During a vacation with my wife in California I visited the Vetter family.
We did get a warm welcome and joined a number of days together. Ofcourse testing the streamliner was part of the program. Since I worked on my Burgman scooter and made gears for the Vetter Helix scooter a test ride was one of my interests. Getting started by sitting on the bike you notice how much space is available for the rider. No problem with long legs. The handlebar is wider than my Suzuki handlebar giving a good feeling during riding. Riding is with good comfort and little wind forces act on the rider.
The gearing of 17 on 35 teeth in the primairy reduction was installed.(std gearing is 14 on 37 teeth)
Acceleration was still more than sufficient. During max. throttle acceleration the engine made 5500 rpm.
From about 55 mph the acceleration feels like as if the bike is much more than 250 cc. This is absolutely caused by the good streamlining. Low amount of power is needed at 55 mph for the air resistance so more is left over for the acceleration. I have that feeling also on the Burgman scooter but not so outspoken as on the Helix. My explanation is that probably the streamline on the Helix is better than on the Burgman. Both front and tail of the Burgman can be improved.
A short test of the topspeed of the Helix showed an 81 MPH .
Some things I noticed during riding is that the small frontwheel diameter gives in more fast curves some uncertain feeling and the front suspension has limited stroke. This is probably by many scooters the case , certainly the Burgman has the same inperfection.
I am glad that I was giving the possibility to ride the Helix. To me it is very obvious that to perform well on FE in the contest you need to have two things.
A form of streamlining, this is particulary needed when headwind is being present.
A correct gearing to slow the engine down to reduce the fuel consumption.
I hope that a lot of Ecomodder enthousiasts join the Vetter contest, I will be following that closely.
By the way this is the decal that Craig Vetter designed for me to be used on vehicules with custom gears.
