Oregon commuter
 

Hi everyone. I’ve been a long time reader of the Ecomodder forums, but I just became a member and this is my first post. I’m starting a project which I think would interest the members of this forum.

I am a young electrician working on an electrical engineering degree. In about 2 years I’m going to be driving 80 miles round trip to a different university. My truck does not get good enough mileage for this long drive. My motorcycle is not much fun to drive in the dark, cold, and wet Oregon winters. My solution is to build a single seat, 250cc version of a Monotracer. I intend to have a heater, radio, comfortable seat, and storage area.

http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...39807196_n.jpg

The Goal of the project is to build a vehicle that will achieve 100mpg, be under the gross vehicle weight of the donor bike with rider, and cost under $2000 to build.

http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...99174021_n.jpg

I’m using a low millage 250cc Kawasaki Ninja for a donor. It had heavy body damage and needs some mechanical work, but has low mileage and only cost 500 dollars. The frame will be made from square steel tubing, and will be covered with aluminum sheet metal.

http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...81429974_n.jpg

I would really like any input from you guys on my ideas, designs, and technical challenges. I intend on documenting my progress as regularly as I can.

Good luck with the project !

Just in case you haven't seen this -

Lit Motors' C-1 electric motorcycle will stand up for itself

Food for though...


Jay

Electictracer, you seem to be chasing the holy grail of motorcycle mpg geeks. Actually it's not that far off to being accomplished. You are probably overthinking it a little with the full enclosure, not that that is bad, but simpler is better and probably cheaper.

Several people are getting near 100 mpg with ninja 250s with riding and gearing changes. Craig Vetter (craigvetter.com) is approaching his goals with the ninja now to see what can be accomplished with that bike. The CBR250R is better yet but not cheap - yet. Also, follow Low and Slow here and his build.

It looks like there is some fine tuning of the older Ninjas that really puts up good mileage numbers. Improving aerodynamics is the key to >100 mpg that also benefits rider comfort to a very high degree.

If you can find a way to easily and cheaply make a durable full enclosure we will honor you with heaps of praise and your patent infringement rights. Seems good, easy, slippery, DIY bodywork is a tough nut to crack. If you can demonstrate a better way, we (at least I) am all ears! There is surely a better way than what we've seen so far.

Thanks, I hope this project might in some way help peaple out with ideas, and they can help me with their ideas. I thought 100 mpg would be an attainable goal. The extra weight of the body will have a negative effect, but should offset these losses by reducing drag. Still I wonder how much I will be able to gear it up. Full enclosure is a decision I made for comfort over cost.

Commuting to OSU? - Traitor!

I'm just wondering how people deal with rain on a full enclosure. Cars have wipers that are fairly efficient at clearing the windshield, but I don't see how it can be accomplished very well on a full enclosure. I suppose the small swath the wiper clears in the picture above is sufficient?

100mpg seems like a sure thing to me. I'd be happy to see you progress!

There are plenty of good books on race car design that will be of use from Amazon.com and some sailplane ads will give you some good ideas.

Never discount the effectiveness of RainX, and anti fogging liquids meant for the inside of face shields.

We wish you well on your ambious project!

PS. Corvallis is a great town! Happy for the Rose Bowl, but prefer OSU because its
NOT known as a party school!

As a younger lad I've probably been to more parties in C-town than anyone that did not attend school there. I beg to contest the not a party school claim. Quite a well developed Greek row there.

Yea, a duck in the beaver den. At 26, and having a job I'm to old for the party scene, or at least to busy to concerned about it.

As for the windshield, I debated about this for awhile. I was thinking about just keeping a liberal amount of Rain-x on it but I think that would be a problem at town speeds. So one more electrical load on an already taxed electrical system. (windshield wipers)

Teflon based products help the water to bead but may eventually trap dirt. Trico used to have a hand crank wiper for the antique Jeeps but you could make something. Rambler used a vacuum system to run wipers. Maybe an air motor powered by exhaust pressure. A plastic container and a hand squeezed primer bulb could squirt washer solvent.

