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Wearable Motorcycle Design
A motorcycle design student recently came up with a wearable motorcycle design that, while cool, is unlikely to see public adoption. The bike would be capable of doing 0 to 60 is just 3 seconds with a top speed of 75 miles-per-hour and would theoretically be controlled by 36 pneumatic muscles and 2 linear actuators. I would imagine the results of a crash would be much like being strapped to the hood of your car during a collision — bonus points for form, however.
As a long time rider, and as most riders would tell you, you don't want to be thrown from the motorcycle. This can throw you into traffic or into a tree at high speeds, or a myriad of horrific deaths (i remember reading an article about a guy who was thrown from a bike while racing doing 100+ mph and hit one of those steel cables that hold power line poles up, as you can imagine the outcome was pretty gruesome).
the ideal way to wreck a bike (oxymoron i know) is to lay it down. This way you have some control over which way the bike slides, you can keep most of your head of the ground, and it does less damage to the bike. That is one flaw I see with this bike's design, there is no effective way to lay it down in the event you need to.
No. The best you can hope for is that when you low side, you slide along on your back armor, while your leathers are soaking up the damage. Afterward, you get up and brush yourself off. With only a helmet, you slide along on your ass until you have no ass left, then it starts in on the bones underneath.
A helmet isn't enough. There are plenty of synthetic, breathable mesh riding outfits that will protect you far better than the jeans and t-shirts that most riders wear.
To clarify parent, the "safest" way to crash is a low-sider, which is sort-of falling behind the motorcycle when you lay it down. A "high-sider" is the opposite, laying it down and being in-front of the motorcycle can get you crushed pretty bad.
It's not all that unbelievable. I recall seeing something on TV recently where an electric motorcycle was raced against an internal combustion motorcycle and it turned out the electric one was quicker. Both bikes were drag race style bikes.
The electric motorcycle was quicker (crossing the finish line first) but not faster (had a lower top speed). I believe it had something to do with the power range of the electric motor in relation to the power range of the IC engine. It also possibly had to do with the electric bike not having to shift gears, but don't quote me on that.
I'm sure some other slashdotter can provide better specifics as to why it happened.
They'd be a Cyclone pilot.
See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iWWuW4U73s @ 1min 40 secs in.
Here is better picture that show's how bike transforms during ride:
http://gizmodo.com/photogallery/deusexmachina/1001615643
!motorcycle
!wearable
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
If we're thinking of the same guy (some politician in the Pacific Northwest IIRC), he was being facetious about requiring seatbelts on motorcycles. His comment was something like, "I'll support ending helmet laws when motorcycles are equipped with seatbelts."
Just to clarify, Art Center is where many of the world's best professional transportation designers get their training. It's not unheard of for a car company to pay for a promising new designer to take off a couple years and study there. These aren't bunch of computer graphics nerds sitting around scribbling cool motorcycles in their notebooks, these are folks with money and advisers from every major auto company on Earth. They use the same engineering software and tools that GM or Ducati would use to develop a new product.
Their designs are no different from any concept car you'd see at an auto show -- sure, it may cost $20 million to make, but they aren't inventing critical materials and demanding that the whole frame is made out of Unobtanium. It may well be made entirely out of stuff that is still impractical for mass production, and that seems to be the case with a lot of these designs, but it all exists. If they say it'll do 0-60 in however many seconds, you can bet that under ideal conditions and with a couple million dollars to actually build it, that the claim is only a bit less accurate (due to more exotic materials) than the specs for any new vehicle design that hasn't yet had the first production run.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Amen. I just cannot ever see myself making a conscious decision to lay my bike down. I'd rather stay upright, on the rubber, on the clutch and on the front brake as much as possible to bleed off speed. In the average urban accident scenario, a rider has two seconds to react. In that time I can go from 35mph to 0 without skidding (and yes I practice regularly).
Today's tyre compounds have way more friction than your fairings, you're in control right up until the point of impact (if any) and twin caliper front brakes are insanely good on modern machines.
You're dead right that as soon as you lay your bike down, all bets are off about stopping distance and control.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
You're right, look at the center of the billboard in this picture. It shows it transforming from upright to laying down forward.