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Steve S.

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About Steve S.

  • Birthday 08/08/1960

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  • My bike(s)
    Y2K Jackal

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  1. Steve S.

    Steve S.

  2. Not only is WG down, but the lack of overflow onto the other 'Guzzi forums makes me worry that most of the prolific posters have been abducted by aliens.
  3. Steve S.

    Car vs. Guzzi

    Great Question! Of course the best defense in this case is a good offense. If you've kept tabs on all traffic around you, and if you've already got escape options cleared you won't have to waste precious time making sure you don't crash into something else while avoiding the comfy-chair, a much more serious situation on a bike than in a car. But the original question was about the dynamics of quick maneuvers on two wheels versus four. A car turns by simply steering it's wheels to a new direction, but it can't fully use that force until the suspension is fully compressed on the outside, and extended on the inside. The tires also take some time for the sidewalls to deflect. A nice smooth-riding Lincoln or Mercedes is at a disadvantage here, a lightweight stiffly-suspended car like an open-wheeled race car can turn so fast it'll startle you. A motorcycle turns by camber thrust. It must first be leaned (by countersteering of course) before it can turn. Suspension stiffness matters less on a bike; what really makes a quick transisioning bike is front-end geometry and mass-centralization, and both of those are compromised for straight-line stability. But a bike won't have to move as far to avoid a collision 'cause it's skinnier. I guess if I had the choice of two wheels or four in any potential collision, I'd take the four-wheeler just because there's less risk of injury to me. If I knew I was going to crash I'd never take the bike.
  4. I like that 'cause it shows the secondary imbalance at 2*RPM across the frame when a 90 degree v-twin is installed as God intended, longitudinally! I still don't see the asymmetrical piston acceleration accounted for though. The other missing element is the torque around the crankshaft center as a result of acceleration and decelleration of the rotating mass. This is a large part of the varying vibration we feel when the engine is loaded, especially at lower RPMs.
  5. I Think Mr Irving has forgotton to consider that the speed of the piston in a recip engine doesn't change in a sinusoidal fashion. The acceleration rate is higher through TDC than through BDC because the crankshaft angle at the center of the stroke isn't at 90 degrees. And the shorter the rod, the greater the disparity. It's cool how there are two simultaneous topics in this thread!
  6. That's what I was gonna chime in about! Also that since a recipricating force cannot be perfectly balanced by the force resulting from a rotating mass, it's not unreasonable to find that the difference in forces is greater with heavier parts. Oh, and with the exception of that unfortunate "transverse" thing, Gordon was right because the polar moment of the chassis is greater front-to-back than it is sideways.
  7. I've been riding about 32 years now having started on little pieces of junk cobbed together in the garage for a precious few minutes of glorious freedom between blow-ups. Dad was very tolerant if not very supportive, Mom, I think, understood (she still wants a Vespa). At present I've a very good Morini 500 Sport and a Y2K Jackal. I'll probably aquire a spine frame soon, most likely a LeMans, when the Jackal will retire to sidecar duty since the kids want to ride along. I've been called a wasteful over-maintainer, but I enjoy trouble free motoring much more than roadside repairs, especially with my 190 mile commute and a couple of 600 mile trips each summer. And it's a hoot to see how shocked people are when they see the milage on my odometer (almost 50,000 on the 'Guzzi) and it looks and sounds like it has a quarter of that. I've briefly roadraced a car but have never been tempted to do a track day on a bike. Maybe I've missed something, but I don't think so. Motorcycles to me represent honest machinery in a very pure form and maybe just a little bit of the freedom I was looking for back in dad's garage in Apalachin, NY with a borrowed wrench in my hands on a fine summer day in 1971.
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