I Finally got started this last weekend! I bought $200 worth of steel to build the frame. I got much of the lower frame built. The bent frame parts require my square tubing bender dies that are being milled out. I have a lot of school work this semester, so things might go somewhat slow.http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...61012445_n.jpg

good luck with your project, it looks like a lot of work

Hi Electictracer,

Here's a note I sent to Visionary regarding driving impressions, etc re my own enclosed motorcycle:

Hi Pete,

Looks like a pretty cool project! My main caution is that the vehicle should be vertical with respect to gravity when you come to a stop. The common alternative (perpendicular to the road surface) usually means that the bike is leaning when stopped (itself a little odd feeling) and so you must swerve to get the contact patches under the CG. This takes Monotracer drivers a while to learn, and even then, they still swerve and wobble, using up road space that might not be available.

I didn't spend a great deal of time on linkages before deciding to go with three wheels (just drive it like a car) but found that even with the outriggers deployable independently, it was hard to get the leverages right to permit both quick deployment and enough force to have good control if the vehicle started to lean too much. If the system were powered (as in power steering, with good force feedback) then this would not be an issue -- just have the outriggers reflect foot position.

My outriggers had casters for wheels, so that as they moved toward and away from centerline during balancing they did not create large drag, the way a forward facing wheel would. On the Ecomobile system, for example, tilting right and left (if possible) would cause a lot of tire scrub (which hydraulics could overcome, but human power could not).

You will need to be able to adapt to the situation in which there is a four inch deep pothole right where you need to have an outrigger (or in the path of an outrigger as you start to move).

I thought the idea of having feet come out the bottom was potentially unsafe, (as well as less than ideal aerodynamically) but it might be a simpler way to deal with balancing when stopped.

I'm an old roadracer, and familiar with countersteering, and I understand the physics of driving like a car with the outriggers down (steer right to go right) and driving like a motorcycle with the outriggers up (steer left to go right). But in actual operation of the vehicle, I found I could get out of synch. My seat was very low (6") off the ground, so roll inertia was low, and as a result the response time to control inputs was short (the roll rate was pretty high). Crashed once by getting out of synch -- kind of like the pilot induced oscillations that can happen with airplanes, especially during landings -- in my case right left right left right left boom.

I have not driven a Monotracer, but if you can find one, doing so would be helpful, I'd think.

That's about all I can think of right now, but if you have questions, please ask... and I'll try to respond more quickly. Actually a better address is ken@zingcars.com.

Regards,
Ken

I used to do several types of motorcycle competition, but especially liked the very fast and the very slow: road racing and observed trials. For fun, I'd pick up my feet several (5-10) seconds before I would get underway at stop lights with my cafe racer. (A really good observed trials rider [which I was not] can balance a motionless bike forever.)

In an ordinary motorcycle, even at crawling speeds, you countersteer, to keep the contact patches under the CG. A certain amount of body english etc also helps. (At very low speeds, superimposed on the countersteering for balance is car steering for directional control. In trials riding, the bike is often leaning way over to the left while turning to the right -- all sorts of complicated stuff is possible.) But when I learned to ride a bicycle, someone told me, "if you are falling to the right, steer to the right" (which is the same notion as countersteering to pull a bike up out of a turn... In racing -- for some bikes -- this is the time when countersteering really becomes noticable, especially in switchbacks: the bike has gravity helping it to fall into a turn, but you have to work against gravity to get it back up.).

A lot of this stuff is incredibly subtle. A bike I rode in the 24 Hours of Nelson (for two years) was a 350 four cylinder Honda. I used to tell people that all I had to do was think about where I wanted to be and the bike would just go there. Because it was so easy to ride, we were not beaten to hell and back after an hour, so could still walk without falling over at rider changes. The people getting off the big bikes looked like zombies. In the second year with this little bike, (after a few mods to make it go a little faster than in the first year) we beat all the 500s 750s and open class bikes. The only bikes that could not pass us on the straights were "tricked out" Harley sportsters. But the Honda was so good in the corners that we were not working so hard, and could stay sharp... and as a result not fall off: while the big bikes were in the pits fixing crash damage we were out there ticking off the laps. I think you could ride that bike fast and never really perceive the need to countersteer: ounces of force on the bars was all that was required: a tiny shift of the shoulders would easily do the trick.

