People have been doing that for decades, and always gave it up as a bad idea. Yamaha had one back in the '80s, for example.
True. Can't argue with the fact that telescopic's are everywhere and there are no (mass produced) hub centres. Although bmw have done ok with the saxon mottod idea and the hossack design.
I'm not entirely convinced that the reason is because hub centre (or other ffe) doesn't fill certain technical requirements. "Feel" always seems to crop up these days in gp racing, as a reason why racers don't like designs which separate braking and steering. Then again designers of gp bikes put a lot of thinking and no little physical and financial effort into "tuning" the front end of a bike to cater for the fact that when fully cranked over the forks don't work. I'm not saying a hub centre would operate more effectively in this scenario but they might. Devices which rely on pivoting suffer less with stiction than things which slide. Besides, the wheel hung out on the end of an arm just cries out the facility for "tuning" the beam, in my eyes.
Maybe it's even simpler. In the early eighties dive was seen as a major issue, but the intrinsic limitations of telescopics in this regard have pretty much been put to bed. That and the fact that dive is no longer a dirty word. In fact we get the impression it is seen as essential by most top level gp racers.
All I can say is thank goodness there are some attempts made at alternative ideas.
