I had the wants for another custom bike but have turned into a cheap old fucker since getting SS at 62.

I’m still a chopper guy and decided a Big Dog or Texas Chopper was it. Limited funds had me loosing auctions on EBay. Up pops a ‘98 Titan with no reserve only 300 miles away.

Titans were hand built in Arizona with some of the best components available at the time. 96-inch S&S, Daytec, Deltron, PM, and all polished.

I wanted a long front end, but the more I stared at the pictures I could see my future bike. So, I waited until last 20 seconds and bid. It was mine!

I had just bought a bike that sold for $29,500 new, for $3,900. Figured I had bought a real turd. Paid for next day and wow, delivered in three. It was beautiful. Red and shiny, but not my style.

The ‘90s style Pull-back bars were so bad, I couldn’t ride it. Fixed that with risers and apes I had laying around. Hill country in Texas hooked me up with cables. Took three cleanings to clean gunk out of tanks. Finally, used vinegar and was perfect.

Of course, new tires, Shinko fits my style and price. Threw away complete rear fender, seat, struts, and sissy bar. Fender was off old Buell chopper. Found a Rust-oleum color that matched perfect. Used seat also.

I hated the way the bike rode. Found a trail calculator online. Plugged in my numbers. No wonder. I had over 7 inches of trail. By installing 3-degree raked cups I ended up handling like a stock Softail.

So, after all these years, I’m still building the same bike, Apehangers and solo–and cheap. I have less than $5,000 in it. This is a fun bike. Makes this 65-year-old guy feel young again!

Ever hear of this? The Elephantrefeen Ralley. I went to it a Nurenburgring in the middle of damn winter. I was in the Army from ’72-’75. Snow and ice. Actually, rode my bike around the ring as fast as I could being very drunk and stoned. I bet other brothers that are veterans went. I know I wasn’t the only GI there.

–Wayne

Owner. Wayne Richmond
Where: La Luz NM

Engine: 96-inch S&S
Year: 1998
Manufacturer: Titan
Model: Coyote
Finish: Shiny

Okay,

This was completely off the cuff. I was just about to suit up for a ride across Los Angeles and deciding what to wear. Recently, a brother gave me this vintage H-D jacket and it fit like a glove, so I thought I would give it a shot. It was sorta against the code of the West, since I’m into my 5-Ball leather line and should promote my shit, but I thought, “What the Hell.”

I laid the H-D piece that probably cost about $500 on my bed and started to stack up shit I needed to take, like my phone, gate clickers, Indian keyless ignition switch and keys, bracelets from the Buddhist temple (for gifts), guns, knives and well you know, the shit.

Suddenly the H-D jacked wouldn’t work. It only had one breast zipper pocket and one shallow interior pocket. It had two zipper, slip-your-hands-in pockets, but I usually don’t put anything in them. I don’t like zippers on pockets that I slip my sensitive hands into–not comfortable.

I was forced to abandon the H-D unit and grab my 5/8 brown Jak shirt with two breast snap pockets for business cards and the gate clicker, two deep interior gun pockets for cell phones, cameras, gifts, and my Indian keys.  Then it also has our exclusive media pocket (in the back), incase I needed to carry a magazine or legal documents.

I was pleased with the move. I should only wear 5-Ball Racing Leathers anyway, but it made my day that our jacket stood tall against the big guys.

–Bandit

http://shop.bikernet.com/

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Honda has announced that its electric scooter Benly e will go on sale from April 2020. The e-scooter will first go on sale in Japan, then in other global markets, says the company in a release.

The scooter will be priced between 7.37 lakh yen and 7.48 lakh yen.

Honda aims to sell around 200 units of the scooter per year in the Japanese market.

The electric scooter targets corporate customers, mainly logistics providers.

The scooter will be available in four different variants. It will be powered by dual electric batteries that can be detached easily and easily swappable as well.

As the two-wheeler manufacturer claims, this electric scooter can be used for last-mile pick-up and delivery services.

by Bill Roberson from https://www.forbes.com/

Despite the fact that they have built an electric motorcycle, French tech company NAWA Technologies, or just NAWA for short, isn’t in the business of building electric motorcycles – they build batteries. But maybe they should reconsider the motorcycle market option, especially in light of the one-off bike they did just indeed build, because it’s a serious looker packed with possibly industry-changing technologies.