In my experience, almost all this (no-effort-required handling) goes out the window (wait no, it can't) in an enclosed bike. To bank the bike, you have to consciously countersteer. I rigged mine with a joysick, thinking that this would feel more natural. It did, sort of. At speed, it flew like an airplane: nudge the stick to the right to bank to the right, center the stick once the bank angle is established. (The stick was rigged so that pushing it to the right caused the wheel to turn to the left.)

But with the outriggers down, I'd have to use the stick in reverse. This felt really weird. If all roads and intersections were flat, then this would be a non-issue: you could have the outriggers up within the first foot of motion, provided it is clear ahead. But in very slow stop-and-go traffic, and when having to start out with the bike tilted, it was a significant issue.

My driveway slopes down at just under 20% to meet a road that slopes at 15% to the right. There is a dip between the drive and road surface, for drainage. At 5 mph with outriggers lifted on the drive, 15 feet before the road, this was pretty much OK. But at low speeds, I could easily be leaning a lot as a result of the dip combined with the effect of road slope. In my manual system, it took a lot of force on the pedal to keep from falling.

A couple things to notice in the Ecomobile video. One is Wagner thinks there is something wrong with a short wheel base. I think that is just plain wrong. Our 350 Honda was the best handling vehicle (land, air, sea) I have ever driven, and I've driven Ferraris, Loti, Porches, planes, sailboats, windsurfers, powerboats, etc. A well-sorted race bike is hard to beat for anyone with reflexes.

Another thing to notice in the videos is the jerky motion in turns and the amount of road used. You can see the countersteering happen in a way that you don't see in roadracing videos. It's notchy. I suspect that's because conscious effort is required, or maybe there is a tiny bit of friction (sticktion) in the steering. (In the shot where you see the wheel closeup, the motions are pretty large and abrupt as compared to typical motorcycle front wheel motions, which you can barely see at speed).

(All this is not intended to dis the Monotracer. It is a very good effort at a tough engineering problem.)

Another thought.

A good way to visualize a space frame is with every joint replaced with a ball joint. A true (fully triangulated) space frame will maintain integrity under this condition (whereas a rectangular shape will just collapse -- lozenge). No tube should be subjected to a bending or cantilever load.

Torsional rigidity is critical. Even in well-engineered bikes, this does not always happen right. We moved to a 550 from our 350, and with suitable mods, it was faster. The stock 550 would wobble, however, and seemed to be perhaps sensitive to certain front tires. I reinforced the steering head area on ours and apparently cured the problem... although I'm not convinced that my gut level feel was actually the right thing to do -- I didn't use FEA or any of that kind of thing.

darts fly straight. They fly straight because most of the mass is well in front of most of the drag.

Vetter talks about this, and focuses on making sure this happens on his bikes with the big fairings.

The front wheel on a bike is pretty interesting. The caster is actually determined by the angle of the steering head.

There is caster caused by mechanical trail, and by steering head trail. I'm curious what the difference between the two in bike behaviour is - I'd guess steering head trail leads to high speed stability, and low speed wobble, and mechanical trail leads to low speed stability, but those are guesses.

By convention, rake is determined by steering head angle. Caster (usually called trail in motorcycles) can exist at any steering head angle. It is partly controlled by rake, but also controlled by offsets of the axle on the sliders, and the triple clamps.

You can have a bike with a vertical steering head but with as much trail as you want.

I think your summary of effects is pretty good, although the effects are so intertwined (and affected by other things, such as frame stability, masses that move with the handlebars, etc.) that it is hard to make generalizations.

Many bikes are effectively spaghetti... we use to straighten out front ends after a fall, by holding the front wheels between knees, and twisting the handlebars. When I was an inspection mechanic, I was tempted to flunk any chopper that came into the shop: they had nothing that could be called "handling," and nothing that could be called "brakes". One season, I rode a 250cc single in the 125cc GP class, and it handled perfectly, in my view. But when pulling into the pits once, I sat up, raised my hand to signal, and the bike went into tank slappers. (This with a pretty stiff frame, very stiff forks, and geometry that was very ordinary for a road racing bike.) The front brake was large relative to the bike's weight, so I suspect this had an influence.

