90 Years of Cabin Motorcycles!

This historic gathering of 12 cabin motorcycles took place outside the Hockenheimring Museum in September 2013.
On the far left is a Mauser from 1922 and next to it is Arnold Wagner's first prototype Ecomobile, with twin cylinder BMW boxer engine, built in 1982.
The next 5 machines are all two-seater production Peraves Ecomobiles but the slightly taller machine with an orange stripe is Arnold Wagner's one-off single seater with turbocharged K1200 motor. The last 4 machines, in black, blue and grey, are all production Peraves Monotracers built from 2008 to 2012.
The gathering was organised by the German magazine Oldtimer Markt and was called 'Krafteiertag' or 'Power Egg Day'.
Both Arnold Wagner and Gustav Prochazka were present and Gustav provided a link to a new video about Jan Anderlé, the Czech cabin motorcycle pioneer who built several Dalnik cabin motorcycles in the 1940s and inspired several other people to build their own machines, including Arnold Wagner himself. See here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9_ux9G82YI
The Hockenheim museum is also the home of one of the famous NSU 'Flying Hammocks' from the 1950s, which can be seen here: http://www.bikeweb.com/node/1818
There are pictures of many other cabin motorcycles, including several Mausers Einspurs and Monotraces, in the historic FFs section here: http://www.bikeweb.com/image/tid/30
PNB

90 Years of Cabin Motorcycles!

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Denial

Looking at the success of Peraves over many years in continueing to produce the worlds most efficient production vehicle - as proved by the efficiency X-prize - and the complete lack of reaction by the worlds motorcycle media and journalists, there seems only one rational explanation;-

The motorcycle media and manufacturers are not only uninterested in safety, efficiency, or the future of their market sector - they're in the same camp (maybe that should be 'swamp') as the climate change deniers.
"Never mind the facts, this is how we make our money and we'll fight to avoid any change"

Well OK. It's not respectable or even rational but it's a position. And history teaches that dedicated consumers will fight just as hard to avoid reality, even if it hurts, and costs more to go slower. They'll just have to hope that this irresponsible attitude continues to wash with the punters!

Think I'm exagerating? Remember the struggle to get safety design into cars? The resistance to seat belts? Armco (in F.1) It's the same game. Motorcycles, it's long been said, are twenty years behind cars. But that's wrong. In terms of Handling, comfort, safety and efficiency it's more like thirty years.

I'd like to hear from BMW, Honda, Suzuki or any other car manufacturer that also makes motorised bicycles, an explanation of how they reconcile their dedication to these qualities in their cars while ignoring them in their PTWs. Is it that, like the British State (for instance), they don't care about PTW users?

It might also be interesting to hear from the media, from some famous journalist like Kevin Cambell or other, as to how the specialist media justifies ignoring the benefits, proven over decades, of moving on from the motorised bicycle. Oh, but I already know. He denies they exist. Anyone else care to do better than that? I think there's a case to answer.

Whoops..

I'm sorry, brain fade there - I should have said Kevin CAMERON when I mentioned a famous journalist (above). Kevin has been denying the advantages of FFs for some time now. I know he's seen the post above and I'm hopefull he'll answer the points there, instead of his usual response - which is to talk interestingly, but irelevently, about his long experiences of motorised bicycle racing.

Come on down Kevin, I'm sure everyone wants to hear how we've been wrong all along....

(Mr. Cambell is another journalist I'm also trying to talk to about PTW safety..)