The Official Technical History

Kevin Cameron

Foreword by Kenny Roberts Sr 

Publication: Out Now,

Format: Hardback, RRP: £30.00, ISBN: 978 184425 528 3

Told with style and great technical insight by acclaimed author KevinCameron, this is the development history of 500cc and MotoGP road-racing motorcycles from 1949 to the present day.

Intense competition, rapidly changing technology,and input from the world's best riders all contributed to the important design choices that ultimately led to today's MotoGP bikes - and to the modern production sportbikes.

Each year's championship-winning machine is described in a short essay withan accompanying data panel, and there are 14 longer features on the various"eras of design" in championship racing. The narrative brings together the many and ever-evolving influences of engine design, materials, tyres, and chassis to reveal what technology has provided to help riders win races.

Unlike Formula One cars, which have little in common with road cars, either technically or visually, MotoGP motorcycles are not greatly different from everyday production sportbikes. They use virtually all the same technologies as their production counterparts, and closely resemble them. What's learned in this year's racing season affects the design of next year's production bikes. This continual process of evolution has created the procession of modern motorcycles depicted in this book.

Author Kevin Cameron is the technical editor of Cycle World and began writing for its predecessor, Cycle, in 1973, but he never intended to be a writer. To hasten recovery from higher education, he began building and tuning racing motorcycles in 1964, before an experiment by an editor who wanted an insider's view on the fast-developing American 750cc racing scene.Cameron's strength as a technical journalist lies in his ability to present apparently complex physics or engineering matters in simple terms of familiar phenomena and everyday experience.