The New MotoCzysz Red Bull Bike
After writing several previous posts about Michael Czysz’s MotoCzysz MotoGP Motorcycle I wanted to throw a shout out to Travis over at Motorcycle-Blog.com who today posted a scope on the soon to be announced Red Bull USGP paint scheme for the C1. Honestly I have no idea where he saw the press release because as of tonight I can’t get the MotoCzysz website to load in my web browser at all. It appears to be terminally down from where I’m sitting. That notwithstanding I find it a bit ironic how even though I’ve seen the bike in person, now being able to see it all dressed up for racing season makes the bike seem all the more real. Given how previous bits of information on the bike have spread across the ‘net like a brushfire, I’m sure thousands of folks will undoubtedly be drawing their own conclusions as to whether or not they dig the new paint scheme. It strikes me that at first blush the colorization of all the particular parts of the bike have begun to mask its true individuality which I think is a bit of a shame. It’s such a creative attempt to be different on so many levels that I’m a bit sorry to see that they’ve stylistically made it appear so similar to the rest of the field. Of course, I imagine that picking out a color scheme for the bike might have been the most constrained activity that Michael and the gang at MotoCzysz have been presented with thus far. Every major motorcycle manufacturer who’s out there racing - and even some that aren’t - have already staked their claim to so many of the most prominent colors and no amount of engineering excellence can work around the associations that fans make between certain color values and certain bikes.
The Seattle CycleWorld Show With MotoCzysz
Due to a last minute, quick style, work related trip, I was able to pop up to Seattle to catch the North West Region version of the Cycle World International Motorcycle Show. To be brutally honest it was night and day compared to the Long Beach Show. This was simply a much better show. The questions I heard while I walked around the floor seemed much more knowledgeable and so did the answers. People up north seem to take riding very seriously. Heard a lot less talk about clothing styles 
. Having never been to Seattle, the Quest Center was a real treat. It was easy to find and easy to use. Great parking all over the place - again in total contradiction to Long Beach. The entire area was very well laid out and planned. Perhaps the greatest difference was that Qwest center exhibition space had good light. It was super bright inside and easy to see. Not the dark, dank LB exhibition hall, that’s for sure. All in all, a completely dissimilar experience. Two thumbs up for the Seattle folks!
While we were there we got to catch a glimpse of Michael Czysz’s first public unveiling of his MotoGP bike. I took a bunch of picts, but also a short AVI film when he started the bike up. (You can listen to the clip either by right clicking on the AVI icon and doing a save as or right clicking it and doing a save as from here. The camera work isn’t great and the microphone from my little Canon SD-10 Digital Still Camera isn’t the best, but you’ll get the idea. For those of you who haven’t heard a true MotoGP bike - this thing sounded awesome. And Michael wasn’t even revving it that high, as he explained later during a Q&A session at the CycleWorld Booth. Much of the Q&A focused on the technological advancements and of that talk a great number of questions were asked about the front forks. I suspect that’s because it’s the part that easiest to see on the bike and perhaps most applicable to other types of motorcycles. Overall it was very cool to catch the first showing of the bike and listen to some of the thought process behind it. I’m sure other websites have gone into greater detail about what was said, but this is truly out of the box thinking and no matter what happens with Michael’s project I think you really have to applaud that type of effort.
Above is a picture of the MotoCzysz front suspension. Apparently the original design had over 750 tiny ball bearings in each side - the MotoCzysz team quickly switched to some sort of string of pearls configuration.
Perhaps the hardest thing to really get a handle on is just how different the MotoCzysz engine is since it’s so neatly tucked away. But the concept behind a counter revolution engine is very intriguing and garnered quite a few questions from the crowd.
Most of the MotoCzysz event was held at the CycleWorld booth. I would approximate the crowd around 100 people.