The NAWA Racer’s sleek, minimalist styling comes courtesy of a collaboration with Envisage Group, who have been involved with Jaguar and other brands that want some cool lines with their new tech. One highlight is a hubless rear wheel, although the bike is covered in cool touches including the wrap-around LED taillight and duck-tailed seat.

But beyond the slick lines and hubless rear hoop of the NAWA Racer, the cafe-racer inspired from-the-future motorbike carries an underlying technology that significantly boosts performance and could signal a significant step forward for electric motorcycle performance – or the performance potential of anything that needs batteries for motive power, including electric cars.

NAWA has added a supercapacitor to the Racer (NAWA calls it an ultracapacitor, and have branded it as NAWACap), and the short version of the technese is this: A supercapacitor is similar to a battery, except it can be charged in seconds, and can then dump that charge at an extremely high rate – far beyond what a battery can provide – for an instant boost in power. It can also repeat that feat millions of times without any substantial performance losses. NAWA isn’t the first company to put a supercapacitor into service; supercar maker Lamborghini is integrating a supercapacitor system into their new Sián hypercar (sorry, but all 63 are sold out at $3.6 million per copy).

According to information provided by NAWA, the Racer has a relatively small 9kWh lithium-ion battery pack, and a .1kWh NAWACap ultracapacitor located in the upper pod above the pack in the frame. The inclusion of the NAWACap system has multiple advantages. Since it can be charged in seconds by regenerative braking (preferably) or the Li-ion battery (or both), it’s pretty much always ready to give a power boost when physics puts the largest load on the battery: From a stop or during hard acceleration. NAWA claims the racer can go 0-60 in about three seconds with a top speed of about 100 miles an hour. The Racer’s motor puts out about 100 horsepower, and NAWA says that since the supercapacitor system cuts down on needed battery capacity, the Racer weighs in at about 330 pounds – far lighter than some current electric motorcycles like the Zero SR/F, which tips the scales at 485 pounds with a 14.4kWh battery. That improved power-to-weight ratio also helps in performance metrics and improves handling.

Additionally, the NAWACap system extends the urban range of the Racer since the motor can be smaller, lighter and has to push less weight around. NAWA is claiming 186 miles of urban range, where the NAWACap system will be in its element, sucking up free electrons from the regenerative braking system in stop-and-go traffic. Highway range would be less, of course.

The Lamborghini Sián and the NAWA Racer are shining more light on both an ongoing problem and a potential elegant solution around the limitations of lithium-ion batteries, which currently power pretty much every electric car, hybrid, electric motorcycle, ebike and cell phone in the world. The problem? Lithium-ion batteries, wondrous as they are, take a relatively long time to charge. Also, they are not able to dump power into a drivetrain at a very high rate – unless you can pile a literal ton of them into your vehicle, as Tesla and others have done, but which you cannot do with a weight-sensitive machine like a motorcycle. Also, batteries can catch fire if severely damaged, and their lifespan is limited. Capacitors, which have been around for about as long as electricity, have none of those problems – but there’s a reason we don’t use them as long-term energy storage devices just yet: They are not able to hold a charge over long periods of time like a battery, and they currently have low energy density compared to most batteries. If those issues could be solved, they would touch on the holy grail of battery technology: The Solid State Battery.

To put this in perspective, consider that if a Tesla used supercapacitors (or a solid state battery) instead of a lithium-ion battery pack, you could likely charge it in a fraction of the time it now takes to fill a traditional car with gas. As in: A minute or so. Additionally, an array of supercapacitors would also be able to pump huge amounts of energy into a vehicle’s drive system, resulting in incredible acceleration even beyond the feats of Ludicrous Mode and so on. But again, because they cannot hold a charge for long and have low energy density, they are not yet practical for uses as a primary energy storage system. NAWA’s solution with the Racer? The battery/supercapacitor hybrid.

