Think again: Automobiles

Showing posts with label Automobiles. Show all posts

Saturday, June 14, 2014

The trioka of achieving higher speed: power, wind and weight

The phase of speed beyond a certain normal speed range and sometimes what your machine gives you in terms of a super acceleration in a certain range is exhilarating, surprising, awesome and a little scared. The acceleration beyond 75 km/hr upto 95 km/hr or so without full throttle is amazing. Beyond that, going full throttle is usually a necessity on the peripheral roads of cities as they are never enough to slowly increase speed towards and beyond 100 km/hr.

There are 3 main forces at play at speeds above 95km/hr: wind/wind speed and its direction, weight (of the bike and the riders on it) and the power of the engine (juice to go each and every extra kmph).

Stillness of air is usually the best scenario for achieving high speeds as wind from an angle or blowing at your body makes it difficult to maintain balance of the bike. A higher weight of/on the bike is definitely a good counterbalance to overcome wind along with not wearing a jacket (they are usually not body-hugging and are not aerodynamic and wind can enter from the hands and bloats the jacket further offering air resistance and allowing the wind to play havoc to the balance the rider is trying to achieve). A higher body or bike weight negatively affects the speed capacity as the bike now has to lug out the extra weight and will deter the achievement of higher speeds. The other way to put it is that the power/weight ratio of the bike is reduced.

Based on this analogy, there is usually an equilibrium top speed that can be achieved and maintained under each circumstance defined by the variables wind speed and direction, power and weight of the bike and riders combined.

It is upto each rider to realise the 3 forces at play and not to overreach speed and endanger lives.

Cheers to safe and speedy riding!
P.S: Just achieved a new high speed of 112km/hr with a pillion rider on my Apache 180 ABS :)
Could have achieved a little more but restricted myself :)

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Why are bike reviews pathetic?

Every auto magazine seems to write a review of the new bike. But/yet,

1. They don't talk about after sales service in various cities.

2. They don't talk how the mileage changes after the first and second servicing.

3. They don't give the height of the seat.

4. They don't give the braking distance from 60kmph to dead halt (under standard conditions)

5. They don't talk about availability of spare parts and their costs vis-a-vis competitors.

6. They don't talk about maintenance needs of the bike and its associated costs. Some bikes need special oil and are costly.

7. Not all, even give the time needed to go from 0 to 60 kmph.

8. They don't talk about emissions vis-a-vis peers.

9. As a matter of fact, after the first review of the bike, there is hardly any follow up review done with inputs from the buyers/users to get real feedback on the bikes.

One of the best advices the magazines can give based on their "knowledge" of the industry is the how much do the spares and maintenance does the bike need compared to its peers. But, no kind of real knowledge comes from the review which help in decision making while buying the bike. Instead, each of them is off showcasing how erotic literature can be used to describe biking and the bike.

Companies on the other hand, put out info which is rather non-useful. Eg: Max torque and Max Power, Carbureter, Bore x Stroke, none of which is useful to the layman/normal user. What makes sense is the graph of the torque achieved across all rpm to see if the torque is good at low rpms (preferably vis-a-vis competitors) and graph of power achieved across all rpm.