Electric Tron Lightcycle Hits the Streets 113
cylonlover writes "Practicality tends to take a back seat when you combine sci-fi cult status with custom chopper building — and there's no room for a pillion passenger on the Lightcycle. We first spied Parker Brothers Choppers Lightcycle project last year when it surfaced in gas-powered form, now the company has released video of a fully-electric version of the neon-packing two-wheeler in action. The electric motor may be quieter, but this one's still guaranteed to turn heads."
First post! (Score:2)
Dodge my wall!
Shiny (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Get one for your wife. It sounds like a good trade.
Re: (Score:3)
I'd like to test drive her before I make the deal.
Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)
Forbid?...geez, what kinda pussy is this guy that lets a woman tell him what he can or cannot buy and ride?
What are you doing to do to force this? Withold sex? No big deal...there's plenty more of them out there for us to lay....
This guy isn't even married to you, I sincerely hope he has more backbone than to be 'told' what his behavior can or cannot be....
Re: (Score:3)
Dunno... it looks cool, but that's all it has going for it. It doesn't look so cool for the driver, who seems to be having trouble controlling it, or for his back (and balls!) because of how the footrests are positioned.
If you're comfortable driving a chopper with monkey bars it would be ok maybe, but I prefer a more traditional bike -- say, a hog or a sportster with the fairings and saddlebags and other garbage stripped. And no chopping or monkey hangers!
+1 "I feel your pain" (Score:2)
Even if I had the cash, wife veto in 23 milliseconds.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Serves you right for asking.
Re: (Score:2)
I see you subscribe to the "it's better to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission" school.
For my part, the permission comes in if they have shared assets - you are asking for permission to spend a fairly large amount of cash on a luxery item - do you really have that much disposable cash lying around? If yes, go for it. If no, well you might want to consider whether it is really worth it.
Sorry, I forgot this thread had nothing to do with living in the real world with real responsibilities.
Re: (Score:2)
are you really a girl?!?? :D
Re: (Score:2)
Shiny. Want one.
I don't... not until it doesn't emerge from a stick while the driver takes a fwd plunge.
Ugh... (Score:3)
Looks horribly uncomfortable and dangerously unwieldy to ride.
I think i'll pass.
Re:Ugh... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, looks awesome, but it's even more of a bling-toy than the average chopper.
Horrific riding position, little to no suspension travel, and if it has a decent-performing electric powertrain, it'll cost a fortune.
Here's how I would have done it:
1. Make it more practical. Try to massage the seating position into a more regular sportbike style. Yes it won't be 100% accurate but who needs that. You can put surprisingly wide wheels on a sportbike before the handling starts to really suffer.
2. Put a 600cc engine on it with a noisy-ass supercharger. Maybe make it gear-driven for more gear whine. It will sound sufficiently alien that people who hear it will think "WTF is that?" and it will have WAY more than enough power to haul around any extra weight.
3. At the rear, have a vertical stack of powerful LEDs, and add a sprinkler system in the back that releases a heavy, vertical line-shaped mist. This way you can hit a button to lay down a "light trail" :D A laser projection system like those fancy bike safety things could be used to lay down a line on the ground behind the bike too.
4. Get appropriately lit riding gear B-)
Re: (Score:3)
WRT 3, Better still get it spraying a cloud of tritium so that the glowing effect stays there for a while after it has passed.
What could possibly go wrong?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
So basically you want a CBR600RR that leaves a trail.
Re: (Score:2)
ecent-performing electric powertrain, it'll cost a fortune.
electric engines are up to 10 times smaller than ICE with the same horsepower, and they don't even need a transmission. if there is a problem with electric engines, it's the batteries.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah that's where all the costs come in. Sure you could have decent performance for cheap, if you just want to sprint down your street a few times :-P
Re:Ugh... (Score:4, Informative)
it's 35K, so not really the expensive for a custom bike.
it will go 100 miles, and travel at 100MPH.
It recharges in 35 minute.
Considering this is pretty much a 'ride around town' bike, all of that is a fine trade off.
Re: (Score:2)
electric engines are up to 10 times smaller than ICE with the same horsepower, and they don't even need a transmission. if there is a problem with electric engines, it's the batteries.
10 times? Are you talking about engines in the power range of a motorcycle engine (50-100 bhp)? At the very rough conversion of 1KW to 1hp, Where do you get a 50KW motor you could put on a motorcycle? I'll take leaving out the battery/fuel tank comparison, but if you include everything else (including cooling and control circuitry) does the 10x size difference still hold?
Re: (Score:2)
"Yes it won't be 100% accurate but who needs that. "
fail.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They did that within sight of a road!? That's the most dangerous thing I've ever heard of being done with a bike.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Like your mom.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Needs Stabilization (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
remember them? I see them everyday. Security people riding them, tours, rentals, warehouse people. And that's just my walk through downtown.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
You cant gyro stabilize a motorcycle... it needs to lean to turn to generate the camber thrust necessary to turn.
That's not entirely correct. Gyroscopic forces are what keep the bike from falling over at speed. In fact you control the bike by manipulating the front gyroscope (wheel) in relation to the rear through a process known as counter-steering (to turn the bike left you turn the handlebars to the right, causing the bike to lean to the left; the gyroscopic forces of the wheels, crankshaft and mainshaft keep the bike from falling over completely while you're leaning into the turn).
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Fast electric bikes aren't cheap...the price would easily go into the 6-digit zone.