Just like battery technology, capacitor tech isn’t standing still either. Work is ongoing on making supercapacitors even more super by lengthening the time they can hold a charge and otherwise improving every other aspect of their performance. While powering vehicles with supercapacitors was once something talked about on the fringes of EV R&D forums, the tech is now heading mainstream, and we should expect to see more vehicles with ever better supercapacitors in the near future. For now, all we can do is hope some OEM slips a check under the door at NAWA Technologies and brings something like the Racer to market sooner than later.

If you’re going to be in Las Vegas for CES 2020, check out the NAWA Racer at their booth in Eureka Park.

It’s been seven years since we wrote about the Driver Alcohol Detection System and Safety (DADSS) program–A Frog in the Pot, E-newsletter #187–and efforts to make ignition interlock devices standard equipment in all vehicles. Proponents of forcing all drivers to pass alcohol detection testing before being able to operate their cars are nothing if not determined.

The Reduce Impaired Driving for Everyone (RIDE) Act of 2019, per U.S. Senate Bill 2604, and its counterpart House Bill 3159, keeps their hopes alive by requiring all new vehicles to have alcohol detection systems within four years.

We recognize the politically incorrect timing of addressing the issue of impaired driving during the holiday season, and restate that the NMA does not support, encourage, or condone drunk driving. Impaired drivers who put themselves and others at risk do not belong on the road. But we also do not support zero-tolerance concepts that subject the vast majority of non-imbibing motorists to intrusive testing every time they get behind the wheel.

The unreliability of detection technology is a major cause of concern. False positives are commonplace. Imagine a DADSS device that requires the driver to submit a breath sample to start a car, and to also give regular-interval samples while the vehicle is in motion, forcing shutdown at inopportune times and possibly under unsafe conditions. And if those “rolling samples” require active involvement by all drivers, distracted driving will become an even more widespread road safety concern.

SB 2604, sponsored by Senators Tom Udall (D-NM) and Rick Scott (R-FL), currently sits with the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. The House bill, 3159, is sponsored by six Republican congressmen and women and is being considered by the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit Committee. Consider reaching out to members of both committees, particularly those who represent you directly. Ask them questions like:

1. What is the false-positive rate of DADSS, and how will that be taken into account?
2. How will DADSS distinguish driver vs. passenger BAC levels?
3. Will DADSS include external reporting capabilities, e.g., be tied to V2X (“vehicle to everything”) connectivity? If so,
   1. Will the system report every episode of an intervention, false positive or not, to an authority for possible assignment of a penalty? What privacy safeguards will be put into place?
   2. How will the system determine who was operating the car at the time of the “incident?” Will the vehicle owner automatically be assigned blame?
4. How much will the DADSS technology add to the cost of a new vehicle? Will that cost be borne by the consumer, and will there be an ongoing cost to the car owner to process DADSS data?

At the least, our elected officials should have satisfactory answers before supporting legislation that would subject all drivers to an unprecedented level of personal intrusion and regulation.

Join the NMA Today https://www.motorists.org/join/

Dandon Miller was on his way home from Philadelphia this past Memorial Day, and he was stuck in a highway traffic.

He pulled his motorcycle aside and found out that the reason for the traffic was a bald eagle.

“I looked down to see why everyone was stopping and there was a bald eagle in the middle of the road,” Miller reported for The Dodo. “Another person was there and they kind of nudged her a little bit to see if she would walk off the road or fly away. She spread her wings open and was not going to go anywhere.”

Seeing no signs that the animal will move, Miller carefully went near and picked her up.

Surprisingly she was quiet and allowed him to let him wrap her in his shirt.

When they moved to safety, the man immediately dialed 911 and got in contact with Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research, which is a rehabilitation center for wild birds.

After 45 minutes that he saved the poor bird, the help was finally there.

The bird was taken to Tri-State Bird Rescue , to be treated for soft tissue injuries and an eye injury.

“Her wounds were treated by our wildlife veterinarian while the eagle was under anesthesia. The unexpected can always happen, but we are optimistic that she will make a full recovery,” said Rebecca Stansell with Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research.

And they were spot on, the eagle was able to get back into the wild one week after Miller rescued her.

–from All about Pets and Rogue

Senior Editor

Bikernet.com(TM)