rohorn

It rolls...

2012-01-22T19:43:00.000-08:00

Just got it on wheels and rolled it out for the first time. Looks like I'll have to spend some more time on the bicycle and lighten the chassis a little! Time spent in the shop rather than the bicycle has had some negative side effects. That, some bodywork, wiring, paint, and prep should have us ready for the track this year.

Finishing this year - starting next year.

2011-09-26T16:24:00.000-07:00

Right now, the racer is ready to roll, but not under its own power. The bodywork and some details like paint and wiring (not much wiring on a racer!) are all that is left. If all goes well, we can be found racing in Colorado in 2012.

A few years & a few thoughts later...

2010-10-22T20:34:00.000-07:00

There are good reasons why there haven't been any real updates for a long time now. The main reason is that the racer is not done - yet - but there has been steady progress, even if it has been at a glacial rate. The other reason is that the likelyhood of any project's completion is inversely proportional to how much time is wasted blogging about it.

The project started as 3 big design steps forward early 2008. Actually finishing it meant that 2 steps have been taken back. It was completely redesigned late 2008. The second step forward (A radical rear suspension) will be fabricated and installed after the racer is done, tested, and well used. The third design step will wait for the next project.

Even if the machine is capable of amazing lap times, well, I still need to learn a LOT about generating amazing lap times. Living in an area with a fantastic roadracing club (MRA) and an amazing new track an hour away (High Plains Raceway) is a real blessing.

So just how great can an EX500 powered racer with a heavy steel frame and stock wheels really be? Well, as much as it excites me, there won't be any "The Making Of..." video nonsense. But it will provide loads of valuable information and experience that will be applied to a radical electric racer for very little money.

The designs I'm working on/dreaming about will work vastly better as electric racers. I think that outright lap records will be held on electric motorcycles well before 2020. Then electric racing will become the norm - everything else will be considered too slow, expensive, primitive, noisy, stinky, and unreliable.

I don't think that electric racers will ever be as light as internal combustion racers. They don't need to be. An F-16 weighs a lot more than earlier fighters, yet it outmaneuvers them thanks to a combination of the aerodynamics, airframe layout, a flight control system that makes it possible, and, yes, lots of power. The same can be done with motorcycles. Considering the electronics and hardware available today, stability and control of single track vehicles should not be dependent on the coupling of inertia and friction. Nor should traction (and the cornering, braking, and acceleration that depends on it) be compromised by tire sizes, construction, and profiles which are designed primarily to allow said coupling to function and provide traction if possible. And steering response shouldn't depend on muscles when brains can do so much more. Muscles will always have their place - in bicycling. The F-16 was designed well into the previous century. I would love to see motorcycle design start moving into the present century.

Oh yes - the racer project is, as the homebuilt aircraft people like to say, "90% done, 90% left to do"...

Going from 2D to 3D

2009-05-17T23:33:00.000-07:00

Suspensions work best on a frame rather than on top of my toolbox, which means that making the frame is the next step. So one weekend was spent collecting dimensions, placing everything where it needs to go, finding out what interferes with what, then connecting the dots in full scale on coroplast. Now I'm connecting the dots with steel and a welder.

Toads, birds, and nutty individuals

2008-08-17T12:27:00.000-07:00

From Cycle, May 1984 - Chassis & Suspension, Part 4 - Kevin Cameron:

This new form will have to be a complete concept - not just a mass of little impovements. It is hard to prove the advantages of wings by attaching them to a toad; they really do work best on a bird. To leap from the toad to the bird is generally too radical a step for conservative business corporations. They have invested too much money in producing better toads.

The novel concepts, therefore, come from nutty individuals, many of whom seem to like change for its own sake. Because of this they can make mistakes that make even their good ideas appear laughable; consequently, these ideas must wait until traditional thinking is completely bankrupt. Then they are widely adopted and labeled “progress.”

The Very Advanced Racer Project

2008-08-04T16:06:00.000-07:00

Over the last year, I've been buying, measuring, and otherwise staring at a growing pile of components, tooling, and materials required to make a motorcycle. I'm past the bulk of the "Enter your credit card number" phase. Now it is in the "Turn lots of little parts into one big part" phase. What it is going to be:

A track bike. And if it performs as well as I expect and the organizers don't object, a racer. There are NO plans for operating it on the street or for making a street version.

Powered by an EX500 engine. It is a fairly compact, reliable, common, and cheap twin. It also had to be eligible for a "builder & budget friendly" racing class, which pretty much means twins or singles. A Supermono was considered first, but the good engines cost more and produce less power than the light twins.

A proof of concept bike using many of the ideas seen below. My mental test rider loves it. The theory promises large performance gains. The low power experimental bikes performed very well. But stopwatches at the track with a real motorcycle will tell me if it really works. And after that happens, the opportunities for racing and further development with even higher performance engines will present themselves.

Very cheap. The budget for this entire project is less than a set of high end racing forks. If it weren't for the miracle of loose credit back in mid-2007, this project would still be in the hot air phase. There are no sponsors for this project - yet.

Done entirely by: Me. That includes the design, machining, welding, and composite work. Nobody else's fingerprints are on it.

The 2WS/2WD experimental recumbent

2006-11-22T23:33:00.000-08:00

One of the most influential articles I ever read was written by Kevin Cameron and published in the Jan '87 issue of Cycle magazine. He theorized that a 2 wheel steering bike could enter and exit corners harder. I spent several years designing a 2 wheel steering "kneeler" type bike - until I saw a Ryan recumbent bike sitting in a bicycle shop in 1998. That struck me as the perfect configuration for a 2 wheel steering racer. But rather than spend a lot of money building a high powered one with no prior art available to depend on, I built a lightweight electric one to test 2 wheel steering stability and control. It has 3 12v batteries, 2 800w Heinzmann hubs, and a Curtis 1204-001 speed controller. It was finished in early 2002. The steering has a 2 axis control - moving the stick left steers the front wheel right - which causes the bike to roll to the left - just like an airplane. The rear steering is proportional to the front - with the stick forwards, the rear steering angle was 50% of the front in the same direction - and with the stick aft, the rear steering angle was 50% of the front in the opposite direction. The proportion was completely variable with no rear steering at all when the stick is centered. The speed control and brake lever is also on the control stick. The second to last picture was taken at a recumbent bicycle rally in Arvada, CO, back in 2004. The bike is currently hanging from my living room ceiling after several hundred miles of successful testing.

The H-D powered sportbike project

2006-11-22T20:40:00.000-08:00

This one was designed in 1987, initiated construction in 1988, and finished in early 1991. It was powered by a 1988 H-D Sportster engine. The wheels, frame, bodywork, etc. were fabricated at home. The front brake has an "inside out" rotor on the left side of the rim. The front end steered on an upper ball joint and 2 virtual pivot arms aft of the hub with an 18 degree steering angle and 4 inches of trail. The bike weighed 365 lbs. It was dead stable at any speed and could be ridden no-handed from 100+ mph down to 10~mph with no wobbles at all. The bike was featured in the Oct '91 Motorcyclist, Jan '92 Hot Bike, and Summer '97 Battle2win magazine. About 4200 miles were on it when it was sold in '93 to build the Big Twin powered follow-up bike - which never got finished and the parts were sold.