Power Thrust Curves

Or, dare I suggest, a bee em trouble you. An R1200R suit sir? Akrapovic can. Lots of the character you're looking for.

Or an Aprilia Shiver? KTM? New Nuda? The list is endless. What choice! Has it ever been this good in terms of scope of choice?

Given the type of road I find myself on more and more, the only 2 bikes I would contemplate changing to are the Nuda or KTM690. But, at this stage, I'd miss the Beemer character too much.

Maybe I'd try the griso. Or a Ducati. Doh!

Agreed on the mirrors. I'd also thought that a decent camera system would work. The screen could be central incorporated into the instrument panel.

Having said that, I'm part way through building a BMW R100, er, custom or bobber I suppose you'd call it, and have been out on a couple of test runs without mirrors. Using an open face lid, a releatively upright stance, and travelling at only moderate speed, it is surprising how easy it is to keep glancing backwards.

Jag, which bikes are you applying your comments to? Any in particular.

As a natural ludite I hate to admit a well set up injection system is (IMO) better than carbs. I've owned a Cali 3 with carbs and an otherwise near identical Cali with injectors, and the injected bike has noticably more power, idles & starts better from cold and is generally less sensitive to temperature, ambient or engine.

As for reliability, I've had no issues over the last 60,000 miles with the injectors themselves, but have had problems with (& had to replace) a throttle sensor (converts the throttle cable into an electric signal) and a reg/rectifier (at a ludicrous price) which was intefering with the signal from the engine managment system to the injectors and causing overfueling. Finding & fixing this fault cost over £400, and you don't get that fault on carbs....

I've knocked up 17,000 miles on the injected V Strom with no issues.

The only real maintenaince issue is replacing the fuel filter, you need a proper one on injected systems. Depending on where some design genius put it makes the difference between 'somat&nowt' as they say in sunny Yorkshire and a right pain in the behind. Are you reading this Mr Guzzi designer who buried mine deep in the middle of the bike?

Agreed. I'm at 5.7 lbs/RWHP which can be a religious experience.

Where?

No. Bike is 6 speed. I can finish the race in 4th gear. I get a little higher mph if I shift 5th.

Around 62 mph

I shift at 6200 rpm

No, it would continue to accelerate for 2 more gears...

Your graph shows 20-some mph in 60', but at the 60' clock the bike is doing 50-some mph.

The dyno graph you used is not real... I drew that... this is real:
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w225/half_crazy-01/DYNOGRAPHSAELARRY.jpg

Hard to say. Speedo goes to 120. I would estimate it will exceed 130 mph in 5th gear.

It will bang the rev limiter in 5th at 6700 if I let it rev out, but 6200 is where I would shift up.

Yes.

I'm not sure what we will do with the info but it's interesting.

If the bike was set up to launch harder at the start by strapping the forks down, adjusting the rear spring preload to maximum, and letting 10 psi out of the rear tire, 60' times should easily improve to 1.6 seconds. That would put the bike in the mid 11.40s for E.T. without changing the weight to HP ratio at all.

Additionally, it wouldn't be hard to take 40 lbs off it. And it could be be raced with only a gallon of race gas (instead of 4.5 gallons of 92 octane) in the fuel tank.

So far, I haven't done any of these things or had the desire to. It has never been about the best possible ET, all I wanted was to know what the bike will do... right-here, right-now... as it is ridden every day.

The classes I participate in are for street-ridden machines and so far the bike has been the quickest in its class. In fact, last year it was the quickest in 2 classes so there is nothing motivating me to chase quicker ET.

Random said: "I think he was trying to think about the maximum theoretical torque/linear force transfered to the wheel in 1st gear, translating rpm into actual speeds"

Yes. That's what I was thinking.

I'm seeing the linear force which propels us forwards as acting on the rear wheel spindle, parallel to the road surface. In the same way as we found the belt "pull", over on the "belt drives" thread, I see this force as being found by cross mulitiplying fom torque = force x radius. We know the torque. We know the radius. This is actually the force acting on the ground, at a tangent to the tyre. But every force has an equal and opposite reaction.

The road speed is a result of the rear wheel rpm and the rolling circle of the inflated tyre with bike/ rider weight on it. The exact rolling circle will be almost impossible to know but a very reasonable estimate should be found by looking at the tyre aspect ratio eg, 55% of 180mm then adding this to half the rim diameter. That gets us rolling radius. Useful for finding linear thrust. Twice the rolling radius is rolling circle. Multiply this by pi and you have rolling circumference. Useful for mph calculations. I guess that, as the tyre relies on friction, there will be a small percentage lost to slip, at all times.

I think #2 is the winner. Acceleration is definitely not constant.