motorcycle

98 Articles

Do You Really Own It? Motorcycle Airbag Requires Additional Purchase To Inflate

May 18, 2021 by 218 Comments

If you ride a motorcycle, you may have noticed that the cost of airbag vests has dropped. In one case, something very different is going on here. As reported by Motherboard, you can pick up a KLIM Ai-1 for $400 but the airbag built into it will not function until unlocked with an additional purchase, and a big one at that. So do you really own the vest for $400?

Given the nature of the electronics and computer business lately, we spend a good bit of time thinking of what it means to own a piece of technology. Do you own your cable modem or cell phone if you aren’t allowed to open it up? Do you own a piece of software that wants to call home periodically and won’t let you stop it?  Sometimes it makes sense that you are paying for a service. But there have been times where, for example, a speaker company essentially bricks devices that could work fine on their own even though you — in theory — own the device.

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A DIY Enclosed Motorcycle To Keep You Dry In The Rain

May 5, 2021 by 41 Comments

Motorcyclist’s vulnerability to bodily harm and weather has spawned several enclosed motorcycle designs over the years. Fascinated by the idea, [Meanwhile in the garage] finally got around to building his own. (Video, embedded below.)

The vehicle started life as a 125cc scooter, stripped of all the unnecessary bits, he welded a steel cockpit onto it. A windshield, doors, and side windows were also added. The ends of the handlebars were cut off and reattached at 90 degrees to fit inside the narrow cockpit. A pair of retractable “training wheels” keep the vehicle upright and at slow speeds.

Legalities aside, we can’t help but think that the first test drives should not have been on a public road. It almost ended in disaster when a loose axle nut on the front wheel caused steering oscillations which caused the vehicle to tip over. Fortunately, there were no injuries and only light cosmetic damage, so a more successful test followed the first.

While many companies have tried, enclosed motorcycles have never achieved much commercial success. Probably because they inhabit a no-mans-land between the rush and freedom of riding a motorcycle and the safety and comfort of a car.

For some less extreme conversion, check out this electric motorcycle, or a rideable tank track.

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A Practical Electric Motorcycle, Made From A Motorcycling Classic

March 28, 2021 by 26 Comments

If you were to try to name the vehicle that brought transport to the world’s masses, where might you start? The Ford Model T perhaps, or maybe the VW Beetle? If this was the direction you took, then we’re sorry to say you aren’t even close. The answer lies in Soichiro Honda’s Dream and its descendants, small cheap and reliable motorcycles that have been manufactured in their many millions in some form continuously for over seven decades, and which have been sold in every country in the world that has any form of road. They may be unglamorous, but if you had to pick a bike to circumnavigate the globe they can be fixed by a local mechanic anywhere on the planet. That little horizontal single-cylinder engine may be reliable though, but it’s hardly green. [David Budiatmaja] has fixed that, by transforming an elderly Honda C70 into an electric motorcycle worthy of a 21st-century city (Indonesian, Google Translate link).

The conversion appears to have achieved wide coverage in the Indonesian motoring press, and there’s more about it in the video we’ve placed below the break (Indonesian, you may have to enable subtitle translation). The C70 has been stripped of its fairing, engine, and gearbox, and a wheel motor has been laced into the rear rim. There are three battery packs made from surplus 18650 cells, and an ammo can top box containing most of the electrical wiring. Driven at 72V, it gives a modest top speed that isn’t exactly fast but isn’t too bad on a city bike. A set of trail bike bars replaces the stock ones, and something of a cosmetic makeover has given it a tougher image than your local pizza delivery bike. If it didn’t still sport the C70’s somewhat archaic front forks, it might be easy to mistake it for something else entirely.

If wheel motor motorcycle conversions interest you, this isn’t the first one we’ve brought you.

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Motorcycle Needs Custom Latching Switches For Turn Signals

March 13, 2021 by 42 Comments

While modern cars have been getting all kinds of fancy features like touch screens, Bluetooth, crumple zones, and steering wheel controls, plenty of motorcycles have remained firmly in the past. Some might have extra options like a fuel gauge or even ABS if you’re willing to spend extra, but a good percentage of them have the bare minimum equipment required by law. That equipment is outdated and ripe for some improvements too, like this ergonomic custom turn signal switch built with custom latching switches.