As far as I know, it's all magic.

Tony Foale has done some cool experiments with rake and trail... and lived to tell about it. (Darn frames... this link came from the article itself, but only gives the base address. If you look under "articles" you'll find the rake and trail one, where he describes modifying a BMW in pretty dramatic ways.)

thanks for the links.

there is something called precession. I have been wondering if the angle of the steering head, and precession, keep the bike "stable". but the experiments you posted sure make sense in showing it does not matter.

Something worth reading -
Bicycle and motorcycle dynamics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
the section on Wobble or Shimmy

I'm old and fat, and was more of a snowmobiler then a motorcycler. Did your wobbles start when you let go of the handlebars because you were not hanging onto the handlebars any longer?

Perhaps there is a harmonic with the flex of the front steering system and the mass of the system - change the mass, and things quit wanting to "vibrate".

Great info
 

Great information, although I cannot claim I fully understand all of it. Thankfully, sporty performance is not a concern for this project; I have a bike that handles amazingly for that purpose. I do need it to be safe and controllable. I have decided not to change any of the existing geometry of the steering; I am just lengthening the wheel base considerably. I know this will have a negative effect on steering responsiveness. Again I don’t plan on racing and its base is similar to the monotracers.
Ken, I’m very interested in your outriggers you mentioned. You said they were manually powered and fell with gravity? How, or did they, lock in place. My plan is to use two double acting pneumatic cylinders (one for each outrigger) to retract the “training wheels.” With the loss of air pressure, springs will drive the outriggers down into the ground. Moments after they are down, my valves will close up both sides of the cylinder. My thoughts are this will act as a shock absorber and basically make it impossible for the vehicle lean over too much.
If anyone has any impute on this I would greatly appreciate it. I have ordered some of the materials to build this system, but am kind of waiting so I can consider it further. Thank you

Thoughts about landing wheel design

based upon your last post I have the following observations

Design to fail-safe. Using a powered down spring design risks wheels deploying during use with potentially dangerous outcome in the event of a mechanism failure. Here in UK it is mandatory for stand mechanism to be sprung into retracted position (probably same in US) for reasons of safety.

Design for simplicity. Involving air power requires additional components (and mass)plus delays in deployment over a mechanical system. Also the synergy of use a "shock absorber" is in response to what percieved need? Test a simple prototype first before building a complex version - you may not have a problem to overcome!

I've never been a fan of "landing wheels" for both aesthetic and practical reasons (well outlined by Ken Fry) but the best system I've seen is on "Streamlined Electric Motorcycle". On my own full-bodied motorcycle project I have chosen to bypass this requirement completely - you could look at how others have chosen to overcome stationary stability for ideas, the Monotracer route is not your only option.

This is a great project to undertake, and I wish you well with it, but I caution you against adding unnecessary complication
Pete

If the CG is kept low enough, could you have spring-loaded 'bomb bay' doors to put your feet down, instead of mechanical outriggers?
KISS: "Keep It Simple, Sam"

The outriggers were operated by two foot pedals, each about the size of a large car brake pedal. (Braking was by hand.) Springs held them retracted. When deployed, the outrigger wheels were about 36" apart at the ground contact points. Each outrigger was about 12" long, and the inboard mounting pivots points were about 18" apart. The pivots were angled so that as the outriggers were deployed, they swung downward and outward, eventually ending up at something like 45 degrees down from horizontal and perpendicular to the scooter's centerline.

Casters allowed the outer ends of the outriggers to move along the ground in an arc as they applied force to the ground. In the phase when one outrigger was moving to correct a lean, that outrigger might have moved about 4" forward to move down by about 1" or so. But the pedal, in this phase, was moving about 1" or 2." Overall, the outrigger tip moved through about 18", and the pedal moved through about 6". However, the linkage was arranged so that the really poor leverage (high foot force vs low outrigger force) was before ground (or near ground) contact. Much of the time, things worked well, but sometimes, an outrigger would be too far back to apply enough leverage, and the bike would fall over.

