50cc recordbikes
 

You may not have seen all these before!

recordbikes

year: 1956, a 13.5 hp engine drives this vehicle to 120mph
http://www.elsberg-tuning.dk/images/56nsubonneville.jpg

Let's say (complete swag) that it is using 1 GPH @ 120mph, that would translate into 120 MPG. Wouldn't it be cool if the beurocrats decided "what the hey, if you are getting 120mpg (without cheating using other energy sources), we don't care what you drive or how fast you drive it"?

And then somebody crashes his salt flats motorcycle at 120mph into some lady's pickup truck full of kids going her speed limit of 30mph.

don't you think it would be idiotic to allow it in a 30mph zone? c'mon I'm talking about the hiway, autobahn style, when traffic allows, duh.

It used to be that 50cc was a moped as long as it had pedals, but then things changed because people were building 50cc motorcycles that could do 70-90mph... production motorcycles, not these streamlined things.
either way, it seems like driving something like that down the road would be hard, so cramped.

120mpg @ 120mph is it's own reward :)
(and the recumbent seating might be comfy)

If you had an MPG limit instead of a speed limit on the highway, the personal-use pickups and body-on-frame SUVs would be going about 30mph, if they're lucky.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=818CCsQRObM

50cc aprilia engine.... 150mph top speed

Yeh, its got nitrous.

What I'm trying to say is that more people might focus on FE, if they could cut also cut down on their drive time. I never said change the limits for existing vehicles, just up the speed limit if you drive something that gets over 120mpg (and of course where it wouldn't be stupid to do so).

That vid is pretty cool Bry, I kept waiting for him to run out of gears, 0 to 150mph in 4 minutes :)

I'm not going to sleep tonight after viewing all those race 50's.

I'm getting around 100mpg @50mph on my latest 50cc, its tall geared so pickup is ordinary.

That photo above of the NSU from 56', its actually quite a large spacious body with decent height. If little panels near the bottom opened so you could put your legs out. Hell, it would work okay on the roads.

The aero 50. Easy 80mph and 140mpg. Pick it up and stack it vertically in the carpark when you get to work. Or alongside the car in the garage. Like a motorbike sneaking down the side of crawling traffic.

I owned a Honda 50 Cub that got 140+ mpg. Those were the days...

I loved the overview of Frank on the 50 cc record bikes. Some of those riders are still active today in classic racing in The Netherlands and surroundings. Like De Vries,Toersen Van Dongen and occasionally also Van Kessel. Riding and racing with 50 cc bikes is still done a lot in Holland

Here's one of my favourite clips from that era

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4PA8VFpUlc

49cc with 3 spd and reverse -Can go up to 56MPH
 

I bought and have a 49cc trike that has a real reverse not the reverse starter type, like those used in Harleys. And believe it or not it can wheely. You will notice a wheely bar on the back of it.

It claims to be able to go up to 56 MPH but the fastest that I have ever had it was a little above 40 mph but I let off of the throttle due to it becoming too radical because of the short width of the rear wheels (about 3 feet wide). I am fairly certain that it could probably do 56mph - but not with me driving it.

This trike doesn't have a clutch just brakes and gas. Really powerful for a 49cc.

Here is the pic of the trike with reverse and 3 speed - the red trike is also from Korea but I sold it about 5 years ago. It was an automatic tranny w/o reverse and a top speed of only 32 mph but only because of the governor on it.

Attachment 9332

Attachment 9333

Attachment 9334

Attachment 9335

Attachment 9338

Had to pick them up in LA right off the boat. The rear fenders and back trunk are off the blue/silver one because I wanted to use it as my mini tractor.

I bought these trikes from Korea about 8 or so years ago and the brand name on it is MBA ??? Looks like a Honda motor but Honda's name isn't on it. It is chain drive.

It also has all the bells and whistles to make it legal to drive on the streets in Calif.

Sorry if I screwed up these attachments but there is a first time for everything. ; >)

Something more .

Shell Eco-marathon - Global

Shame nobody sells streamliners.

They do ,stick a 50 cc KTM in this an see how you go .

| undercover cycling

Actually it'd 147 mph .

'' The wind was calm and we hurried to make the return or record run. Starting from this
end of the course we got 3/4 of a mile more run up to the measured mile. At the outher end we
started from the 3/4 mile mark because of wet salt. That 3/4 of a mile makes a difference.
Return run 147.0 MPH, with a top speed of 150 exiting the mile. The average of the two runs
was good for 5 MPH over the worlds record.''
bub08

There are more impressive things with that bike... in 1956 they set 38 different records, five of which still stand today, 55 years later! The records varied with engine sizes, the 500cc record that still stands is at 211mph.
BNI Certified LSR Records

Your estimate of 1GPH probably isn't too far off, probably closer to 1.5GPH and 80mpg.
Peak power is 13.5hp.
= 34,357.5 BTU/hr (1hp = 2545 BTU/hr)

Most engines are roughly 20% efficient at converting gas to forward motion, so divide by .2
=171,787.5 BTU/hr

Gas has 114,000 BTU/gal which puts us at 1.5GPH.

The big question is what did his engine run on... it ran in a "Fuel" class which means it ran on something other than gasoline (methanol, nitromethane, gasoline with N2O, etc)

With the right engine and body combination 500 mpg hiway is a realistic goal.