radical

Christini AWD update. This is some nice engineering pRorn.

I’d done a post on the Christini AWD bikes a while back and I always want to see it closer up.  Well a big thank you to Colin for the message board link over on Dirt Bike World where these were located.  This is the sort of technology that just stops me in my tracks and get me staring. Amazing how compact it really is.  I’d think the weight would be easily offset by the added traction.   Ant that  KTM 300 is already a rocket ship!  Really brilliant.   I’d love to ride one someday.

Another cool air powered bike. This time three tanks!

Thanks to Tim Hillsamer for the link. Lots more here at TECHVEHI but it’s all in French.

I found a bit more info on it in english at the “car body design” site. Apparently the first one is set up to be a land speed bike. Cool!

“The Saline Airstream Concept is a speed record motorbike concept powered by a compressed air engine. It was created by five design students at the ISD of Valenciennes (France).”

A really interesting concept bike and engine system.

I’ve read quite a bit about the compressed air technology in cars lately and I just sort of figured it would be impractical in motorcycles.  And then I saw this (pulled this out of the Spam filter again grrr..) from an alert reader.  Really cool concept ESPECIALLY for short distance closed course racing.  I have a hunch that those are the areas where the alternate energy bikes and cars might get a realistic toehold.  I’ve even seen some wicked fast all electric Cart racing that a hard core cart racing friend of mine is looking into.

Anyway, thanks to Zach Stambaugh who sent this to me back on Dec 11 while we were in a bit of an alt energy phase on here.

I’ve been enjoying your blog for at least a year now. After the poll about electrics, I wondered what you thought of this: http://o2pursuitdeanbenstead.wordpress.com/

In my opinion it goes down to whether the bike looks interesting. Is it original or fun? does it innovate a cool idea? If so put it up.

I think it meets the qualification of interesting.

Thanks Zach and be sure to check out the link to their site for more!  And yeas, that started out as a standard SCUBA tank.  I love it!  And if you don’t mind sitting through a 30 second ad there’s a really informative video on the design HERE I like the points they make about no end of life issues (like with batteries) and I imagine you could piggyback compressed air refill stations right next to a gas station without too much fuss. The only scary part is what would happen in a rupture in an accident. I’m sure smarte people than me have solutions to that though. I’ve always thought that electric is doomed by it’s own costs and physics but the simplicity of this CA tech seems really promising..

The Dirt Fazer!

Manny had made a few comments about his old Dirt Fazer in the FZ! Adventure Bike thread and he was kind ehough to send in some pics of it.  Cool Stuff but a sad ending..
Manny Wrote in:

Hope some of these are OK. Don’t forget most of this stuff is from the film era and it wasn’t so easy to take pictures back then. I owned this bike for 13 years and had a blast with it. One day I was riding it home from work and the countershaft sprocket came off the shaft and the chain wrapped around and locked my rear wheel in the fast lane of a major Montreal highway. I slid to a stop on the inside service lane and took the plate, tools and mirrors, crossed the highway, called my wife to pick me up and abandoned the bike. I had never plated it and ran it on the street with the plate from my other Fazer so it couldn’t be traced to me. That’s the last time I saw it.