As Fagan quite rightly noted, Twitter went into a mini-meltdown the other day when Ducati unveiled their 2021 MotoGP weapon. Some people were really quite keen on it?s new, futuristic design. Others weren?t. In the couple of hours after its reveal, the 2021 Desmosedici suffered even more body-shaming than that fat one from Big Brother. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram were all top heavy with mean comments from people the world over. Everywhere you looked, they were harking back to the bygone days of 500cc two-strokes, asking why GP bikes can?t look like that now. Well there are a handful of very good reasons for GP bikes to look so different, so let?s examine some?

Fashion

Contrary to popular misconception, the way a MotoGP bike looks bares very little relevance to fashion. It?s absolutely true that the superbikes which MotoGP technology (and therefore a lot of the associated aesthetics) trickles down into are subject to designs influenced by fashion, but a GP bike is designed to look good on the timesheets, not the catwalk. So whilst MotoGP bikes don?t follow the trends of fashion, it could be said that trends of fashion quite often mimic the looks of MotoGP bikes. Short stubby exhausts and aerodynamic wings are a case in point. Yes those things have other ?benefits? (like noise and downforce), but really, on road bikes, we like them because they are fashionable. Nothing on a GP bike is there to make it look nice, everything is there to make it go fast.
BMW mig...