A 'dream bike'
Alex Padwa, the designer whose project is illustrated on the following four pages, has taken the idea of the motorcycle and sidecar and reworked it. This is a 'dream bike', but it is also a perfectly feasible project. It could be built tomorrow with existing motorcycle parts hung on a suitable frame- though some of modifications would have to be made to improve the view from the cockpit, to give some ground clearance at the bottom of the wheel fairings and to sort out the little matter of steering the front wheel.
The conventional arrangement of motorcycle and sidecar has some advantages: cheapness; simplicity; a reasonable carrying capacity of three people and a little baggage; and, in most countries, a low rate of taxation compared with a car. Its main disadvantages are instability caused by uneven weight distribution, and lack of weather protection, at leased for the people on the motorcycle half of the combination.
Alex Padwa has overcome these disadvantages by moving the riders into an enclosed cockpit it the middle (though there is only room for two). This arrangement is lower and considerably better aerodynamically. The design is also a bravura exercise in thoroughly unusual shapes. |
