VOL. 54 ISSUE 31 AUGUST 8, 2017 P125
think back 23 years, to 1994, can
you think of any major advance-
ment in alternative power sources
made by either Honda, Yamaha,
Kawasaki, Suzuki, Ducati, BMW
or Aprilia? Aside from the mass
(and sadly inevitable) abandon-
ment of two-stroke technol-
ogy, everything we ride is good,
old-fashioned four-strokes, from
MotoGP to a Kawasaki Z125 Pro.
Two-stroke lovers have had some
hope in recent times, especially
with KTM's brilliant fuel-injected
two-strokes, but that's only going
to last 23 years at best, unless
competition vehicles are given an
emissions respite—which, given
the current march toward zero
emissions from the EU, I find hard
to imagine.
MotoGP has a lot to answer
for. It is, in my opinion, the world's
greatest sport, but it exists for
two reasons: to sell bikes, and to
power the march of technology.
But if that technology is going to
be unsellable in 23 years' time, is
racing at that level not just a giant
waste of money for Honda, Ya-
maha, Suzuki, Aprilia and Ducati?
Formula One has been pushed
by the manufacturers into devel-
oping new technologies that will
help them sell road cars and keep
them relevant. The Energy Recov-
ery System (ERS, formally Kinetic
Energy Recovery System) is one
example of alternative power used
in racing. The system harvests
and redeploys, via an electric mo-
tor, heat energy from the exhaust
and brakes that would usually go
to waste, and can be used as a
horsepower boost for six seconds
per lap. This system has been in
place since 2009, and Infinity
has put an ERS system in their
Project Black S concept car...
Why can't MotoGP even begin to
look at something like this, rather
than just the V4, or inline-four,
four-stroke engine that can be of
use no to the wider world of mo-
torcycling down the track?
The sheer size of an ERS sys-
tem is one inhibitor, but if we don't
start developing other technolo-
gies at the highest level of racing,
via the companies that have the
most money to spend, they are
quickly going to find themselves
irrelevant when it comes to world
transportation.
If the biggest companies won't
do it, at least the smaller compa-
nies are trying to save motorcy-
cling from extinction. Leading the
alternative-fuel charge are U.S.
home-grown electric-bike start-
ups like Alta, Zero, and Lightning;
all organizations with their eyes
firmly on a prize that is being
largely ignored by the industry's
leading players. And they're all
organizations that have already
gained a huge head start when it
comes to developing the technol-
ogy required for 2040.
Electric bikes have some pretty
severe drawbacks. Battery size,
weight, range and charge times
are all serious boundaries that
must be overcome. I'll admit,
these concerns have stopped me
from getting an electric bike of my
own, even though I really do enjoy
zipping around on a Zero SR.
Alternative power need not be
boring. Currently, the only manu-
facturer with any form of alternative
power source is Kawasaki, with
their staggeringly awesome super-
charged H2 and H2R (but even
then, that's just a supercharger
bolted onto a superbike engine).
There's talk of a smaller version
coming out soon, and Suzuki has
been teasing their turbo-charged
Recursion concept for what feels
like forever. If these bikes even-
tually do make it to market, at
least there will be a semblance
of something happening at the
highest levels of the industry with
regards to alternative powertrains.
We all know the benefits of
riding a bike. If we focus purely on
the environmental benefits and not
the personal ones, according to
MCN, "A study in Belgium found
that if just 10 percent of cars were
replaced by motorcycles in our
most congested cities, congestion
would be reduced by a massive
40 percent, and also cut up to
15,000 hours a day of vehicles be-
ing sat stationary in traffic."
Hopefully, the world's bike man-
ufacturers put their thinking caps
on and start coming up with some
answers to the 2040 problem, or
we could be facing a much bigger
problem than just being stuck in
traffic.CN
