Vbox Sport

VBOX SPORT

IGNITION

EVALUATION

Measure your bike's performance like a pro

Don Canet

MEASURING A BIKE’S ACCELERATION, braking, and handling performance with the same precision as Cycle World is now more affordable than ever. With the $429 Racelogic VBox Sport, you get a professional-grade GPS data logger that records speed, acceleration, distance, time, heading, and position onto a removable SD card at a sample rate of 20 times per second.

Included Windows PC analysis software allows a detailed study of captured data with the ability to overlay multiple dragstrip runs or circuit laps for comparison. The Sport can also be paired via Bluetooth to an iPhone for use with the Racelogic Performance Test and Laptimer apps, available for free from Apple’s app store. The former, for straight-line testing, provides time-slip-type stats, while trackday riders will find the latter’s predictive lap timing feature of particular use.

Just as mounting an iPhone to a motorcycle can be a challenge, the same holds true for the VBox Sport, which requires a face-up orientation to provide its internal antenna a clear view of the sky An accessory handlebar mount ($20) that attaches to tubular bars is available, but it was unsuitable for the majority of naked and ADV bikes in our test pool. Locating the Sport under a plastic solo seat cowl is a tidy solution, and using Velcro to mount it atop the triple clamp or fuel tank works, as well.

Oddly, the Performance Test app reports braking distance only in meters, and it doesn’t provide a 6o-foot time, items that UK-based Racelogic could fix easily with an update.

Overall, though, enthusiasts will find the VBox Sport an accurate and useful tool for evaluating their bike's, and their own, performance.

VBOX SPORT

racelogic.co.uk/usastore

PRICE: $429

UPS

Easy to use

20-Hz CPS sample rate

Six-hour battery life

DOWNS

MacGyver skills needed to mount unit

USB port for charging only, not data transfer

No Performance Test app for Android