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I would love to see electronically on the fly adjustable suspension, but I doubt it will be any time soon.
More like this is where we're headed... (Super Hunky story) Just change "1984" to "2032".
*******
SUNDAY MORNING RIDE … 1984
By Rick Sieman/April 1973
(Notes: Consider the fact that this story was written in 1973. It was so prophetic that it's frightening. Not only was it way ahead of its time back then, it rings hard and true today. Over the years, I've drawn literally thousands of letters regarding this chilling little piece. Its purpose was to scare the off-roading community to get off its dead ass. Clearly, even though the story had impact, it failed in that respect.)
We hear a lot of talk about what riding will be like in the future, you know, 20 years from now. From The Saddle tries to mirror the way it is today—but what would a story in From The Saddle be like in 1984? It might be more of a nightmare than a story...
A narrow slit of sunlight knifed through a gap in the curtains. It was this that caused Adam Spence to wake up.
When he did awake, he snapped his eyes open in excitement. This was Sunday morning. And that meant one thing—today was riding day. Today that good old dirt bike gets fired up and it's ride, ride, ride. Hot damn!
Let's see … time for a quick breakfast? Nope. It's almost 7:15. Time's a-wastin'.
Adam descended the shaft leading to the communal garage—his machine was stored in cubicle 14. There it was. Sleek, purposeful and mean looking. Jagged knobs bristled on the tires and the hydro-pneumatic suspension valves reflected light off their stainless chrome surfaces.
The machine was a 125cc Yamaha AT-27-MX and was the finest money could buy. It handled like a dream and put out the maximum horsepower allowable under current government regulations—8½ at the rear wheel. And it was all paid for—that was the best part.
Loading up took little time—eagerness helped. Adam hadn't been riding for over three months and was more eager than usual.
OK. Helmet, boots, gloves, goggles, protective clothing, mandatory wrist identification … hmmmmm. Forget anything? Oh Christ—almost forgot the permit!!! Let's see, where was it last? Near the dresser by the bed? Yeh, here it is. Man, you don't want to lose one of those permits— they're too hard to come by.
As Adam drove out to the main road, it was hard to restrain the excitement. Thoughts flickered through his mind, fun thoughts. “I wonder what I should ride first today? An enduro, or maybe a few hot laps around the motocross course? Or maybe I should spend most of the day in the desert. I've always loved to ride the desert. Oh well, I'll just make up my mind when I get there—that's what always happens anyway.”
An hour and a half later, he arrived at the Multi-Track. It was hard to miss that giant building, covering nearly three city blocks. And that sign—wow! Almost 80 feet high, showing a rider doing a wheelie. Sent shivers up your back and sure made you want to get in there and do some dirt riding.
Adam presented his identification and permit at the window and was given his Class 4 badge—something very difficult to earn these days. This meant he was allowed to ride all types of tracks, except the roundy-round stuff, which he didn't care for anyway.
The lift/hoist removed his machine from the truck and the lady gave him an assigned number. Section 34B. Hot dog! The best section in the house! This was going to be a good day. Adam could just tell.
He entered the transporter tube and punched 34B on the console panel. Moments later, the doors whispered open and there he was. Section 34B, a favorite among riders all over the nation. Some people even drove hundreds of miles just to ride this beauty.
And there his machine was, sitting patiently with the energy cord plugged in to the powerplant. Was it fully charged yet? Nope. The red light on the tank was still blinking. Adam buckled on all of his gear, the sound of the Velcro strips music in his ears. Just as the last glove was locked into the sleeve, the red light on the tank went out. Ready—the machine was fully charged and set for a full ride.
Adam disconnected the power cord and pushed the machine over to the Section Entrance. Unsmiling, the attendant demanded to see his permit. A mild moment of panic hit Adam, but the permit was right there in his pocket where it was supposed to be. A selector was clipped to his handlebar and the attendant opened the door and let man and machine into the riding area.
It was beautiful! The large turntable-like platform measured nearly 100 yards around at the outer circumference, possibly the biggest and most demanding course in the country. Oh sure, there was one bigger in Belgium, but that one had been built years ago and was nowhere near as elaborate as this beauty.
The texture of the dirt was perfect—as always. Loamy and soft, with no rocks. Bumps, 10-foot slopes and several heart-stopping jumps made this a rider's track. Not one of those nothing tracks in the smaller towns. This one was a test—a real test—of the suspension.
Adam checked everything over carefully. Sixty pounds of pressure in the suspension, power unit fully charged, all ready. Now, what kind of riding?
How's about a little desert—start the day off right. He flipped the selector to Desert and almost immediately the platform started moving, like a giant record.
The walls and the ceiling came alive as cameras projected the proper image. Joshua trees flashed by, the sky was an incredibly eye-hurting blue and the mountains in the distance loomed up high and proud.
Adam was so caught up with the beauty that he almost fell. Whuuup! Better pay attention to the business at hand. Those bumps will getcha if you're not watching.
A series of whoopdies rippled ahead, but the suspension did most of the work of soaking up the harsher jolts. Standing on the pegs did the rest.
Deep sand loomed up, the rutted wheel-grabbing kind. Adam got his weight back and rolled on the throttle. The bars waggled. some—not bad—but enough to demand no errors on the part of the rider.
Perspiration broke out on his brow and breathing became deeper. Dirt riding was hard work, indeed.
