Careers in superbikes

[funglebum]

Hi. I'm 19 and not quite sure what to do career-wise.

I've set myself up at the moment to go traveling in January, and then join the RAf as a weapon systems operator within the flightcrew at around summer time.

So everything seems quite sweet. I'm driving a Aprilia RS125 looking to pass A2 soon and move up to a ZXR400, and generally loving bikes.

Which has also got me thinking about a career within the bike world as I can't think of anything better than to get paid for something I'd love working on.

So i guess my main question is - is there anyone on this forum with experience designing/engineering superbikes, and if so can you offer any advice please?

I was looking at a couple of uni courses involved with high performance bike engineering and its almost got me chomping at the bit.

Did well in school and college so would have the ability to do the course. Would you guys recommend work experience anywhere?

Sorry for waffling on so much!

Cheers, James.

[Ben.]

ermm from what i've heard (so don't take it as fact) apparently you get paid peanuts for a mechanics type job, and working in a garage on a bike is a lot different to working on your bike at the weekend!
However it sounds like you want to go into a lot more advanced side of it! Which is good, you get paid a lot more!

What A levels did you take and what were your grades? Have you considered a mechanical engineering course? It widens what jobs are available vastly! Or are you completely mind set on bikes?
Did you want to go into the mechanics side of it or the designing side?

I don't know much about all of this but it's the same sort of course I want to do at uni, thats about all I know...
Hope it helped
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follow my racing season
Race bike - R6
Road bike - sv650

[funglebum]

Cheers for the reply. No I wasn't really thinking about getting into the mechanics/technician side of things. More like design engineering, with the aim of hopefully specialising in a certain area.

Although just designing would also be cool because I have got quite a creative flair and have always been very good at drawing, all beit at that level you'd be using CAD/CAM for designing I think.

But this really is just ideas I have kicking around in my head! Lol, was just wondering do any of you guys have experience in this job and would consider it a viable option?

My grades are (A levels) :
Geography A
Chemistry A
Biology B
AS Law C

Have just been looking at a course in Coventry, this is what I'd be studying. Its the most relevant degree I can find to what I'd like to possibly do.

https://www.coventry.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate-full-time-a-z/a/1163

[truslack]

Mechanics don't earn much!?!?!

Tell that to the guy at the garage charging £30 an hour labour!
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Current: Suzuki RG 125 Gamma, Honda H100, Triumph Tiger 800XC, Suzuki SV650 (minitwin)

[Irezumi aka Reuben]

You need to have A-levels in Maths and Physics.
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Pictorgraphicalfantastical

[hmmmnz]

[iooi]

Maybe a idea to contact some of the bike manufactures or race teams and see just what they would be looking for in terms of qualifications.
You may well find that showing a strong interest, will do as well as a bit of paper frpm a uni.
Would agree that you are missing maths and physics.

Perhaps the RAF is a good idea as you will get paid while you are learning, only not in weapon systems.....
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Just because my bike was A DIVVY, does not mean i am......

[jon_nsr]

well you set up your own business when qualified. then you do get £30+ per hour.
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1999 GSXR750

[iooi]

[Bendy]

Someone once said that if you *truely* understand motorbike suspension, you'll never be out of work.

[G]

Are you aware exactly what is involved in a job designing bikes?

The reality may not be as romantic as the dream.

Best bet would probably be to learn Japanese or Italian first .

A very good grounding in bike mechanics would be a sensible start, I suspect - trying to design an engine without knowing how one works isn't that great an idea.

Although your A levels aren't really appropriate, this often isn't a big issue for a uni degree.

As there are relatively few jobs involved in designing bikes, I 'd expect you'd have to start at other general mechanical design jobs.

[colin1]

there is a guy on here who works for triumph doing design work

I think he has something like a degree in mechanical engineering with a good grade 2.1 or first

he uses software called pro-engineer (3d design software)

but started off using autocad

Mechanical engineering has some tough maths.

I fucked up my mechanical engineering degree because the type of A level maths i did was a bit general and included statistics and probability, so not much on pure maths like calculus. This meant that when the maths in my degree got hard in the second year, I was fucked.

