Very serious technical awards: sneak preview

The most important event of the year for all motorcycle engineers is the MCN Golden Piston Awards for New Technologies (G-PANT).

Each year these prestigious awards celebrate the most cunning and cretinous developments in motorcycle technology.

The full awards are revealed in the December 28 edition of MCN, but we can give you a sneak preview of two…

Multiple Acronym Technology Award
The Golden Piston Award for Multiple Acronym Terminology (GoPisAwfMate) goes to a bike we’re probably going to hear more about in this feature.

Without giving too much away, it’s the Ducati 1199 for featuring DDA, ABS, DTC, EBC, LED, DQS and quite probably WTF, which if nothing else makes it a heaven-sent gift to biking Christmas crossword compilers. QED.

Redundant Acronym Tribute Award
A popular sub-category, the Frequent Acronymic Redundancy Tribute, might seem like a lot of hot air to some but it’s not guff. A regular winner has been ABS brakes for meaning anti-lock brake system brakes.

But, it’s new contenders we’re after: if we’d thought of this award last year it would have gone to the Ducati DTC (Ducati Ducati Traction Control), but this year we celebrate the continuing efforts of Showa with their BPF forks, or as they’re better known, big piston forks forks. Excellent work work.

Read the 10 other awards in MCN, out December 28. In the mean time, any technology you think deserves a mention?