Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

·F A R I California off-road vehicle emissions E TU E. Two-stroke or not two-stroke... he internal-combustion recip roca ting e ngine which powers your tru sty bike uses eithe r a four-stroke or two-stroke cycle. The movements of a piston in a fo u r-s tro ke engine a re the in ta ke, compression, power and exha us t s trokes. Th e first stroke crea tes a partial vacuum which draws a m ixture of fuel a nd air into th e ch a m ber. The se co nd s tro ke compress es th e mi xture which is ign ited by a spark. The .expand ing gases push the piston downward in the power stro ke. On the fourth stroke, the pist on pu sh es the s p e n t ga ses o u t through the exhaust valv e. Twos t ro ke e ng ines co m bine in ta ke a nd compressi on in on e s troke, ex ha us t a nd co mb us tio n in ano ther . By p erforming a co m ple te combus tio n cycle in half as man y s t ro kes, a tw o -str ok e e ngine . d oubles the po wer pot en tial of a compa rably siz ed fou r-strok e. It Four-Cycle is a lso fu nda m e n tally si mp le r t ha n its fou r-s tro ke broth er . A two-stro ke engi ne ca n be smaller, l ig h ter a nd less ex pensive th a n a fou r-s tro ke r w it h the same power output. However, like everything else in this world, the twostroke has its flaws, p rominent among them being significantly grea ter em issions of hydrocarbons and carbon m on oxid e. Two-st ro kes also use more fuel than fou r-s trokes to ge nera te the same amoun t of po wer. Because of these factors, four-s trokes rule the streets in cou ntries which control emission levels while tw o st rokes pred ominat e in nations where cost is the main fac to r a nd a mong perfo rm ance-co nscio u s off-road en th usiasts. T program. About half tha t money goes toward environmental protection and enforcemen t. If guys can 't bu y a green sticker for their tw o-stroke we think a larg e number of those gu ys are likely to jus t bu y a tw o-s troke and 'ca tch me if you can.' Because all the popular rid ing areas ha ve enfo rceme n t, it's going to cause a lot more proliferation of ou tlaw ridi ng areas. When peopl e stop buyi ng th e s tickers, tha t's going to hur t the O HV program, which is going to hu rt envi ronmental protection. So there' s an environme ntal downsid e to this process wh ich hasn't been looked at at all." Glid den exp lains some of the benefits that the O HV pr ogram provides. "This program does seve ra l things," Glidde n says . "One is it provid es opportun ities for people to rid e, and I don ' t mea n just racers, it's famili es, too. And two, it provides for something differen t than there was 26 yea rs ago before the pro gram sta r ted . Th ose d ays we had open riding wherever people wanted to ride and there was no control, there was no re sou rce protection, there was no way that anybody could enforce any rules an d regulation. I don' t want to see th e situa tion go back to th a t because people will wa nt to ride two-s trokes and just will refuse to register them . I'm concerned abou t that." Bell expresses the sa me concerns. "If you elimina ted these vehicles you might have wha t is probably going to be . a very insignificant contribution to air quality," Bell says. "However, you are going to have a d irect and probably fairly serious impact on the gree n sticker pro- Two- Cycle In two-stroke eng ines , fresh airnuel mixture enters the cylinder wh ile the exhaust port Is stili open . Therefore, unused fue l can escape, resulting in SUbstantially higher hydrocarbon em issions. gram, which in turn will have a direct impact on protecting natural resources ' and managing a ma jor recreat ion resource. To look at the logistics, we have three and a half million Californ ians who participate in OHV recreation ." NUMBERS GAME Dahrt cl a ims t ha t in addition to ignoring possible ad verse effects of the regu lations on environ mental concerns, CARB has overstated their benefits. "Their data on emissions red uctions they're going to achieve are wa y ou t of w hack," Dahrt says. "They're assuming that t he a verage d irt bi ke is ridden about 40 da ys a year and has a l o-year life. We think those are way oversta ted. We think about 15 days a year is a more typ ical number and those bikes as they age are used less and less. The hard-co re rid ers that rid e the most bu y the new bik es, rid e them for a yea r o r two or three and trad e th em off to so meone w ho's not quite as dedicated , and by the time they're 10 ye a rs o ld, typicall y they're onl y ridden occasionally. These bik es are typically used outsid e of the real problem areas, in areas that attain sta ndards or have very minimal problems. They go to the d esert, the mou ntains. They do n't rid e them in the LA basin very mu ch." Ma nufa cturers have found va rio us ways of coping wit h the regulatory climate. Only one curren t Suzuki model, the RMX250 would be affected by the 1997 regulations, according to American Suzuki Motor Corporation Motorcycle Ma rketing Director Mel Ha rris. "Cus- tomers can be confident that Suzuki will develop and produce ad d itional fourstroke units for the U.5. market in th e future, should th ese types of units be required ," Harris