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New Motorcycle World Speed Record, 367.382 mph
An anonymous reader, apparently a member of the BUB racing team, wrote to let us know that on Thursday, their crew set the new ultimate motorcycle world speed record at 367.382 mph with the BUB Seven Streamliner at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. The Seven is powered by a 3 Liter, turbocharged, 16-valve V4 engine that produces a claimed 500 hp and 400 lb-ft of torque at 8500 rpm. The pilot, Chris Carr, hit 380 mph during the run.
367.38200 mph = 591.244017 km/h
Maybe car and driver would be a better place.
At that speed, I'd agree that pilot is the correct term.
I am sorry,
that is not a motorcycle
I don't even have a license. Anecdotally, it seems that techies drive less than other people, unless of course they live in someplace like silicon valley. But I'd bet there's less interest in cars and motorcycles among computer geeks than, say, mechanical engineers. Anyone what to chime in with their preferences/opinions?
car enthusiasts aka car nerds
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
What they don't mention in the article is that they strapped the driver dow nto the motorcycle and dropped them both from a really tall building...
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Have you ever seen an issue of Car & Driver? This is not the type of content they would carry. They mostly cover consumer production vehicles, and occasionally show some pictures of concept vehicles when they cover auto shows.
Slashdot is a natural place for this type of story, which are also often covered by WIRED and National Geographic.
Reminds me of a guy who died last year at this time on the Bonneville Salt Flats attempting the same thing. Can you imagine flying off a motorcycle at 239 MPH? Insanity.
What the article doesn't tell you is that the motorbike was running Linux and the driver was thinking about the best car analogy while he was driving.
signature is pants
I need a car analogy before I can understand this.
As a biker with a long graying beard, lemme point out that whatever that thing on the picture is, it damn sure ain't a motorcycle.
My wife says it's boring because it wasn't done by three guys in Hamtramck who bolted a V8 onto a Harley and made a fairing out of oil drums.
I find it interesting because it is about engineering. "IndyCars", on the other hand, are boring. All the cars are identical so it's just about the drivers. Who cares about the drivers?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Kudos to the driver and the team, but that thing is a motorcycle in spirit only.
Can the definition of a motorcycle include an enclosed cockpit?
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Us mechanical engineers aren't allowed to read Slashdot now?
If the /record/ speed is 367.382mph, but during the run the driver reached 380mph, I could imagine he must have been very uncomfortable smashed against the windshield of his "motorcycle".
'Every story, if continued long enough, ends in death.' --Ernest Hemingway
This all boils down to how you define geek.
I'm an automotive mechanic. My friends and family would also consider me to be a big geek. I fix their computers (yes yes, cars too), I build my own (computers, I haven't built a car from scratch... yet!). I love gadgets and hacking stuff together, and I have an abnormal interest in technology related politics (my girlfriend calls me paranoid). So to the general public, i'm a geek.
Among the Slashdot crowd, I don't have quite the same geek credentials. I don't use any flavour of Linux (besides the occasional liveCD like Backtrack) because my PC is a gaming rig first and foremost. I'm not a sys admin or a programmer. The last thing I "programmed" was fifteen years ago and written in BASIC. I don't run a website, and the extent of my HTML knowledge is frames and tables. I hate math and I don't get off on exciting new prime numbers or subatomic particles. Oh, and i've only played D&D like, twice. It was fun but time consuming. Am I still a geek?
My personal opinion is that geek has moved far beyond the 1980's definition of pocket protectors, glasses, and a calculator. Geeks come in all flavours now, from classical computing and math geeks all the way into sports and automotive geeks. The microprocessor really has changed the way we see the modern world, in virtually every way. A geek is now anyone who shares both a passion for a subject and the thirst for related knowledge, no matter what that subject may be.
The geek shall inherit the Earth. :)
The story reminded me the Jato Rocket Car urban legend. The speed reached there is even lower than the one that got that motorcycle.
Does it mean that airplanes are just winged tricyles?
Many of us have friends who are interested in motorsports and the tricking-out of vehicles, and shop-talk is necessary to communicate with them.
Pardon the stereotype, but getting in tough with one's inner neanderthal is required when you're out in the desert driving metal boxes at unsafe velocities and sending search parties to other camps for loud slaps on the back before grilling fat steaks and singing war songs. Gasoline smells GOOOOOOOD.
