WHAT’S THE NEXT LEAP?

So there we have it; there’s a lot of logic to a motorcycle’s design and hopefully this piece has done its job of explaining where things are at and why. But the real question is where things are set to go next? It’s plain to see that the changes in bike design over the past 100 years has been evolution, rather than revolution. But there could be a real step-change in motorcycling just around the corner. Electric power is coming, and while current (!) machines are far from the finished article, improvements in battery, charging and motor technology, driven by the enormous electric car sector, will trickle down to bikes, making them far more useful.

The other change will come alongside the growth in self-driving cars. Now, a self-riding bike might sound like a joke, and tbh, no one is planning that. There really wouldn’t be any point – and current research on self-riding bikes by BMW, Yamaha and Honda is aimed elsewhere. But what we will have is smart systems, which will connect with the networks used by self-driving cars. These will ratchet up the safety on a bike – perhaps taking over control in the event of an impending crash (working out how a computer can intervene with steering is one thing the self-riding bike research is for – they can already easily control the brakes and throttle).

If you could have a bike with ‘ACS’ – an Anti-Crash System, similar to an anti-lock braking system, wouldn’t you want that? An omnipotent computer that can ‘see’ the broken-down tractor round the corner, and take over the gas, brakes and steering to prevent the impact? Or that knows exactly how fast your bike can go round the next blind bend on an unknown road, and tells you to slow down, taking over in the event you’re not going to make it?

These might sound like more daft questions – but we could be answering them sooner than we think…