New ShapeShifting Harley Based Bike
Imagine leaving the house with your Motorcycle in “Standard” mode. As you leave the side streets and enter the open highway, you shape-shift into a Cruiser and take the highway out of town. The ride gets long and so for comfort you switch to Touring mode. After many miles, you take an exit onto rural two-lane twisty roads and see a dirt and gravel road on your left, so you shape-shift into an Enduro and take the turn ….
A complete re-think of motorcycle design.
New Robotic ShapeShifting Harley
based Motorcycle.
…. any ride, anytime …. shapeshifts
on-the-fly.
Now, a much safer and more
connected Motorcycle riding experience
that actively adapts to both the
rider and the road.
1. Regular, Hemi or Diesel
2. Multi-link suspension ON BOTH ENDS !
3. No chain tensioner needed.
4. Six speeds and a reverse.
5. No rusting materials anywhere …. inside or out.
6. Extremely over-engineered to last as long as possible.
7. Center of mass maintained while shape-shifting by shifting the engine.
8. Precisely shapeshifts to exactly mimic each bike style, from Chopper, Cruiser, Tourer, Standard Town bike, Enduro, even Deep Woods.
This motorcycle is still a concept, but production is expected to take place March 2008! You can find out more about these bikes at the R-Bike Web Page.
About the designer: Erik Brinkman is a world renowned industrial designer and innovator. The Smithsonian Institution has asked to do an exhibit of his work.
His work has been featured on the cover of the most prestigious mechanical magazine in the world (American Machinist). He is also featured in McGraw-Hill college textbooks.
Technorati Tags: motorcycle news, motorcycles, shapeshifting
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February 13th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Lots of great comments in “BlogWorld”.
One of the most common is about the need for ShapeShifting,
other than having several bikes in one.
We are going to spend 3 years or so playing with some of these,
hooked to sensors and using A.I. software
to see where the comfort levels are in automating some of these.
…. with a cut-off option (as with the ant-lock and anti-spin).
Here is the list ….
1. DOWN a Steep Hill
As you start a steep slow descend, you stretch your bike out a bit
with feet stretched on pointing downhill
and the seat much lower and you tuck your body rearward.
2. UP a Steep Hill
As you ascend the hill,
you start fairly stretchy and slowly scrunch as you go up
to let the ShapeShift pull-it up
and you need more tight control as you do those last few feet of climb.
3. Tight Squeeze
When the trail goes tight between trees you need squeeze it in a bit,
then stretch it back on the other side.
4. Sharp Curves
You approach a sharp curve and need a little more belly clearance
and you need a shorter more nimble wheelbase,
so you scrunch into the curve and stretch back out of the curve
pulling itself out of the curve..
5. Creek Crossing
You approach the creek and so you scrunch high
to keep the nostril tucked high behind the side-pods
and keep splashes of water deflected from the intake and the rider,
and the tailpipe tilts down to keep water from backing up into it.
Then you stretch to let the ShapeShifting help pull up onto the other bank.
6. High Speed Cruising
You are riding in your most comfortable position
and you want or need to go smoother faster.
You are only a 10-inch wide frame, so if you stretch it out,
you have a longer faster more stable arrow in the wind.
7. High Speed Braking
You are stretched out and cruising the open road
and suddenly a deer pops up onto the road and just stands there.
So you clamp the binders full-on
and the bike frame slowly shortens as the bike slows,
because a shorter wheelbase stops quicker with better control.
Stopping benefits from a wheelbase best suited
for hard braking at that momenary speed,
8. Lock-n-Stretch over a Log
You kiss up to a log and plant the rear brake and then stretch
and in so doing “crawl” the bike.
The bike comes with a 21 inch front wheel to help in this option.
9. Pulling out of a Hole
There you are stuck in the mudhole. Seen it a thousand times.
Now you don’t worry about pulling the bike out.
You can stretch to both spread out the weight
and use the stretch-crawl method of “inch-worming” your way out
using the frame’s ShapeShifting.
10. In a SideSlide
The bike might want to scrunch a bit more
to help make the SideSlide easier to control.
11. If the Road gets Rough
The bike might want to raise up a bit
and shorten its wheelbase for better control.
October 19th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
Time for a bit of an update ….
http://www.erikbrinkman.com/rbike
BTW- if you don’t have QuickTime application in your computer,
you miss out on all the neat videos in the “Gallery”.
The most important part of the bike is the drivetrain.
Merch is handling the 6 engines.
They are tops in making very very strong motors.
The drivetrain uses 3-inch helical-cut gears
(stainless steel with a near-diamond coating
…. 10 times slicker than Teflon)
It will be tested and ready to install by late 08.
The first bikes are for the Militaries and the Bike Shows,
We also promised 2 bikes for Warner Brothers and others in L.A.
Orange County Choppers show will be assembling one on TV.
(almost half the parts are Harley-World aftermarket parts,
so you will be able to service the bike at any Harley Dealer).
They will be built in New York and in Medicine Hat.
Public production will begin in 09.
Prices will begin just below $20k for a stripped budget bike
with a base $4k engine.
and up close to $120k for the highest possible quality and detail
and the $60k engine.
We are designing a “Build-a-Bike” section on the WebSite
where you can select almost every part on the bike
and adjust the price/feature balance to what you want.
You will have a choice of 6 engines and 3 transmissions.
There are 3 front wheel sizes and 2 rear wheel sizes.
There are 3 seat styles and 2 tank options. etc etc
until the bike is exactly what you want and can afford.
Then if you answer a marketing questionaire,
we will email you a poster sized hi-resolution picture
of the bike the way YOU designed it.
Soon we shall begin taking pre-orders
so you can save your place in line.
This is a couple of weeks away.
We have it functioning correctly.
Now it is a matter of the “look”
and then loading the hundreds of selections / options.
We promise that when updates occur,
they can be added any existing bike,
so that the purchase is a lifetime relationship.
Now, I know the idea of a ShapeShifter motorcycle
is a little out of the box …. just a little,
but the bike actually takes on the proportions
of the top bikes in each riding style category.
If any part of the frame were mounted or shaped 1/4 inch off,
the entire “puppet” would not work well.
There is much more to this than first meets the eye.
This is all about the frame, and not just about the bike as such.
We expect to license the frame to other makers in the future.
Adaptive-geometry makes for a safer bike,
and ultimately we want to see lots of them on the road,
whether ours our eventually someone elses version.
PS-
We shall also be activating the INVEST button
(hopefully by Monday Oct 22nd)
It will take you to an index where all the paperwork resides.
August 15th, 2008 at 9:03 am
SPECS have finally been published.
Production begins in mid-2009
http://www.erikbrinkman.com/rbike/report.html