Quote:
Originally Posted by Spaghetti Man
Hello, I have been thinking about what is the most fuel efficient wheel that has the most economical tires. The wheel will be for sub 200kg (including rider) streamlined recumbent motorcycle
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Are you building the frame from scratch or starting with an existing motorcycle? Because you will want to make sure the front end has the correct amount of trail and going with a smaller wheel in the same fork reduces it.
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Smaller wheels do package better for a near recumbent/ foot forward design but have less gyro effect for stability.
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Wheel/ tire weight only hurts fuel efficiency when you use the brakes.
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Using a car tire on the rear of a motorcycle works very well for normal daily riding as proven by thousands of "dark siders" so the smallest of the new eco car tires would be by far the best for the rear. Not sure if any of these guys run a car tire on the front. But my original IRC front tire on my CBR250R is still on at 29,000 miles/ 47,000 km. My rear IRC's last about 24,000 km. The new Michelin Pilot Street tires offer even better life and efficiency.
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The easiest project would be to stick with the CBR125R and streamline it at which point you could realistically expect 170 mpgUS, 1.4 L/100km at 100 km/h.