AeroBike's blog

Current state of the Aerobike...

AeroBike — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 20:53:51 +0000

The Aerobike is currently partly dismantled, I was selling more as an on going project rather than a going concern ..so this is the current state of things -

I have taken the body panels off and drilled out the rivets that mounted the front wheel tunnel as I was using the remaining chassis and engine for experimenting with a tilting 3 wheeled tadpole trike -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyCFq6ochdY - I am not going to continue with this format, being a "free" leaner, it requires countersteering to initiate the lean , although this felt natural on the Aerobike, it did not on the 3 wheeler and I had a number of crashes when transitioning from locked tilt ( steer left to go left ) to countersteering (steer right to go left ).
I still have the RF900 forks, front wheel brakes etc to convert back to the Aerobike, although the gear linkage, brake pedal mount etc would require re building .. the RF900 motor is currently out of the chassis but I still have this... I had decided that if I continued, that I wanted to go a less powerful option, possibly using a 700cc Raptor quad bike motor which has a reverse gear or even electric - the way of the future and way simpler !
I have most of the other motorcycle donor parts and could re-assemble as a rolling chassis with the body panels fitted...

Stabilisers - although these were working reliably, they would have been a nightmare to fix at the side of the road if things went wrong. I have a rough gravel driveway and hated the side to side rocking when going over uneven ground and had decided that if I continued with the project that "smart" stabilisers that automaticly kept the bike vertical would be required, so the telescopic legs and wheels are there and I could supply the steel wire ropes etc that pulled them up and down but I would not really recommend this set up ..

The fiberglass body panels are slightly damaged from the side wind crash and could easily be repaired but not so good - when I was maneuvering the bike in the garage with the stabilisers up, it fell away from me and the mirror punched a hole in the canopy ( very disappointing after all the work that went into making it !! ) I have the broken pieces and have been told this can be repaired and made almost invisible .. the canopy also has scratches that could be polished out..

So,I could sell it as - chassis and body panels, rolling chassis with body panels (no motor) or with all the parts ( less the mufflers and a few other parts that I have sold ) . ( The fiberglass moulds can go with the panels ) I have no idea of what shipping costs might be ..

If you want to call me on the phone , my number is NZ 06 370 8958

Cheers,

Roger

Aerobike project is up for sale...

AeroBike — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 02:33:48 +0000

Mostly due to a lack of a suitable place to safely test and refine the Aerobike, it is up for sale, either mostly complete or as a body / chassis.. I am not expecting to recoup the money that was spent on it and are willing to dismantle it to make it easier for overseas shipping if required ... (thinking maybe $2000 US for chassis, moulds, bodypanels,stabilisers etc? )

Read more about it - http://aerobikeenclosedmotorcycle.blogspot.co.nz/
or at Manfeild racetrack - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuK-Dg2Se-E

Contact me at rogerdunkley@gmail.com if you are interested ...

Aerobike side wind testing crash

AeroBike — Wed, 11 Dec 2013 09:19:34 +0000

I have finally got back to working on the Aerobike but testing did not go well-
I had been waiting for some reasonably strong winds and we got them today in my area, so with my neighbour following, I headed down the road to evaluate the side wind behavour of the bike.

Going south with the wind blowing mostly from the tail and side the bike felt fine, pushed around a little bit but no worries about staying in my lane or losing control, so all seemed good.

I then turned around and headed back with the wind coming onto the left front of the bike, (I would guess it was blowing about 20-30 knots).

I had only travelled about a kilometer (at about 75 km/hr ) to where the road has large trees on both sides (open understory but dense foaliage above) when the bike was hit by the wind. The bike seemed to automaticlly respond by leaning into the wind (probably only about 10 degrees), it seemed to be in this steady state for maybe 2 or 3 seconds, but I had the feeling that falling to the left was inevatable.....I think this was due to there not being any torque on the handle bars that you get on a conventional motorbike in a side wind....

I think I got a bit scared and did something, not sure if I steered a bit to the left to maybe even to the right ( definately the wrong thing to do!!) but anyway, ended up with the bike sliding down the road and into a ditch (luckily fairly smooth and deep enough to keep me away from the trees!!).

The bike came to rest fully over on the left side so I had to pop out the door section of the canopy to get out (I hadn't finished the door catch release to enable the door to be opened in this situation).

I was uninjured but the bike suffered a broken mirror, quite a bit of fibreglass damage and canopy scratches....I don't think there is any structural damage though...

I think the bike, with the wind blowing in this direction acted like a wing, and sucked the bike into the wind (leaning into the wind ) . I am not sure if I had not got scared and tried steering, whether the bike would have corrected itself ??

Thinking on this though, if the wind had suddenly died,with the bike leaning to the left, this would have caused the bike to turn to the left, this behavour would of course be too dangerous to continue with....

I have read that the Monotracer automaticly leans into the wind to compensate but does it automaticly bring itself back to vertical if the wind suddenly drops?

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated....

AeroBike Enclosed Motorcycle

AeroBike — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 08:33:02 +0000

Hi All,

My name is Roger Dunkley, I live in Wellington, New Zealend and I have been building my enclosed motorcycle for about 3 years now. I have recently tested it at the closest racetrack, this was the first time I have been able to really test it out and I was very happy with the results, rewaching 174 km/h about half way down the main straight with no instability and getting to about 45 degrees of lean round the corners.
I have built it for touring rather than track use so my next step will be trying to get it certified for road use, I don't know how difficult this will be as the certifiers hven't seen anything like this before!

There is more about it on this blog - http://aerobikeenclosedmotorcycle.blogspot.co.nz/ and some YouTube clips (hope to have some more from Manfield race track soon)

-First test without body panel and other temporary parts -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEZ2wPN1auQ

and an onboard at the racetrack -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-Mi7ynpL8A&list=FLZy4bjqFgMr0wlP_S7kh-Pw&index=1&feature=plpp_video

Cheers,

Roger

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