As you havnt got an A level in maths, you wont be designing washing machines, let alone motorbikes.
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colin1 is officially faster than god

[funglebum]

Lol, its becoming increasing clearer that I'm not going to be able to do this then! Thanks for all the replies.

[deanoet]

[Adam_P]

[funglebum]

Cheers for that Deanoet. I certainly don't intend to give up yet, will definately be looking into it further.

[Chriss]

Hi, the RAF are recuiting now, so if I were you, I'd be apply for that if you have an intention of doing that.

I hope you have expierence of management if you want to go NCO Aircrew.

Best of luck with it either way!
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TheShaggyDA: I've got 3 or 4 pairs that predate my wife, so at least 11.5 years old.

[colin1]

when i did mechanical engineering, they did let some people get on it by doing a foundation year first before the normal first year of the course

so that would be one route

the guy who i know who did this also struggled with the maths later onas its not as good as doing an A level

as you get good grades in other subjects, its quite possible that with hard work you will be able to be good at hard maths

but you definitely need to learn maths before you start the degree course

and if you want to be working for superbikes, you really want to be shit hot at maths, so double maths might be a good idea

thats 2 a levels worth of maths

The guys who do design work for superbike racing will be far more advanced than someone who has a degree, a masters or a phd. So A level maths is just the first step on a long road.

Many are called, few are chosen.

You will need to be the best of the best to work on superbike racing. It wont be easy.

Mum telling you that if you work hard you can be anything you want, might not be enough.

Not everyone gets to be an astronaut.

I reckon a better plan would be doing something through the RAF.

Working on superbikes might be fun, but i reckon working on fighter planes would be more fun, and far more chance of you getting to be able to do it.

to get started on physics and some easy maths look here

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Physics_Study_Guide

this is the more tricky maths that i didnt understand properly when starting my degree, which caused me to fuck it up
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Calculus

and here is the hard stuff which is the meat of the degree in 2nd and 3rd years, which i didnt understand at all

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Control_Systems

heres a snippet

'That's right, the Laplace transform is hiding the fact that we are actually dealing with second-order differential equations. The Laplace transform moves us out of the time-domain into the complex frequency domain, so that we can study and manipulate our systems as algebraic polynomials instead of linear ODEs. Given the complexity of differential equations, why would we ever want to work in the time domain?

It turns out that if we decompose our higher-order differential equations into multiple first-order equations, we can find a new method for easily manipulating the system without having to use integral transforms. The solution to this problem is state variables . By taking our multiple first-order differential equations, and analyzing them in vector form, we can not only do the same things we were doing in the time domain using simple matrix algebra, but now we can easily account for systems with multiple inputs and multiple outputs, without adding much unnecessary complexity. All these reasons demonstrate why the "modern" state-space approach to controls has become so popular.'

WTF ?
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colin1 is officially faster than god

[funglebum]

Thanks for the replies colin and Chriss.

Chriss, have you had experience within the NCO aircrew? I'm not sure what they'd want from me in an interview but I do have management experience. I also participate in a lot of sports, involved in the community etc. If all goes to plan will be able to add traveling to the list too, getting involved in projects out in South East Asia.

[Ben.]

as said if you do the foundation course you don't have to do maths a level!
____________________
follow my racing season
Race bike - R6
Road bike - sv650

[Chriss]

[ZRX61]

[colin1]

deisgn engineer, guys like the one on here who works for triumph, dont need to sharpen pencils as they use computers

its probably moved on a bit from your day.

they might as well be a computer programmer, as they just design one little bit of the whole

doing a degree without the maths would be a waste of time for someone who wants to be a design engineer

better to learn the maths needed first, as you cant understand the engineering without the maths

any engineering course without maths will just be watered down bullshit that might get you a technician job, but definitely wouldnt get you a designers job

If he wants to work on the latest superbikes doing design work, hes going to need maths that is way more tricky than a level maths.
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colin1 is officially faster than god

[AJI]

[ram_doom]