#I'll admit I mainly typed this up for the sete bits though both extracts come from very neat sections of the respective books

[batsplat]

In 1996 Vale raced a rotary-valve 125cc two-stroke that weighed 70kg and was good for 140mph/225kph. In the year he reached his retirement age he raced a 1,000cc four-stroke that weighed nearly 160kg and nudged 220mph/350kph. It is inevitable that such motorcycles need to be ridden in different ways. The essential difference between racing a low-powered bike and a high-powered bike is the speed the rider uses through corners. The best way to achieve fast lap times on a lightweight bike with relatively little horsepower - like a 125 or 250 - is to use as much corner speed as possible, by taking flowing lines through the turns. On the other hand, a 500 or a MotoGP bike has a lot of horsepower (too much, in fact!), which if used correctly has a huge effect on lap times. Therefore Vale had to change the way he attacked corners when he graduated to the premier class in 2000. After his first few races on a 500 he understood that the secret to a fast lap time on a big bike was to focus on corner exit, so he could unleash the engine's power as soon as possible. This required sacrificing corner speed, the gain in acceleration in corner exit more than compensating for the loss of time in the middle of the corner. "You need to go slow mid-corner, then lift up the bike really quickly and give gas when you are on the fatter part of the rear tyre," he said. "If you don't get it right, you're either slow or you crash." The first man to set him right was rival Sete Gibernau. Vale had a lot of crashes during the winter of 1999/2000, because he was trying to ride the bike like it was a 250, using flowing cornering lines on the edge of the tyre. Gibernau told him what to do, but like any keen young racer, Vale ignored the advice and kept falling off. Gibernau was correct, however. The 500 had double the power of a 250 - about 180 horsepower - and a two-stroke engine delivers power and torque in an aggressive and unpredictable way, so it's asking for trouble to swoop through corners on the edge of the tyres and then open the throttle.

Mat Oxley’s Valentino Rossi: All His Races

At the time, I was falling a lot. And for many different reasons. Part of it had to do with my style in 250. In 250cc you can go into a turn bent right over and you can even open the throttle all the way on the turn, accelerating as you go through it. OK, it's not the easiest thing to do but it was possible and many of us had mastered it. You can forget about doing things like that on a 500cc. One of the problems with the 500 is that, at first, you feel totally confident. That's what happened to me. I felt very sure of myself, I pushed ahead, keeping my 250cc style. And, as a result, I kept falling off. It happened in my second test, at Phillip Island. And it was a very bad fall. Gibernau had come up to me before the test and actually warned me: "Look, you bend the bike too much, treat it as if it was a 250cc. You can't do that. You should use your body more rather than bending the bike." "Gee, thanks, yeah, I'll do that..." I replied, not really taking him too seriously. I asked myself, "Who is this Gibernau who thinks he can tell me how to race?" Of course, I paid no attention to him. And that was a big mistake. Two hours later I had a terrible spill. I was going very fast and, all of a sudden, I felt the rear tyre lift itself off the track and the next thing I knew I was flying through the air. It was an incredible flight. When I finally landed it was with the kind of thud I'm sure to remember for a very long time.

Valentino Rossi in his 2005 autobiography, What if I had never tried it

#valentino rossi #sete gibernau #// #vr46 #sg15 #I'll admit I mainly typed this up for the sete bits though both extracts come from very neat sections of the respective books #anyway to meeeee it's interesting he even included the sete bit. he didn't HAVE to #the thing about the autobiography is that we're getting close to the point where I've posted every mention of gibernau on tumblr dot com #which given it was published in 2005 is !! interesting !! he barely is allowed to be a part of valentino's story at all #obviously he's kinda rude about sete here but! crucially he's the one who's in the right in this story while valentino is the cocky idiot #it's not a chronological autobiography sure but compare it to the amount he says about biaggi. sete's just... erased #and I'm sorry you cannot tell me that's because in late 2004 he took sete less seriously as a rival... like he started a war. come on #very juicy and fun for Narrative Purposes but also deeply deeply inconvenient when you're trying to evaluate what really happened rip