Most importantly - know, befriend, or become an auto mechanic. They're interesting company and they'll work for parts and a 12-pack.
But can it do the Kessell run in 5 parsecs? That's what I thought.
IMO the first linked article was not very interesting. To get to the interesting stuff, you have to go to the second linked article, then click through to the links from there. The pictures of how they fabricated the engine block are really cool. I was surprised there wasn't more info about the tires. My understanding was that tires were the main limiting factor in land speed records -- or maybe that's only for cars. Tires tend to fly apart when rotated that fast. I would assume that at these speeds they get incredible gyroscopic stability, so I guess you don't have to worry about tipping over. They have to run the course in both directions without messing with the engine, which apparently is quite a challenge. I wasn't clear on what's involved in turning around to come back. The bike has both brakes and parachutes. Does the driver actually brake and do a steered u-turn at low speed, or do they use parachutes, then pick the thing back up and turn it around by hand?
Find free books.
When doing a LSR run at Bonneville you have something like a half hour between runs. They let you refuel and check the vehicle over between runs for safety reasons. If you have a problem and can't make it back to the starting line on time you're toast. You one-way run doesn't count for anything.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
They'll probably turn it by hand, most land speed vehicles have a tiny, tiny amount of steering angle to keep a sudden twitch on the driver's part from turning into a two mile long barrel roll.
What the article doesn't tell you is that the motorbike was running Linux and the driver was thinking about the best car analogy while he was driving.
Does anyone know what the land speed record is for a motorcycle running Vista. I'm sure it can't match the XP record.
I am a computer geek at work. After hours I like to wrench on my WRX, or my bike, or the classic boat I had for a few years... Something different from the job. Yet I still find all the information for my vehicular diversions on the internet... Curses, foiled again!
Well, spec series are about the driver's skill, which is pretty much what sports are about - the skill of the players.
However, it's much more fun to go out, get a cheap Miata, or if FWD is more your thing, a cheap Civic or Golf or something, and autocross it, than to sit around watching a spec series, IMO. Then, it's about honing your own skill, not watching others. (But, you can learn techniques from watching how they handle situations, so watching them can still be educational.)
Of course, the American Le Mans Series is ridiculously fun as a spectator series. Multiple classes of cars of varying power outputs, weights, visibility, handling, and (often) driver experience all out on the track at once, and the drivers and cars are surprisingly accessible. Oh, and it's about as far from a spec series as it gets - you can easily have a big heavy (ok, 900 kg/1980 lb, but still) V12 diesel car and a light (825 kg/1820 lb) 4-cylinder turbocharged gas car fighting for the lead of the entire race, the whole way, meanwhile weaving their way through traffic caused by big slow production-based cars.
I don't even have a license. Anecdotally, it seems that techies drive less than other people, unless of course they live in someplace like silicon valley. But I'd bet there's less interest in cars and motorcycles among computer geeks than, say, mechanical engineers. Anyone what to chime in with their preferences/opinions?
Odd. In my (similarly anecdotal) experience, there seems to be a disproportionate intersection of Computer Geeks and Motorcyclists (the latter set the union of Riders and Enthusiasts).
My personal opinion is that geek has moved far beyond the 1980's definition of pocket protectors, glasses, and a calculator. Geeks come in all flavours now, from classical computing and math geeks all the way into sports and automotive geeks.
My personal opinion is that geek still means carnival folk who bite the heads off chickens. "Nerd" or "boffin" are my preferred terms for people who are excited or obsessive about technical things. "Geek" has too many connotations of falsity, they remind me of the web-bubble MBA types who wouldn't like being called nerds, and think that "geek" has cooler connotations. But there's nothing cool about biting the heads off chickens.
... and then they built the supercollider.
The engineers behind this are trying to develop an ACTUAL rice rocket.
Step 1 - Build a rocket and attach it to two in-line wheels, COMPLETE!
Step 2 - Make it out of rice
One day, I will drive the Paris/Dakkar!
The CB App. What's your 20?
Mechanical engineering is obsolete. It's all done in software now.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I find it interesting because it is about engineering. "IndyCars", on the other hand, are boring. All the cars are identical so it's just about the drivers. Who cares about the drivers?
