rider, rather than vice versa!) leaves one looking forward to Volume II. And, I hate to admit it, but even the more, er, experienced motorcycle journalist, and racer, can expand his knowledge from reading this book. A compulsory purchase, well worth the steep cover price of £32.00 - but as so often in Life, you get what you pay for - and this book delivers. Buy it.

Alan Cathcart