Re: (Score:2)
Not really. I live in the Isle of Man, we have a rather famous road race here called the Isle of Man TT. The last 2 or 3 years there's also been an electric bike race added to the schedule.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_Man_TT [wikipedia.org]
Each lap of the circuit is 37.75 miles long (it's probably the world's longest motorcycle race circuit). The current lap record is an average speed of 131 mph on a Yamaha R6. The electric bikes still fall very, very, very far short of this, their lap record, they are averaging in
umm.. (Score:1)
that looks really uncomfortable
Why so slow? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
Hopefully, the seat would be contoured or otherwise designed appropriately, with firm padding for the pelvic bones and lots of give for what's in between.
However, it seems that there can be little suspension travel, if any, so even without the above issue, this thing looks dangerous on imperfect roads.
Still, it's pretty impressive to take something designed without any engineering in mind and produce something even a bit functional.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Darwin at work. Sacrificing your nuts for a childhood sci-fi fantasy.
Re: (Score:2)
Since it won't destroy you nuts... well, not most people, I suppose you might keep your son you stomach.
haha, I kid, yours are obviously in your wife's purse~
Re: (Score:2)
That's hardly a problem, since the video makes it look like the bike might just max out at 10 mph anyway.
I'm all for energy efficiency, the environment,etc (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
That thing always makes me think someone at Dodge was a Final Fantasy fan...
Re: (Score:2)
except the tron one is 35K, and the tomahawk is 550K
Really? (Score:1)
This will pass safety inspections? (Score:2)
Lying at that angle to ride it, I can just see every single accident, and every single time, the rider will go flying forward, headfirst.
At least the long fork bikes have them leaning backwards, with feet first..
mark
Re: (Score:2)
Riding while laying forward like that is horrible though. I've done it at higher speeds using the passenger pegs when you don't need to shift and the rear brake is useless, just to stretch. You wouldn't want to do it for long. It's like an exaggerated version of the posture on a sport bike, which already aren't designed to be comfortable.
Re: (Score:2)
Riding while laying forward like that is horrible though. I've done it at higher speeds using the passenger pegs when you don't need to shift and the rear brake is useless, just to stretch. You wouldn't want to do it for long. It's like an exaggerated version of the posture on a sport bike, which already aren't designed to be comfortable.
I'vve often ridden a hundred and fifty odd miles at a time on a sports bike (before having to refuel) they're not that bad as long as you remember to unfold/shake your legs a bit every now and then to avoid cramp. Plus it's a lot more fun going fast crouched behind a fairing than acting as a human sail and being battered to buggery at anything over 80mph.
Re: (Score:2)
Notice that the first section where he looks like he is zooming down the road is actually sped up. You can tell by the pixels, and also the water rippling in the background.
He drives in the bike lane because it can't reach road speed. That thing has 12 car batteries in it, and a steel frame with only one electric motor it doesn't have enough juice.
Re: (Score:2)
Lying at that angle to ride it, I can just see every single accident, and every single time, the rider will go flying forward, headfirst.
At least the long fork bikes have them leaning backwards, with feet first..
mark
Er, on sports and race bikes you're leaning forwards too, If you hit something head on you're going to get thrown forwards regardless.
Where's my wall? (Score:2)
C'mon, THAT is the one feature everyone wants, to have that idiot blinding you with his lights crash into your wall when you do a 90 degrees turn.
But even with a wall it would be rather hard to convince me to ride a bike sitting on my NUTS. Especially a bike with near-zero suspension.
No jet walls? (Score:2)
New tron bike game on iPhone iPad (Score:1)
Awesome new lightcycle game came out the other day, it's pretty sweet
http://flashbikearena.com/
They call them "flashbike"s though LOL
"Testing the Bike and Lights" (Score:2)
Not as cool as the Monotracer (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
The Quasar Bikes [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Now that reminds me of the game Cyberbykes. '80s-tastic!
Actually, no. The Quasar wasn't the first. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
The Peraves Monotracer is a Swiss-built cabin motorcycle which is not only practical, it has to be one of the coolest vehicles ever produced (video in German).
Yeah. I dunno about you, but I'm not driving anything that looks like Humpty-Dumpty.
Re: (Score:2)
The Tron bike is pretty cool, but impractical"
thank you mister 'I don't get it.'
Re: (Score:2)
Turning (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not content with making cars that cant go round corners, the Americans step up their game and now have managed to make a motorbike that cant corner either !
gotta give 'em props for that
They've been doing that with choppers since the 60s.
I want one... (Score:1)
Burning Man (Score:2)
Tron Games are fun! ..Flashbike (Score:1)
Artificial illumination (Score:2)
it surfaced in gas-powered form, now the company has released video of a fully-electric version
First there was gas light, now we have electric light.
When was that EVER a good thing? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Horrible yet wonderful (Score:2)
That would be very unsafe and uncomfortable. Not to mention it has almost no ability to lean, so I won't be able to corner hardly at all. The driver in the video is improperly dressed (no boots, no gloves, no jacket). It is also illegal just about everywhere in the USA to have a private vehicle with ANY type of blue lights on it.
Aside from all that, it is wicked kewl :)
Re: (Score:2)
the driver in the video is improperly dressed (no boots, no gloves, no jacket).
I thought that, but in his defence he only seems to be going walking speed.
Tron + Matrix (Score:1)
What would that mean if Neo (from The Matrix) were to ride a Tron Lightcycle.
Organic world -> Matrix Simulation -> Electronic Tron world inside a simulation -> Build a Matrix Simulation -> Pick up a phone
Anyway, cool looking bike...
OOoh... (Score:2)
WANT.
Display...maybe (Score:1)
Meh. It may be good for a display model but that's about it.
Poor handling (Score:1)
By the look of it, the "wheels" are just custom hoods over the real wheels. I'd imagine this would make it VERY difficult to corner!
Does impress the chicks though... (Score:2)
After all that effort imagine his dissapointment when he rides it past a couple of hot chicks and they don't even notice (0:30).