I held that opinion for quite a while, but later came to amend it. I find it even more boring when it's like the Formula One races were for several years, with Nissan coming in 1st and 2nd every time because they came up with a particularly effective turbocharger. All about engineering, but not very interesting engineering. Really, car racing is boring as fuck to watch. Probably interesting to do, but it holds no particular value to intelligent spectators.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
> Well, spec series are about the driver's skill, which is pretty much what
> sports are about - the skill of the players.
And players of any sport, unless they are personal friends, are boring.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
It's an air speed record. 9.8 meters per second squared.
> I held that opinion for quite a while, but later came to amend it. I find it
> even more boring when it's like the Formula One races were for several years,
> with Nissan coming in 1st and 2nd every time because they came up with a
> particularly effective turbocharger.
That isn't even about drivers. It's about money. Useful stuff, but who wants to watch it?
Of course, now that they have taken to deliberately crashing cars maybe it will become interesting again, in a morbid, hockey-like way.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
My personal opinion is that geek has moved far beyond the 1980's definition of pocket protectors, glasses, and a calculator. Geeks come in all flavours now, from classical computing and math geeks all the way into sports and automotive geeks.
Damn straight! I'm a former glasses-wearing high school computer nerd who has variously been a programmer, electrician, locksmith, auto mechanic, communications systems technician, process control engineer, and US Army Human Intelligence Collector/Infantryman over the last 20-odd years. I think "nerd/geek" is a much bigger tent than people realize.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
How bloody spooky. I was just re-watching "The World's Fastest Indian" and then I see this on Slashdot. Good movie.
---
Motor Bike Feed @ Feed Distiller
Hmm. Even odder. In my experience there seems to be a disproportionate intersection of the homosexual bondage world and users of slackware, who seem to have their manhood wrapped up in their operating system.
Nah, autocross is boring. You wait a whole bunch of time to do one lap around a 50 second course in a mall parking lot dotted with cones.
Go to a track day, on a real road track, and get so much driving time that you'll be sick of it by the late afternoon.
You could also buy a shifter cart and drive all day for much cheaper and probably have an even bigger blast.
But friends don't let friends autocross.
This kind of speed on a motorcycle involves deep understanding of motorcycles as well as high speed behaviors. There are lots of ways in which anyone can get high powered engines sufficient for that kind of speed. But making it all come together into a machine that doesn't fall apart or become impossible to control requires serious mechanical and design talent.
In the 1950 era any street bike that reached 100 mph put its rider at great risk. I can recall bikes at 105 mph that felt like sitting on a razor blade in a hurricane. It was just grit your teeth and hope to stay alive. Now street bikes can often hit 200 mph with some elements of safety.
Listen, penis breath, pull your cock out of that little boy long enough to get with the program.
As someone who ran non-shifter go-karts back in the early 2000's: Have you looked at kart prices recently? It *IS* cheaper to get a miata or something and run autocross or at a track :D Seriously unless you're buying used, and get a chassis/engine/accessories cheap, it's going to cost you just as much in startup fees for a kart as for a miata to run spec.
Go karts are many things (including somewhat more maintenence friendly, since you can do them with 2 people and a stand, rather than a jack and some luck.) But they are certainly *NOT* cheap.
Us mechanical engineers aren't allowed to read Slashdot now?
It's "We mechanical engineers..." If you drop "mechanical engineers," the sentence should still be correct.
Funniest post I've read all month.
But does it... run... linux... *head explodes*
Ha. Care to back that up with anything?
Mechanicals have to know how to use software, but it sure hasn't replaced us.
I like how Bryan Harley referred to the rider as the "pilot".
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
And there is really no shame in rocket cars
hi Keith!
In my humble experience, (~125 MPH over Altamont Pass towards Livermore), when the winds are kicking up, the best policy is to go WOT. The gyroscopic effect of the wheels is increased, and the ride is much less scary than at 55.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Think of it as "Star Wars/Pod Racer" IRL.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
"Really, car racing is boring as fuck to watch."
