Class A vs Class B Performance
 

Hi All,

First thing, would a bike built for Class B be eligible to race in Class A?

Secondly, what sort of performance disadvantage would I be looking at if I entered a Class B bike in Class A?

The reason I ask is that I can't afford the £3.5k that Class A bikes are being advertised for, whereas I could afford certain Class B bikes, which are between one and two grand cheaper, and have enough left over to buy a van.

Any thoughts?

Hiya,

I raced my 583 in many Class A / mixed grid races over the last two seasons - you will not have a problem whatsoever. A lot of the riders in both classes are evenly matched, so theres lots of mixing it up. At the faster tracks like Snetterton and Donny then you will notice the Class A advantage, but at places like Mallory it will be less noticeable.

You wont win the Class A championship on a Class B bike, but you could have a decent run and a lot of fun.

Oh, and as it happens I have a DD Class B bike for sale if you are looking. Its very tidy and looking for a home. :-) Its listed in the Ads section.

PM me if you are interested.

J--

From my past experiences on a class B bike against a class A bike its like Groundhog day, Everytime you Pass the Blighters they come ploughing past you on the very next straight leaving you the work to do again, Great fun but frustrating if there is another class B bike a further second ahead that you could normally Catch pass and put a gap into.
But if you were doing it for the Right reasons, They I would think you could have a right old laugh, Just dont expect any sliverware.
Compare the lap times that are downloadable from the New era website, Or someone Like Paul Payne, Compare his 2006 laptimes with his 2007 times.
Glyn

Compare my lap times from 2005 and 2006 on the 583 to my 2007 and 2008 lap times on my 620 and you will see that at some circuits I was faster on the 583.
probably because its cheap and easy to put together a decent Class B bike, where as getting a good 620 together costs a bit more as you have found For 2007 I built my 620 at a cost of £2500 ie cheap and I suffered for it, last winter I spent a few hundred more and started 2008 with a better bike, which slowly improved through the year as I did bits to it.
Now owing me about £3k my 5-seed 620 is marginally quicker than my £1.5k 583 was.
This year the 620 should be a little lighter and hopefully a bit quicker, not long until I start to find out with the first track session coming up this Sunday at Silverstone

Naa Kev the older you get ETC ETC........ God you must have been fast ;)

My thoughts are you can buy a good class A bike for less than £3k these days. £3k would buy you one with a £1000 worth of Maxton suspension, loads of spares including 3 sets of bodywork, new sprockets, pc3, kn filter, spare rearsets, and loads of other bits. In other words something that you shouldnt need to spend owt on over the season. I'm still not sure what to do with mine but I'm begining to consider breaking it and selling all the spares etc off seperately as I reckon its worth a little more that way.

Very Very fast. you should have seen me on my tricycle
I could even out run the police on it :)

Silverware
 

Thanks for the thoughts folks.

I'm not expecting any silverware, it's 17 years since there was any of those sort of goings-on. I'm just looking to have a bit of fun and not feel quite so old.

Martin, I might be interested in you bike if you can hang on a bit until I've sold my Sprint and MX5! ;-)