For parking, the outriggers were held out by a car handbrake lever and cable. In that case, they were always deployed equally, so the bike would lean with the pavement.

The three wheel idea was becoming more appealing for several reasons, so I didn't work on the outrigger design enough to decide if manual control would really be a good method for balancing the stationary (or near stationary) bike vertically with respect to gravity. Real legs certainly work well enough... but getting outriggers to tuck in neatly imposes some challenges. With a real leg, in a fraction of a second, you can have your foot well out from centerline to brace a falling bike, you can step around a pothole or bump in the road, etc.

Power operation would be an advantage, I think, to have both quick response and adequate force.

For simplicity and practicality, enclosed two wheeled vehicles will want to retain the tried and true motorcycle method of holding up a stationary vehicle with your feet. Outriggers and gyros just become an over compilcated way of adding a third wheel. An enclosed two wheeler is always going to appeal to a motorcycle rider more than the general public or be more of a competition vehicle more so than a daily driver. For a real mass market vehicle of the future, even if it uses tandem seating for an ultra low frontal area, two wheels in the front will be much better and cheaper. And, then you can even add two wheel front drive and place the motors in front for better traction and balance of CG vs COP. I like Ken's Zing design a lot and it seems that many people are still trying take up where he has already abandoned. DIY Hypermilers on a $2000 budget should look no further than a variation of Vetter's streamliner.

I think this could work in a bike in which you are seated fairly high up (typical chair height* or higher). In mine, I was seated at 6" above the ground, so my feet were way forward. It would be hard to get them back far enough to get them under my own CG, to be able to apply much stabilizing force. Also, there is a big advantage to having the stabilizing base wide -- wider than you would want the body to be for frontal area reasons.

* If you sit in a desk chair, with your feet in the normal position directly below your knees, you find that you can't push down much. So to get out of the chair, you swing your feet back under your CG.

Agreed.
Think about the number of times and duration of a "foot down" as a percentage of your journey duration - it warrants a simple and lightweight solution.

Let's see!
The general public may find enclosed two-wheelers quite acceptable when, and only when, they offer the same levels of comfort and safety as alternatives.

That's their perogative.
Just because Ken judged this development route to be a cul-de-sac, should not preclude anyone else from having a go. Some, me included, are focussed upon the width of a vehicle, which provides some immunity from congestion, as a supplementary benefit to efficiency.

Opinion (mostly wrong)
I'm a big fan of Craig's work but I would advise most people to view it as a starting point for their own endeavours. Craig's distinctive style is not for everyone, his direction (seen through the rules of his contests) is way off the mark, and his self-imposed boundaries add little to progress in this arena.

Summary - Electictracer, if you think you are on the right path - then you are!

The thing I like about Vetter's simple bolt on streamliner is that it is a big step forward in fuel economy but easy enough for any average DIYer to actually start AND finish.

Ken's efforts are geared for retail sales so the product needs to be more idiot-proof than what would be acceptable to enthusiasts. One size doesn't fit all.

I agree. And actually I judged my own route to be a cul-de sac... and even then only for my particular interests. I'd like to see people try all sorts of routes, and continue to develop all sorts of two-wheeled vehicles.

Also agreed. As I have said about learning to fly: Even if I never actually flew anywhere after learning, I would have considered the time spent learning very well spent.

I think Craig's rules are right on. It is all fine and dandy to dream and armchair race, but when done, people want to DRIVE their vehicles, and they need to haul a bit of cargo.

Other then that, show up and run!

I'm building an aero trunk so I can ride with them at Ohio. My otherwise stock CBR250R will do 90mpg in their event with a little pulse and glide. If Alan gets a good parts list dialed in, it will make a streamliner conversion into a 4-5 day project and you will start to see 100's of adopters as the bikes are still 100% rideable and it will be very cheap. And it is happening now. If it is too cold for the slight amount of remaining open air that is around you then there is ice on the road and no outrigger will help you then after you are sliding on your side toward whatever. It's time for the third wheel. Gyros make a cool functioning show bike but the Lit might just as well be made by Honda as a one off toy to prove a concept. Too expensive and still years away and still just two small contact patches keep you pointing where you want to go. No office lady is ever going to ride that to work even if gas is $20/ gallon. Not if there is a three wheeled option that is just as light and almost as aero.