That has always been my attitude with sports in general. The only time I ever got excited over sports was in high school, then (much) later when my sons played sports. I've only RARELY watched an entire Super Bowl, NEVER watched an entire World Series, and nothing else even comes close. Wait - to be fair, I have a passing interest in track and field, and I've watched Olympic events pretty attentively. My career as a spectator pretty much ends there. I'd rather read a book, or argue with dummies about politics or something.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Does it get more MPG than the Aptera? Can it run on wind power? Electric? Can it run macos? Can it reduce traffic? Pollution? Well, I guess combustion-engine-generated raw power is waaay obsolete. Perhaps for aircraft or boats. If it were a wige small craft it would be nice.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
This has little to do with understanding motorcycles. It's about balancing a huge speed machine on two wheels; I doubt it bears any but the most superficial resemblance to regular motorcycles. When you make such a stretch to call it a motorcycle you might as well just abandon the wheels altogether and have a rocket powered sled. Or just fly around on a rocket dragging a long cable behind you so you can technically call it a land speed record.
Yeah, that's like "popularity nerd" or "football nerd" or "cheerleader nerd". Now, I have no qualms letting the guys who engineered this thing be considered nerds, but your average Bud-guzzling-jacked-up-F250-driving-NASCAR fan is not a nerd, and I feel offended that such a person who never likely felt the negative social impact of nerdiness would latch on to the term.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
That's a two wheeled monstrocity rocket like thing - not what I define as a motorcycle.
IMO, what you're describing isn't a geek. It's a man - you know, in the traditional sense. Fifty, 60 years ago, it was commonplace for men to fix their own things, and to make new things. It was also expected. Back before that, a man who did not was known as being useless - because there was precious little "general handyman" workers back then, as there are now. It's only been recently that people have gotten away from fixing things themselves.
I think a "geek" is typically seen as not someone who's in the know where others aren't; s/he is the person who is seen as "smarter" than everyone else in one or more domains: not only a competent tradesman but also a statesman of ideas, and someone who can figure things out due to their natural curiosity. A Renaissance Man, if you will. Pocket protectors or no, they often suffer similar social stigmas, though obviously there is going to be a varying degree of social competence. Due to social stratification in the past 30 years, there are certain segments of society which more readily accept (and embrace) the "geek", but there are still a lot of people out there who despise them.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
IMHO that happens to be on of the few /. memes that IS actually funny.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Degenerate pig!
How durst you insult kdawson, a pillar of this vibrant online community, whose boots you are not fit to lick!
You should be dragged outside and beaten with whiffle bats!
There is no such thing as software engineering, unless we're talking about flight control software. Everything else is just dorking around with broken code.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
http://www.racegoodyear.com/tires/dragspecial.html
Click on the "Eagle Land Speed" tab, then download the Tire Guide, drag_front_runner.pdf
The bottom half of the data sheet lists the LSR tires (top is front tires for drag cars). Note that the LSR tires are rated to 300 mph. I was involved in qualifying one of these tires (23" diameter) for the JCBDieselMax LSR car up to 350 mph, the tires were tested in a US Air Force lab where there is a high speed test machine.
Eventually the information that we learned was shared with the BUB team, although I think the BUB streamliner uses the 21" tire on the front and the 25" tire on the rear.
...they ever get the pilot crammed down inside that tiny cockpit when his balls are so frakin' huge.
I'm a computer geek. Do it in school, do it for a living.
I've been into cars ever since I saw a picture of a Ferrari F40 when I was 7.
Just FYI, Nissan never was in F1.
A drag coefficient of 0.08 is amazingly awesome. For example, it's equal third place in the wikipedia concept car drag coefficient list (first is 0.07). And the frontal area is next to nothing, so the CD*A figure is going to be excellent too. Put a 100cc engine in it with appropriately tall gearing and it would most likely get better than 0.5 litres per 100km. Consider that the PAC-II has a Cd of 0.075 and gets 0.017l/100km equivalent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_drag_coefficient
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
And players of any sport, unless they are personal friends, are boring.
Clearly you aren't acquainted with any sport that involves girls dressed in very little clothing then.
I'm IEEE certified, you insensitive clod!
I'm a geek and I like to work on my Ferrari. Afterward, my tight ass girlfriend likes to slob my knob. Shit was so cash.
it's twenty feet long and fully enclosed. calling it a motorcycle because it has two wheels it really stretching the definition of the term.
Try taking that mofo round the streets of Bath or Bristol.
Todd: I hope it proves as delicious as the farmers that grew them
I think it's more than just a stretch to categorize that vehicle as a motorbike. For one think, bikes are nimble and corner easily and accurately. That thing, if it turns corners at all, is probably like a paralytic elephant.
