October 26th, 2007
Now here’s some sideways action I’d love to get into! The Brudeli 625L is a three-wheel carver in the style of Piaggio’s MP3, but based on the KTM 625 SMC Supermotard and kitted out for high-speed sideways dirt shenanigans.
October 25th, 2007
Mick Hodge of Sydney, Australia, has always had a taste for great power. Great responsibility, however, is arguably not his strong point. Disgusted at the trade-in price it would cost to upgrade his K6 Gixxer to a K7, he decided to spend the money (and then some) on turbo-charging his existing 300km/h, 180 horsepower missile.
October 25th, 2007
Scooters are already one of the most fuel-efficient forms of transport around - but like the rest of the automotive industry, they’ll have to pull their socks up if and when the energy crisis comes about.
That’s when devices like these will come into their own - the engineering department at the University of Tasmania has come up with an AU$1500 add-on modification that turns a normal motor scooter into a hybrid plug-in ethanol-electric mile muncher that’s greener than Hitchcock on Oscars night. 1.7 litres per 100km, for our American friends, translates to almost 140 miles per gallon.
The system also includes regenerative braking, which is one of the coolest features on any electric bike, and almost worth the price of admission.
Sadly, we don’t have any photos, so we can’t see if you have to sacrifice your underseat storage to fit the device. Full details after the jump.
October 25th, 2007
Yeah, you read right. This ranks up there with some of the craziest things I’ve ever seen. Air Forced (named as a tribute to US troops in the persian gulf) is a backyard custom that started with an eBay-sourced road-legal pocketbike frame and a home-made jet turbine that started out as a truck turbocharger.
Russ Moore, the (mad? evil?) genius behind the project figured a pocketbike would be a funnier platform for a jetbike than an ordinary roadbike - “I figured as long as I was doing something ridiculous to begin with, why not make it more so. The thought hit me to put the engine into a small motorcycle. Imagine the looks on the faces of drivers around you when you passed them on a jet powered motorcycle, and it was very small. Yes the roar of a jet engine from a pocket bike would definitely be a funny experience.”
To date, this might just be the only jetbike on the planet other than the bumper-melting 400kmh US$200,000 Y2K superbike, as owned by Jay Leno. Jay’s, of course, doesn’t have the ludicrous twin afterburners!
Moore’s website has a painstaking 32-page step-by-step description of exactly how he built the bike, as well as the jet turbine itself, right down to the CAD designs and machining of parts. Skip to page 31 for testing videos showing the bike being revved to a lazy 45,000RPM, as well as some amazing night-time afterburner test videos.
Take a bow, Russ Moore, you’re a psychopath!