Realistic Fairings

[stanz]

I have a nice old motorcycle that I use for daily commuting. Now I'm thinking I can improve the aero on it and not totally spoil the looks of the bike. Some sort of a cross between a racing bike fairing for the lower end and a Goldwing fairing on top.

The bike hardly ever gets above 40 mph due to my driving patterns.

I looked over the info on the Vetter site and their aero work is WAY beyond where I want to go.

[Otto]

Originally Posted by stanz

I have a nice old motorcycle that I use for daily commuting. Now I'm thinking I can improve the aero on it and not totally spoil the looks of the bike. Some sort of a cross between a racing bike fairing for the lower end and a Goldwing fairing on top.

The bike hardly ever gets above 40 mph due to my driving patterns.

I looked over the info on the Vetter site and their aero work is WAY beyond where I want to go.

Most motorcycle fairings are pretty gross, aerodynamically. Keep in mind that punching a nice clean hole in the air is only half the battle: You still have to have a smooth and tapered transition to fill in the hole punched, i.e., a tail fairing as well as a nose fairing.

You could do worse than a flat-wrap fairing for the forward motorcycle body, sorta like the leading edge D section of a wing, but in the vertical plane. Cap it at both ends with parabolic shapes essentially like rounded wing tips on aircraft. With a gap for the rider, the rear fairing could essentially be shaped like a wing trailing edge from the point of max thickness on back.

This would drop your aero drag by 50-80%.

Fairing the front wheel/fork could be done like BMW K-1, but better shaped. Or, better yet, check out the electric motorcycle fairing as shown on this website awhile back. Maybe that guy would sell copies of just his fairing, to bolt onto your bike.

[winkosmosis]

For under 40mph, why bother?

[stanz]

I dunno, that was part of my question, does aero-modding help that much at slow speeds?

[Sandy]

The Memphis Shades SantaCruz has a nice look,
covers the hands and chest well,
but isn't too large to over power a small commuter bike.

I prefer the angular designs over the big-flat cop style windshields.
The rounded ones may be a bit more aero,
but I think they look to much like a bulb.

I have the SantaCruz for the early/late season rides and the HellCat for the summer.

[FastPlastic]

Originally Posted by stanz

I dunno, that was part of my question, does aero-modding help that much at slow speeds?

From what I've read you start seeing the affects over about 35mph. After doing the aero mods on my Jeep coasting in town is noticeably farther.