Archive for: motorcycle
If you haven’t seen a detailed CAD drawing before, just walk away with the impression that it’s incredibly detailed and the result of months, sometimes years of work. But because CAD is completely within the sphere of your computer, changes aren’t too difficult — edit here, delete there, shorten this length, make that width fatter. Pretty easy, right? How about recreating a CAD drawing/model in real life? Seems next to impossible. But it’s not.
The technique the artist above (Shi Jindian) used consists of “Crocheting steel wire around an object and then extracting or destroying the object, leaving behind the wireframe”. Ok, I’ll accept that. But how exactly do you extract a full-size replica of the Chiangjiang 750 military bike? I’d go with something soft like clay being the base object to “crochet” around. But even then, that is a very delicate frame with as many wires as it has. Oh well, just point and stare folks. Point and stare.
Being the gadget/electronic/computer hardware junkie that I am, seeing new and innovative ways to build your standard computer into something that’s very nonstandard is a treat. Like many of you here, I’ve seen my fair share of gadget mods. But along your travels, have you ever seen a computer mod as “out there” as this — a mini bike transformed into a fully working PC?
The Pocketbike PC is powered by an Intel Core i7 920 processor, features an Asus P6T mobo, 6GB OCZ DDR3-1800 @ 8-8-8-26 RAM, XFX 8800 GTS video card, 1 WD 500GB hard drive, 1 Samsung 1TB hard drive, a True120 + Tricool for cooling, and a Corsair TX750w power supply. Building it only took 12 days of hard labor. Actually saving up the money to buy all said parts, however, took considerably longer, spanning a couple of months.
Overall, I’d say our boy “Saibot” from Bit-Tech did his homework and made quite the mod. I’m certainly impressed. The hardware itself won’t necessarily run circles around higher end setups, but still has more than plenty of muscle to get the job done. Do seeing things like this get your creative juices flowing?
The next time you see a car on fire off to the side of the road, picture a motorcycle or two hurtling towards the chaos to save the day instead of your typical gargantuan firetruck. That’s the goal of a test pilot program using some tweaked BMW motorcycles anyway. Weighing at £30,000 (that’s $46,000 USD to those living in the land of red, white, and blue), the bikes are far from cheap. Though in their defense, brand new firetrucks are well north of the six figure mark. So on the surface, it seems like a deal.
But how useful would a bike be in a fire? The fires these road warriors will conquer are only that of small car fires and other “brush fires” that aren’t an immediate danger to surrounding individuals or buildings, as obviously, a building would need a ton of firepower — more-so than a simple bike can provide. But their use seems to be taking off, with countries such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Sweden, Denmark, Italy and Turkey all employing at least a couple fire bikes of their own.
Speaking of fire power, the BMW-built bikes feature (2) 25-liter cannisters filled with water and foam, good for a solid three minutes of use. According to BMW however, the bikes are capable of putting out your standard car fire in as little as 20 seconds, so the seemingly small firefighting capacity isn’t actually that bad. Furthermore, specially trained drivers donned in fire resistant suits and helmets are the only ones allowed to pilot the two-wheeled machines.
It’s easy to understand that smaller fires are much more prevalent than say a five alarm gigantor fire that would require a dozen or more fire engines from multiple stations. With that said, these bikes could be an awesome tool for fire stations around the country. Hopefully the testing at Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service goes well and they decide to pick a few up. You never know, the next time you turn and look, you could be seeing one hurtling towards a fire yourself.
As far as I’m concerned, Dark Knight is one of the best Batman movies. Maybe not completely based on the overall theme and acting, but more-so on the rides, specifically the BatPod.
Well, now you can actually own your very own. The BatPod project above was created by several Batman enthusiasts to mimic as closely as possible, the real BatPod.
Hitting (I’m assuming 60) in 5.2 seconds is a breeze in this dark beast. Though plan your gas stops accordingly as the gas tank is tiny — and I mean tiny. But such things don’t matter when the end result is as epic as this.
So what about this “owning your own” deal…?
Velcro + iPad + Motorcycle sounds like a unique combination, no? Jesse Rosten from Vimeo did just that. Think of all the nifty stuff you could do!
My only cringe moment is when imagining the unfortunate event of laying the bike down and obliterating that fine iPad under a few hundred pounds of twisted metal. Then again, I’d take life over a busted bike and shattered iPad any day. You know the drill, video after the jump…
Motorcycles aren’t something we typically cover here at Gadgetsteria as after all, we’re a gadget blog. But one thing in particular that gadget aficionados seem to be infatuated with is steampunk gadgets. The steampunk chopper (real name: Black Widow) you see above you — awesome.
We’ll rationalize our decision to mention it on the fact that it has spark plugs, hence it’s an electronic of sorts. Fine by me. Would you ride off into the sunset with it? Props to designer Solifague Design. You make a mean bike.
The Awesomer
- December 16, 2009 10:52 pm
You know what I thought to myself when I was in the Honda shop last week and saw a beautiful flat black ‘06 CBR on a sweet sale? “The only thing that will make this better is rocket launchers…” Well wouldn’t you know it someone has already come along and done such a thing.
YouTube user jairust attached Estes rockets to the side of his ’06 Honda CBR and wired them up to be controlled with the touch of button. Pretty sweet if you ask me.
Perhaps if I actually had a motorcycle of my own — a stealthy, deadly looking flat black motorcycle — I might just attempt such a thing. The video of the rockets and bike in action is currently down. Jairust mentioned that due to unwieldy rockets, he would be uploading a second, more refined video showing off his creation. I just checked the YouTube link several times and found the original video has been removed. So I either caught him in between videos or it was removed by a higher power for some reason.
Whatever the case, I’m eagerly awaiting the updated video. How about you?
Neatorama > Gizmodo > YouTube
Bikers who appreciate and enjoy the added company of aother breathing body when on cross county bike rides will truly come to appreciate this latest test of sidecar innovation. Why lug around a dinky little sidecar that looks like a leech attached to your oh so dear motorcycle? Instead, pack something that will truly turn heads and thrust you into the “cool” club. If you think your side car is spacious and unique sit down…because it is nothing compared to the “Snaefell”. Francois Knorreck spent over 10 years of his live and $20,000 of his hard earned money to create the moving sculpture that you see above. As far as branding is concerned, the motorcycle is a Laverda and the car is a mashup of several different vehicles. So if you’re into style, flash, and don’t like the elements but enjoy the open road, the Snaefell is just your accessory. Pictures inside await your gazing.
