Re: A french product design student is looking for an internship

From: Terry Given (my_name_at_ieee.org)
Date: 03/14/05 

Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 16:02:57 +1300

John Larkin wrote:
> On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 11:36:55 -0800, Tim Wescott
> <tim@wescottnospamdesign.com> wrote:
>
>
>>John Larkin wrote:
>>
>>>This looks unstable:
>>>
>>>http://www.isd-valenciennes.com/upload/file34.jpg
>>>
>>>Has anybody actually built one?
>>>
>>
>>I've seen similar things with two rear wheels.
>>
>>If you look carefully you'll see that the front axle is pivoted at it's
>>center, so the thing will ride like a motorcycle until you hit the tilt
>>limit on that pivot -- at that point I imagine that all hell will break
>>loose unless you have a _very_ skilled rider who can compensate for the
>>change in the effective pivot point while keeping the thing going.
>
>
> Yeah, I noticed the same thing; ghastly. There's nothing like a sudden
> nonlinearity to make motorcycling interesting. My first wife had a
> Kawasaki 500 (the featherweight 3-cylinder 2-cycle) that would do 0-60
> in 4 seconds at the top of second gear: whoop/shift/whooooop, 60 mph.
> At about 80 mph, the suspension went unstable and tended to toss
> riders into ditches, and every once in a while the middle cylinder
> would seize up, so you kept your hand on the clutch lever at all
> times. I had to tear it down and hone it out twice before she totalled
> it and lost her spleen. Good riddance [1].
>
> John
>
>
> [1] ambiguity intentional.
>

That was one of the reasons they earned the monicker "Kamikaze". There
was also the 900CC bike that used to suffer from chronic frame flexure
when cornering at speed (alas cant recall model), often enough to force
a high-side.

A buddy of mine at Uni had a Suzuki RG500(R?) 2-stroke crotch rocket.
One day whgile tootling along at about 180kph it threw a piston (luckily
not the one pointed at his nuts) and locked the back wheel up. He hung
on for about 300m (fishtailing like a son-of-a-bitch) before coming to a
stop, and ground a huge hole in the rear tyre. Most impressive, and the
skid mark was pretty cool too.

Give me my 2003 VTR1000F with noisy pipes any day.

Cheers
Terry

Relevant Pages

  • Re: A french product design student is looking for an internship
    ... >>I've seen similar things with two rear wheels. ... >>If you look carefully you'll see that the front axle is pivoted at it's ... so the thing will ride like a motorcycle until you hit the tilt ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: A french product design student is looking for an internship
    ... >I've seen similar things with two rear wheels. ... >If you look carefully you'll see that the front axle is pivoted at it's ... so the thing will ride like a motorcycle until you hit the tilt ... in 4 seconds at the top of second gear: whoop/shift/whooooop, 60 mph. ...
    (sci.electronics.design)