A smooth section came up and Adam reached down to the Selector and deftly flicked the sound switch to 112 decibels on the “A” scale. Almost immediately, the sound of a crackling expansion chamber saturated the platform, raping his eardrums in the process.
But the assault on his ears was music. Good music. It was amazing how the sound of the chamber synched perfectly with every nuance of his throttle hand. Tweak the throttle, and the crescendo blitzed upward—back off and the sound muted and popped. Bitchen'.
Time was fleeting, so Adam once again reached for the selector and this time hit the Enduro button. The desert background vanished and was instantaneously replaced with deep, black-soiled woods. Flickers of sunlight filtered through the overhead branches. Adam drew a deep breath. Mygawd, that's beautiful, he thought.
Obstacles flashed up in front of him and he got up on the pegs to work the bike around them. Going was gnarly and all of his skill was required to keep from making contact with the 3-D images of trees, rocks and the like.
A buzzer snarled at Adam, warning him that the last tree hazard had not been missed. More concentration was required and he settled down to the business at hand. This slow riding was even tougher than the fast stuff—really took a lot out of a rider. Whew.
Adam glanced at his watch. Not much time left—better get in some motocross before his riding period expired.
Click.
Bodies hurtled by and slammed the gate right in front of him. Even though he knew they were just images, it was still frightening. Adam scrambled for the first turn, passing several of the images and making contact with several more. Angrily, the buzzer warned him of his clumsiness. He made a mental note to be more careful—too many buzzer violations and that old riding permit would get yanked for six months or so.
The platform speeded up, as it always did for the motocross action. Bumps that had previously been average suddenly took on a new, more vicious character.
He had to ride wider and wider to make the turns, using all of the available platform and coming perilously close to leaving the platform at times.
Adam got caught up in the frenzy of competition and worked the machine for all it was worth—thrust, slide, jump, pass, weave in and Out of traffic until his forearms were burning.
But he still pushed harder and harder. And the harder he pushed, the better he rode. No buzzers snarled at him, even though he was riding right in the thick of all the action. Adam was completely caught up in the heat of competition ...then...
…then, everything stopped. All of the images disappeared. Motion ceased. The platform no longer moved. And the little red light on his tank flashed accusingly that his time was, indeed, up.
Reality was brought back with sudden harshness. Being yanked back to earth this quickly was always depressing. It always seemed to happen during motocross. Adam made a mental note to try and ride enduros towards the last on his next ride.
As he was pushing his machine out of 34B, another eager rider was waiting at the entrance. Adam envied him—but, three months from now, he'd be back. Just show some patience.
When he got to his vehicle, his machine was already loaded on the carriers for him, just one of the many niceties of this Multi-Track. An undefinable feeling of depression settled over Adam as he headed for his apartment. It sure would have been nice to ride a bit longer. Oh well.
Then he saw it. Among all the buildings by the Main Way, there was a section of open ground. Obviously, several older buildings had been torn down and the land was awaiting construction of the new buildings. But there it was—several acres of dirt. Real dirt. And it wasn't fenced in.
Adam pulled off at the next Loop and worked his way back to the construction site. No one was around. He was tempted … hell, why not? What could they do to him, anyway?
He was sure that at least 20 minutes of power was left on the reserve units in his machine.
A few moments later, the bike was unloaded and he flipped the lever to reserve. Sure enough. Nearly a half hour left. He fired the powerplant up and checked everything over—mostly out of force of habit.
A dab on the left side engaged the converter and the bike moved off. Hey, this is really neat, thought Adam. He pitched the machine down and threw a rooster tail high into the air.
Grinning like a man possessed, he slithered and slid all over the cobby construction site. At the end of a very few minutes, Adam had a homemade track laid out. He was panting so hard that he was forced to take a short breather. Wow, this was real work! Sweat coursed down his brow and the salt stung his eyes. But he was happy.
Leaning forward on the bars, he surveyed the area about him. All these buildings and, right in the middle, my own personal dirt riding area, thought Adam.
These were his last thoughts.
A milli-second later, the sharp sound of a firearm cracked and echoed. The bullet entered Adam's forehead and passed through his brain. He was dead before his head slammed against the crossbar.
The little red light on his tank blinked. The Sunday morning ride was over.
Your starter/battery contribute to the acceleration/traction during “start mode” and other short periods of time when needed for extra speed.
Pit Row
I really don't think you're going to see a whole lot of 3D printed parts in a production environment, mainly because these bikes are mainly constructed from aluminum components and the cost/difficulties of printing aluminum are pretty high. There are a lot of challenges with shrinkage ratios using binder jetting methods, and with SLS methods you can end up with a lot of internal stresses in the parts that need to be relieved with heat treatment. All of those things can be overcome but the ends have to justify the means, and in a mass production environment we're just not there yet.
https://youtu.be/aVUxK1mNups
1. get rid of the shift lever... bent/broken levers can easily ruin a race... go to thumb shifting up on the bars, out of harm's way...
2. the area around our feet to knees needs to be massively improved.. we need much better grip in that area.... something like formed plastic panels with grip tape would do the trick.... the area needs to be flatter and easier to grip with boots/knees...
3. larger diameter tires....
4. reduced suspension travel...
if you want max power (for like drag racing or hill climbs), that's electric.. but that's also heavy and takes a while between runs to cool and charge...
its gas if you want lightweight and noise... more than enough power for our tires on loose surfaces...
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