The engine they used is, however, extremely interesting. Extra kudos' for being custom built!
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
What it also doesn't tell you is that the driver is alive because the team manager had the strength to say no to a free Vista license. His reason for rejecting it though is that they wanted the bike to go fast...
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
Scary, your head a splode.
Isn't that acceleration?
signature is pants
At that speed he could finish something like the 2005 Paris-Dakar race in just under 15 hours and 10 minutes - unless, of course, he had a nature call underway ...
You're not autocrossing with the right club, I can get 10-12 runs in one day with the club I run with.
Also, I used autocross specifically because you can go out with your daily driver, have fun, and then go home without much wear and tear on your car.
Track days, you pretty much have to be prepared to buy a replacement car, and even if you don't, buy new brakes and tires.
Karting could be cheap and fun if you rent a kart for a day, though.
The way they cast the engine block surprised me.
Using a tradition pattern to make a sand mold is fraught with problems. The main problem is sand being washed into the molten metal as it is poured into the runners. Any defects in an engine block, which is put through a lot of stress, and you could be looking at explosive results.
Rover - remember them? - were the first to use a type injection molding for engine blocks on their infamous K6. Metal is injected at the bottom of the casting to improve flow, cooling, and of course remove the sand washing problem. I believe all blocks are made this way now.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
If that's supposed to be a motorcycle then my ass is a harmonica.
> Care to back that up with anything?
How about humor tags?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Wouldn't it be easier to just remove the Z and R buttons?
A 3 liter engine making 500HP is not under a terrible amount of stress. My streetbike makes 200HP at the rear wheel and diplaces 1.4 liters. This thing is only making 16% more power per liter than mine and I run on pump gas and have put 20 thousand trouble-free miles it.
If I were on the team for the motorcycle, I would have recommended a turbo Hayabusa motor. You can easily get 500 or 600 horsepower without any risk of engine problems and fit it in a much smaller footprint than their custom engine.
> I think it's more than just a stretch to categorize that vehicle as a motorbike.
> For one think, bikes are nimble and corner easily and accurately.
> That thing, if it turns corners at all, is probably like a paralytic elephant.
Those very same comments could make about those idiotically over-raked choppers. Nobody questions that THOSE are motorcycles.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
How many software engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
None; that's a hardware problem.
How many hardware engineers?
None; we'll leave the burned-out bulb in place, and work around it in software.
For example 'don by computer'. And no detectable way to inform
them of their (few) typos.
Yes, it's also implying that the computer it was own was thrown out a window.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
A properly designed sand casting is defect free with proper quality control. Most of the sand that is washed ends up in the gates and sprue. Most of the surfaces (somewhat rough in a sand casting) are going to be shot peened and machined smooth anyway...
A foundry that produces sand inclusions in their castings without any quality control will not stay in business very long at all.
...
If I were on the team for the motorcycle, I would have recommended a turbo Hayabusa motor. You can easily get 500 or 600 horsepower without any risk of engine problems and fit it in a much smaller footprint than their custom engine.
From what I know, the BUB team wanted the record to be "all theirs". If they used a modified Suzuki engine as you suggest, then the record would have been labeled "Suzuki-powered".
The difference between geek and nerds as it applies to the internet.
Just like the word hacker has changed from its original meaning, the argument of geek vs. nerd has changed as well. Dork is still the same though. :P
But there's nothing cool about biting the heads off chickens.
What!? How can you say that? Do you not understand what "biting the heads off chickens" entails?
...
We bite the heads off chickens! It's pure awesome!
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
But why break pattern? An inline four would be smaller and machanically simpler than a V-4. Also, if you need a small engine and your class has essentially no rules, then not running a turbo sounds like a bone-headed move to me. The turbo Hayabusa was offered as an example of how it could be done for $25,000 by any idiot off the street. But if you want to fab it yourself, 1.5 liters and a 16-valve, short stroke, turbo inline four is still the tried and true way to get 500HP in a small package.
Just tell us how it does on the Kessel run and be done with it!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
And what exactly does the software run on or interface to? Thin air?
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
or argue with dummies about politics or something.
That can be quite fun, really get them heated up when you show them the error of their ways.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
A geek is now a "Renaissance Man?" Oh wow, talk about hijacking a term.... Wikipedia is more accurate than that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geek