Thanks for your input, Pete. I’ve been fallowing your project with great interest in the hopes of enhancing my own ideas.

Possible loss of air pressure during a turn is something I did not consider, but needs to be addressed with my design. I was thinking about electrical or pneumatic failure not allowing the outriggers to go down, causing an inevitable slow speed crash. I feel I must keep the spring down aspect of the design for this, and the following reason. If the vehicle sits in my garage all night, I don’t want to have to maintain pressure or power to keep it from falling over.

To keep pressure loss from causing the outriggers to go down unexpectedly, I think I will lock the non-pressurized portion of the double action cylinder up by closing its valve on delay. This is what I was planning to do on the lowering anyway, so it’s just a control wiring change. The outriggers would not be allowed to fall completely in this case. I will lose my automatic dropping upon power loss feature, but this seems worth it in the interests of safety.

Ken makes a great point about seating position and use of legs. I found in mock-ups with my low seat, that it would be impractical to use my feet to hold up the bike. The other issue is water tightness; we have a lot of cold wet roads in Oregon so a door would be necessary to meet the goals of the project (comfort). Any sort of door would make it cumbersome in an emergency to lower a leg.

I considered using a linear actuator or a motor of some other kind like the Monotracer and I presume the Electric Enclosed Motorcycle does. I could not find anything that was readily available, fast, and inexpensive. I’m sure Peravis has a supplier who is happy to provide them with large quantities of specialized products at high prices.

This is the reason I came to pneumatics. Parts are easy to find, cheap, and the outriggers will come down as fast as I want them to. I do not like the complication added to a project I swore would be kept as simple as possible, but I could not come up with anything else….That being said I love new ideas. I actually drew up something very similar to Ken’s design, but seeing how I have no hands or feet free to operate anything manually, I passed on to the next.

As for how my project is going now, I am currently on budget and waiting for my square tubing bending die. I will be making bending templates this weekend. The 2000 dollar goal I do not consider unreasonable. The only thing I’m worried about cost wise is the windshield. I find myself doubting my (nonexistent) abilities to mold Lexan, and will probably hire it out. I have not gotten an estimate yet because I’m afraid….

Kick stand.

Don't let Craig catch you doin' P&G!


Jay

I have a slow twitch in my throttle hand.:)
Don't need it anyway. 85mpg under normal highway riding at 70mph is close enough to at least show up and represent for stock bikes with a trunk.

Is that what that springing thing on the bottom of my motorcycle is? I’ve just been leaning it against walls and trees this whole time. ;)

All joking aside, I would like to avoid a stand if possible, seems like a waist of effort to have the training wheels and a kick or center stand. This does not mean it’s out of the question. If I have to have one, I will have one.

My new outriggers
 

After much deliberation and consideration I have decided to go with a much more conventional approach, sticking my feet out. It will take some minor modification, and the return of some parts but it will save weight, money, complexity and time. Getting my seat in place and the frame started allowed me to make a more accurate assessment of the feasibility of the feet down approach, and it looks good.

Where my feet stick through, I will have little doors that spring shut. The diagnal supports by my knees will need to be moved back to make room for leg swing. I well rounded edge on the bottom of the door should prevent my foot from catching hopefully.

Thanks again for all of your comments, they have been very helpful in the decision making process.
http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...97633044_n.jpg

Good on ya. :thumbup: Let the guys with obscenely large engineering budgets tackle the outrigger concept. We home brew guys need to use our noodle to engineer in simplicity and lightness, which leads to EFFICIENCY. Which is the name of the game, right?
I like the idea of a rounded bottom on the door. I'm envisioning a fiberglass bulb a couple inches in diameter. That would let pants/boots/shoes pass without catching.

What do you project your final seat height to be? Too low and you run into functional problems with visibility and there may be legal, state inspection issues as well.