Since motorcycle turn signals don’t self-cancel like car signals the rider has to cancel it themselves, usually by pushing an inconveniently tiny button. This assembly consists of four separate switches, two of which control the left and right turn signals. Since both can’t be on at the same time, they include circuitry that can detect their position and a small motor that can physically de-latch them if the other one is pressed. The entire assembly is 3D printed, including the latching mechanism, and they are tied together with a small microcontroller for the controls.

The truly impressive part of this build is the miniaturization, since all four buttons have to be reached with the thumb without removing the hand from the handlebar. The tiny circuitry and mechanical cam for latching are impressive and worth watching the video for. And, if you need more ergonomic improvements for your motorcycle there are also some options for cruise control as well, another feature often lacking in motorcycles.

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Home-Crafting A Motorcycle Throttle Hold

December 8, 2020 by 38 Comments

Cruise control is a common feature on automobiles, though less so in the motorcycle market. Given that continual throttle application on long rides can be a real pain in the wrist, many riders long for such a convenience. As a cheat solution, bolt-on locks that hold the throttle at a set position are available, though quality varies and generally they need to be activated by the throttle hand anyway. [Nixie] wanted a solution that would leave the right hand entirely free, and held, rather than locked, the throttle.

The device [Nixie] came up with is essentially a brake that fits inside the throttle handle and holds it in position. This is achieved with a mechanism that presses a pair of small brake shoes into the inside of the throttle, holding it from rotating back to neutral when the rider lets go. The brake is activated by a control on the left handlebar via a Bowden cable, allowing [Nixie] to activate the throttle hold on the highway and use the right hand to check pockets or simply rest.

It’s a tidy build, and [Nixie] does a great job of explaining the various design choices and the intricacies of the Bowden cable actuated mechanism. It’s anything but a one-size-fits-all build, but other enterprising machinists could certainly duplicate the design for other motorcycles without too many problems.

For those interested in more traditional cruise control, we’ve featured a teardown of a simplistic 90s Jeep system before. Video after the break.

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A Monotrack Bike With Only Basic Tools And Parts

September 22, 2020 by 24 Comments

Tracked vehicles are cool, but can be quite complicated to build. [XenonJohn] wanted to skip the complexity, so he created Vector, an electric tracked motorcycle using only basic parts and tools. No machine tools required.

If it looks familiar, it’s because it was inspired by [Make It Extreme]’s monotrack motorcycle that we covered last year. [XenonJohn] liked the concept, but wanted one that was simpler to build. That meant ditching the custom machined parts like the wheels and the suspension system. These were replaced with three go cart wheels and axles mounted in pillow blocks, on a simple welded frame. An e-bike battery powers a 500 W golf cart motor that drives the rear wheel. Like [Make It Extreme]’s version, the track is an SUV tire with the sidewall cut off. [XenonJohn] used tin snips to do this, but from personal experience we would recommend a utility knife. This track design will have a tendency to collect debris inside it, so cutting some hole in the tread could help. As with most single wheeled/tracked vehicles, you really don’t want to try and stop quickly.

It looks like this bike works fine in straight lines, but there is room for improvement with the steering. [XenonJohn] has some ideas to do this, which we hope to see some time in the future. Let us know in the comments how you would make it turn better.

[XenonJohn] really like vehicles that can make you face plant. He built quite a few self-balancing motorcycles, one of which was supposedly designed with first responders in mind. It honestly seems more likely to create an emergency than respond to one.

A Motorcycle Dashboard Straight From The ECU

September 21, 2020 by 12 Comments

Classic motorcycles are the wild west of information displays. Often lacking even basic instrumentation such as a fuel gauge and sometimes even a speedometer, motorcycles have come a long way in instrument cluster design from even 20 years ago. There’s still some room for improvement, though, and luckily a lot of modern bikes have an ECU module that can be tapped into for some extra information as [Sophie Wheeler] illustrates with her auxiliary motorcycle dashboard.

This display is built for a modern Honda enduro, and is based upon an ESP32 module. The ESP32 is tied directly into the ECU via a diagnostic socket, unlike other similar builds that interface with a CAN bus specifically. It can monitor all of the bike’s activity including engine temperature, throttle position, intake air temperature, and whether or not the bike is in neutral. [Sophie] also added an external GPS sensor so the new display can also show GPS speed and location information within the same unit.

[Sophie] credits a few others for making headway into the Honda ECU. [Gonzo] created a similar build using a Raspberry Pi and more rudimentary screen but was instrumental in gathering the information for this build. If you’re looking for a display of any kind for your antique motorcycle which is lacking an ECU, though, we would suggest a speedometer made with nixie tubes.