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Thursday, May 10, 2012
Motorcycle Types
Roper Steam Cycle
If a two-wheeled vehicle powered by steam propulsion is a true motorcycle, then the invention must be traced back to an American inventor by the name of Sylvester Howard Roper. Roper's steam-cycle hit the streets in 1869, well before the invention of the safety bicycle. The machine was powered by a charcoal-fired two-cylinder engine, with connecting rods attached to a crank on the rear wheel. However, the Roper motorcycle still placed the rider over a large front wheel.
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Motorcycles come in many different styles, each offering design and performance characteristics to accommodate specific riding conditions. Let's take a look at the common categories of motorcycles.
Examples of touring motorcycles (left) and cruisers (right)
Street Bikes
Street motorcycles come with all of the necessary equipment to be street-ready. They have lights, mirrors, a horn and a muffler. Their tires have a tread pattern that provides good traction on both wet and dry roads. Street motorcycles generally come in two forms -- touring motorcycles and cruisers. Touring motorcycles are specially designed for long-distance travel. Their most distinctive features are fairings, aerodynamic wind guards that wrap around the headlight to enhance styling and reduce drag.
Street motorcycles come with all of the necessary equipment to be street-ready. They have lights, mirrors, a horn and a muffler. Their tires have a tread pattern that provides good traction on both wet and dry roads. Street motorcycles generally come in two forms -- touring motorcycles and cruisers. Touring motorcycles are specially designed for long-distance travel. Their most distinctive features are fairings, aerodynamic wind guards that wrap around the headlight to enhance styling and reduce drag.
Motorcycle Transmission
by William Harris
A simple transmission
A simple transmission
A motorcycle engine can create an enormous amount of power, which must be delivered to the wheels of the vehicle in a controllable way. The motorcycle transmission delivers power to the rear wheel through a series of structures that include the gearset, theclutch and the drive system.
Motorcycle Engine
Motorcycle engines work the same way that car engines do. They consist of pistons, a cylinder block and a head, which contains the valve train. The pistons move up and down in the cylinder block, driven by explosions of a fuel-air mixture that has been ignited by a spark. Valves open and close to allow the fuel-air mixture to enter the combustion chamber. As the pistons move up and down, they turn a crankshaft, which transforms the energy from the pistons into rotary motion. The rotational force of the crankshaft is transmitted, via the transmission, to the rear wheel of the motorcycle.
Motorcycle engines are generally classified by one of three characteristics: the number of cylinders they possess, the capacity of their combustion chambers or the number of strokes in their power cycles.
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