Reciprocating Mass

wow, yeah, usually when i feel like there's an animal crawling up my shirt while i'm riding, it's some lovesick chick.

it's all about the shaved legs, guys.

ddt

OK, so, we're moving to the city, as in, three blocks from the Red Line, which means we'll only need the one car. So, instead of a car payment, I've been given the tentative go-ahead on a motorcycle payment instead.

My options are thus:

1) Suzuki DR650 dual-sport - A japanese thumper that will keep running long after I'm dead, that embarrasses KTM enduro bikes offroad and Hayabusas on-road in low-end grunt and handling prowess. Only costs $5k.

2) Moto Guzzi Breva 750 - Underpowered, shaft-driven cafe-racer, $7500. A pale joke compared in the stats department to 650's from everyone else. But... it's a Guzzi. It will handle better and deliver better performance than the numbers tell... this is a bike all about the intangibles. And... and... I've always wanted a Goose. There! I said it. Knee-cap cooking, tractor-engined, wrong-way-front V-twin pasta-pusher that needs more money and attention than a hollywood gold digger, yes, all true, but I still waaaaaaaant it...


So try to talk me out of it and into buying the better-city-bike Susie Doc Six-Five.

~ Soop

What, no Vespa scooter? :-P

I'm in Paris for the weekend and Piaggio seems to be making millions overhere. Especially, the MP3, a new three wheeler design is being sold much more that I'd imagined when I first saw the website for it. The Parisiens are totally hooked on scooters, regular motor bikes are much less common.

What's really great is the city bike system. All over the city there's bike stations with a terminal. Feed it with your credit card and they'll put a charge on it of €150. You can then take a bike from one of the slots and use it free for half an hour. The next half hour is 1 euro and the next half hour 2. This progressivly increases so what people do is just cycle from one station to the other and it costs nothing.

http://www.velib.paris.fr/

Guzzis are nice bikes Soup, but since you're looking at off the road street bikes anyway, ever considered an Aprillia Moto 6.5?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Org-sil_right_side.jpg

They're a bit older now, but still look fantastic!

the nice thing about motoguzzis and some triumphs, at least in the states, is that they still make models that aren't full sport bikes nor total cruisers, but the middle general-purpose bike. my '78 honda cb500k was like that.

still would really want a honda cb-1, though.

and that's interesting how paris gets around the theft issue, by requiring a huge deposit. that would rule out the system for the poor, sadly. some kids at MIT were working on incorporating RFID chips into bikes to reduce the theft potential.

thanks for the report and enjoy your trip, ton!

ddt

all this time I've been mooning over a cargo trike to use as a mini-mobile booth for my little enterprise there was an old clunker sitting in one of the second-hand store waiting for someone to drop a c note on it. Unfortunately I found this out by walking past a kid at the market this weekend who was using the thing just as I had hoped to. Who wodda thunk it? You cant find those things on craigslist or ebay or anywhere but here it was at the local country store!

crap

Something modern or an old workhorse like this?

similar to that CS but a true cargo trike with the wheels in the front pivoting around the COG of a leaf-sprung-platform capable of supporting hundreds of pounds. Like one of these that had been built by schwinn back in the 60's and left for years to collect dust and vermin in an abandoned barn. Like the Model U by Worksman Cycles. Infact I believe it was an old Worksman.

Ahh... wow. They were selling one for $100?

yep--it needed lots of tlc and some navel jelly to remove the rust but its a runner

Some one mentioned the possibility of GM axing Buick in the other thread. I had to comment on a recent MotorWeek episode I saw. They road tested the Lucerne Super. This is bizarre vehicle to roll out with a Buick name plate at any time, but it could be suicidal given the fuel price situation. The take a standard FWD Lucerene, load it up with pretty much every option from the the Buick option catalog, roll in some bits from Caddy (notable the Northstar V8 and Magnetic Ride Control), Slap a sticker on that is the "omgawd I SHOULD bought a BMW or Lexus range ($39,395). Yikes. Really odd is that is NOT the "real" luxury hot rod in the Buick barn -- that moniker would better suit the LaCrosse Super. Still FWD, but a smaller and lighter with a BIGGER more potent (though arguelably less refined) 5.3 L small block V8 this beast stickers for $33,750.

I sorta would have liked to have been a fly on the wall when the execs greenlighted these things. Might be even more fun to see / hear the email and irate phone calls from beleaguered dealers who have this two cars and the very large Enclave to try and lure folks into showrooms. OMIGAWD, is that REALLY the MPG on these things! Heaven help us!

Seems like no matter how I think a tank will go, I end up with 51-53 mpg in my Prius. That's enough to make me happy.
My stupid briefcase. It got wet from rain, and stained the front passenger seat with its cheap/China tanning. Argggggg!

60 years of Citroën 2CV at the science museum in Paris, this is the original 2CV. Talking about a bare bones car; manual windscreen wiper, no outside door handles, the seats are basically sheets that are suspended from the roof. 60+ mpg easy! If not much more than that.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/08/2008 07:34PM by tliet.

It's quite disturbing to say that I have had dreams of a the Deux Chevaux. It did involve Halle Berry though.

The great-grandfather of my magnificent XM...

I can't find them anywhere online, but at the exposition they showed the actual footage Citroën driving through a field with a basket of eggs on the passenger seat. 2 things however; they drove though grassland and they drove *very* fast; I'd say 40 mph.

DPBD

http://gas2.org/2008/07/15/an-air-car-you-could-see-in-2009-zpms-106-mpg-compressed-air-hybrid/

This is a development that makes me really happy, still the engine is based on the old piston engine. But using air opens up a whole lot of other opportunities:

http://www.engineair.com.au/airmotor.htm

I'd love to see someone like BMW jump on this for the Mini and other lines ... Mercedes used to try and lead here too.

Who knows, maybe industry and innovation will return to the US.

Oh how sad. This is basic thermodynamics folks. These are basic thermal expansions. Pv=nRT Energy density of compressed air is pathetic. Total energy conversion is probably greater than 65% unrecoverable heat. You ever put your hand on a bicylce pump? Hot? Imagine the heating when going to 4000+ psi. Take a look at the slashdotters or even wikipedia. The only good to come out of such projects would be build much lighter vehicles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density Who wants a coal fired motor?

The conversion of stored compressed air to mechanical energy would be far more efficient have greater/power:: weight ratios in a direct turbine or gerorotar type design instead of piston. The engineair austrilian compnay uses one such device, I do not think that the MDI based designs do...

As the inventor of the rotary air engine says; one has to look at the whole picture when calculating stored energy. Of course compressed air is not the most efficient way to store energy. But for a whole range of applications, it's probably very good.

Added advantage; releasing the air via the cabin = free air conditioning.