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Monday, March 8, 2010
Czysz C1 990 MotoGP racebike. Innovation hasn't happened in motorcycles to this extant in, perhaps, decades
Posted by st at 10:33 PM
Image via: http://www.asphaltandrubber.com/oped/tradition-business-model-motoczysz/
40-year-old American architect Michael Czysz from Portland, Oregon was an architectural designer by trade, a damn good one, he heads Architropolis which has done work for celebs Lenny Kravitz and Cindy Crawford.
But his father and grandfather were motorcycle mechanics, and Micheal wanted to make his mark in the MotoGP world, and he has now done more, he's invented a new engine design, new front forks and front suspension design, new chassis design, and engineered and manufactured it to full functionality, perhaps even competiveness. Definitely breaking apart from the paradigm of prior engine design, and pulling a fully realized racing motorcycle from paper to race track in about 3 years.
HD Theater on cable tv had a one hour show about all of this, and I was blown away at the total single handed design of a previously unheard of motor. Then they showed how Michael drew up a new design of all the other things I've mentioned.
But think about just the one part, the engine.
A new design. When was the last new design in engines of any kind engineered or produced?
The Dual over head cam 427 Ford in the 60's? The Wankel (rotary engine) in the 70's? It took about 10 years of GM and other companies putting full engineer teams at work to make a rotary engine actually work, and then Mazda to perfect it. . . but Michael designed, engineered, built, and perfected his split crank counter rotating inline 4 cylinder engine... in months. Start to finish, paper to combustion, in months.
Then he puts this inline with the wheels, countering gyroscopic torque that causes wheelies, and it also doesn't screw around with the bike's rolling left or right when turning.
To read a real motorcycle journalists description of it, and thoughts on the ride he had: http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/firstrides/122_0507_radical_c1_990/index.html
For an update on what happened after the C1 990, and how MotoGP reducing the engine size from 990cc to 800cc, read this http://www.asphaltandrubber.com/oped/tradition-business-model-motoczysz/
July 2011 update http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/06/motoczysz-e1pc/
But his father and grandfather were motorcycle mechanics, and Micheal wanted to make his mark in the MotoGP world, and he has now done more, he's invented a new engine design, new front forks and front suspension design, new chassis design, and engineered and manufactured it to full functionality, perhaps even competiveness. Definitely breaking apart from the paradigm of prior engine design, and pulling a fully realized racing motorcycle from paper to race track in about 3 years.
HD Theater on cable tv had a one hour show about all of this, and I was blown away at the total single handed design of a previously unheard of motor. Then they showed how Michael drew up a new design of all the other things I've mentioned.
But think about just the one part, the engine.
A new design. When was the last new design in engines of any kind engineered or produced?
The Dual over head cam 427 Ford in the 60's? The Wankel (rotary engine) in the 70's? It took about 10 years of GM and other companies putting full engineer teams at work to make a rotary engine actually work, and then Mazda to perfect it. . . but Michael designed, engineered, built, and perfected his split crank counter rotating inline 4 cylinder engine... in months. Start to finish, paper to combustion, in months.
Then he puts this inline with the wheels, countering gyroscopic torque that causes wheelies, and it also doesn't screw around with the bike's rolling left or right when turning.
To read a real motorcycle journalists description of it, and thoughts on the ride he had: http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/firstrides/122_0507_radical_c1_990/index.html
For an update on what happened after the C1 990, and how MotoGP reducing the engine size from 990cc to 800cc, read this http://www.asphaltandrubber.com/oped/tradition-business-model-motoczysz/
July 2011 update http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/06/motoczysz-e1pc/
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