says. Honda has been wo rking for several yea rs on the EXP-2, an experimental, enviro nmen tally friendlier, tw o-stroke dirt bike. Honda's engineers have been working on something they call Activated Radical Combustion, a form of that usually reviled phenomenon known as pr edetonation, which they found can actually improve fuel ec onomy a nd reduce emi ssions when ca refully con trolled. The bike was ridden and written abou t by Cycle News Associate Ed itor Kit Palmer (Issue #50, January 3, 1996: "Rid_ ing into the Future"). Honda's Vandenbe rg says, "Activated Radical Combustion co u ld be mad e to m eet th ose standa rds, but we hav e to have a sufficie nt deman d from th e marketplace . This regulation may prompt the request for it." Other companies are beefing up their selection of four-stro ke bikes. "As far as KTM, there should be some movement to four-stroke models," KTM America Presiden t Rod Bush says. "We foresaw this, as shown by our pu rchase of Husaberg." KTM produced mostly two-stroke dirt bikes before buying out the four-stroke company last year . TAKING A STAND While manufacturers try to adap t to the regulat ion s, so me members of the motorcycling comm uni ty have resolved to fight. AMA District 36 Sanction Steward Dave Pickett says he took up the stru ggle becau se no one else seemed to have . 'This came up at ou r board of directors' meeting abou t 14, 16 mon ths ago a nd everybody seemed to think tha t so mebody else was d oing somethi ng abo u t it," Picke tt reca lls . "The mo re ' p hon e calls I mad e to CM DA, AMA, MIC (Mo to rcycle In dustry Council), whoever, nobody was doi ng anyt hing . "I got a ho ld of Hy Weitzman at the California Motorcycle Dea lers Association, and he said he was really interest- ed and would I come to a mee ting. We explain ed to them that we thought we found a hole in this regulatory process. 'They (CARB) we re su pposed to do an economic impact study on California bu siness - it was n' t there . I called them and asked them if they could send me a report. They said, 'Well, we made some ph one ca lls and th e manu fa cturer s didn't feel it was going to be any effect...' They kn ew th e y' d goofed up . Th ey never heard of a Gas Gas or a Fantic. "As it stands right now, CMDA by unanimous resoluti on jumped in and is su p po r ti ng u s 100 percent. Th e MIC doesn't really want to do anything. They haven't responded." MIC Vice President Pamela Arnette told CycleNews that the MIC had not yet taken a position an d would discuss the issue at their board meet ing sched uled for May 22. "I did hear from Dana Bell, a nd I don't want to say AMA's joining us bu t I don't want to say they're against us," Pickett says. "It's sort of a wait-and-see attitude." Acco rding to Dahrt, District 36 is receiving financial su p por t from the AMA for its efforts, but the district will still be the group leading the charge. 'The board of trustees of the AMA is mostly manufacturers," Dahrt says. "As Japanese manufacturers of dirt bikes they don't want to get into a high-profile, controversial issue. So the y're not necessarily going to support us. Besides, the Japanese co uld quit making d irt bikes and it wouldn't mak e a difference to them really. They could quit making motorcycles and they'd still be making plenty of money." - Pickett says that althoug h the regulations may have seem ed like a done deal at one time, he now feels there's a good chance of effecting a change. "I'm feeling better about it. I think CARB realizes they got a seri ous problem. We're going to fight this . We' ve raised a fairly large amount of money. We have a red -hot advocate who's very, very good. "If you keep d igg ing and pushing you keep findin g more and more holes, but the key th ing see ms to be the economics. It's just going to hurt so many people and so many jobs, as well as the regi stration and gas ta x rev enu e a nd coun ty money. For what? A percentage of clean air that ev en the gov ern me nt can' t give you a number on. They're trying to get in line with the fede ral mandate but this is the wrong way to d o it and we're go ing to fight back." "Typically when CARB does something, it doesn 't get people all fired up," Dahrt says. "But when you sta rt talking abo ut taking awa y the motorcycles they love, d irt bike ride rs tend to be rather passiona te. About three years ago when the governor was proposing to steal our mon ey, the governor's office received more calls and lette rs than they've ever gotten from any gro up on any issue in hi st ory . We th ink we ca n go way beyond that this time if we need to. I'm not ready to reall y d o th at. We d on't want to mak e this a big public issue just yet . We want to work with CARB to resolve this . Recen t developments indicate that the idea of these factions w orking together is no t an implausib le one. Dahrt, Bell and other concerned parties met on May 3 with representa tives of CARB, includ ing Chairman John Dunlop. "They' re very interested in d iscussing changes we wo uld like to make to this regula tion," Dahrt says. "The chairman asked us to he lp hi m learn more about our activities and maybe go out into the field and observe." rx

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