World's fastest Lithium-ion battery bike crashes

[quade]

Originally Posted by SegwayDan

Helmet schmelmet. The barnstormers of the '20s and '30s wore leather caps, and their motto was, "A good flight is one you can walk away from."

You do realize that was a JOKE and not SOP? The reason for the leather caps was because it was cold and any sort of helmet does very little good in an aircraft accident.

I admire this guy's spirit of adventure, ingenuity, and aplomb. On his back after the crash he calmly said, "The throttle stuck on." That's a true engineer and inventor.

Or somebody trying to rationalize his way out of his own stupid actions by blaming the equipment rather than himself.

Admire the accomplishment, and again, the fact that *American* ingenuity is still alive and well--with Bill Dube and KillaCycle, Apple, Inc., Segway, Inc., et al.

The device is amazing, however, the over the top patriotism is a bit much. Being American has nothing to do with it. Being a captialist and trying to make money is far more of a motivating factor here.

[hellphish]

You're funny Quade. Are you saying he was lying about the throttle? A helmet wouldn't help the throttle unstick and he didn't have any head injuries so I'm not sure what you're on about.

[quade]

Originally Posted by hellphish

You're funny Quade. Are you saying he was lying about the throttle? A helmet wouldn't help the throttle unstick and he didn't have any head injuries so I'm not sure what you're on about.

I'm saying that electronic throttles should very rarely stick and it's far more likely he's simply trying to rationalze his way out of an embarrassing situation.

Frankly, I'd be far more worried about a company that couldn't make a reliable throttle control on the "world's fastest Lithium-ion battery bike", so, I'm not so certain that's an example of brilliant "American ingenuity" there.

[hellphish]

I mostly agree with you actually. Electronic throttles should very rarely stick. But very rarely doesn't mean never, and I don't think we've seen enough lithium ion powered drag motorcycles to conclusively determine their failure rate. I'm willing to give the man the benefit of the doubt, as he obviously didn't mean for the bike to keep going like it did.

[KSagal]

Originally Posted by quade

I'm saying that electronic throttles should very rarely stick and it's far more likely he's simply trying to rationalze his way out of an embarrassing situation.

Frankly, I'd be far more worried about a company that couldn't make a reliable throttle control on the "world's fastest Lithium-ion battery bike", so, I'm not so certain that's an example of brilliant "American ingenuity" there.

So... If I follow your logic, then he decided to crash into that minivan, and then realized it was embarrassing, so he decided to lie about a stuck throttle, even in obvious pain. Your presumption is that his embarrassment was more important to him than the pain? Or that he really did not mind damaging that machine, and was only embarrassed about it?

I suspect that something mechanically or electronically did go wrong, and he did his best to minimize the problem, even if he did not use the best judgement in demonstrating where he did and with the lack of safety equipment.

I agree with Dan's statement of having some pride in this great land, and some of it's finer minds. I see nothing wrong with that at all, and surely see no reason to try to diminish that. Other lands and peoples also have achievements to be proud of...

I think that most of us have diminished our own successes from time to time with a bit of less than stirling judgement, but that should not remove the earned credit for hard work and enlightened imagination.

[bystander]

Bill Dube takes his lumps on the killacycle blog page:

http://www.killacycle.com/2007/09/13...a-little-bent/

I’m Fine (scapes and cuts) Bike is a little bent….

First off, I’m just a bit scraped up. Embarrassed of course. I had not intended the bike to move in the soapy water, just spin the tire.

Got it slowed down to about 20 mph. Front wheel is bent, as are front forks. Cowling is not nearly as pretty as it was.
Battery box took a hit from the front wheel. Almost certainly, some cells were shorted. No smoke. No fire. Ultra safe cells. Had these been anything but A123 Systems Nano-phosphate cells, shorts would have caused a serious fire.

No major damage. We will have it fixed in short order.

Important to note: Area in front of the bike was CLEARED of ALL PEOPLE. NO ONE was at risk but me. Concrete on both sides of area.

Yes, I am an idiot for not wearing a helmet. :-/

Many comments there. Bill responds to a few of the comments with italic formatted text (which I've colored dark green):

a1fa
September 14th, 2007 at 1:42 pm

Remember kids, clutch left, break right!

There is no clutch. There is no flywheel. There is no transmission. No need for any of them. Electric motors give instant 100% torque at zero RPM.

James
September 14th, 2007 at 2:10 pm

You said: “I had to release the front brake to fully untwist the throttle.”

I trust you built a kill switch into the bike? If so, you need to take a basic motorcycle safety course before you ride again.

It has _three_ kill switches. One is a lanyard that I attached to my wrist (and remained attached.) Another is on the left handlebar. Another is a switch near the right handlebar. There are two, $900 3000 amp KiloVac safety contactors, one on each power cable coming out of the pack. Pulling the lanyard cuts the positive safety contactor. The switch on the left handle bar cuts the negative safety contactor. The switch near the right handle bar cuts BOTH contactors.

The main fuse is sized so that, on the strip, if you panic and just cram on the brakes, you will pop the fuse and sut the bike down.

The bike covers the first 60 ft in just over one second. I managed to figure out the problem and shut it down just before the 60 ft mark. Also notice ho long it takes for me to hit the van compared to the time to accelerate. I _almost_ had it stopped. I needed about 10-20 more feet, which is where I personally came to a stop.

If not, you need one.

RE: Your helmet, you were on the bike, the bike was on, you needed to be wearing a helmet. The “I didn’t expect the bike to move” excuse is feeble at best.

Kenny
September 17th, 2007 at 1:34 pm

wow, glad you’re alright dude. Hurting oneself sucks !! holy god that thing took off like a rocket, couldn’t tell from the vid that you actually got it slowed. I assumed you freaked out and held the throttle open the whole way, totally a reasonable reaction.

If that were the case I would be dead. I shut it down in about a second. The rest of the time I was slowing it down. Needed about ten more feet, however.

edEx
September 17th, 2007 at 10:36 pm

saw vid. glad you’re ok.

can these batteries be used for cars to alleviate oil dependency?

That is the plan. If EVs are high-performance, lots of folks will buy them. Then, they will make a real difference.

[GadgetmanKen]

I thought I heard him say he was the designer, not the rider, or something to that effect in the beginning of the video. Its my guess that he was just having a real hard time trying to hold on under all those G's. Wow. It was real convienent having that van parked in his path. Dooh! No helmet either. Dooh! Dooh! Awesome tech, tho. I am not sure why someone doesn't use that tech to add a huge flywheel or something. It reminded me of those SST zip cord flywheel motorcycles kids toys the way it took off.

[hellphish]

What would adding a fly wheel do for the bike, other than making it more difficult to turn?

[quade]

Originally Posted by hellphish

What would adding a fly wheel do for the bike, other than making it more difficult to turn?

Flywheel on an electric motocycle would be a pointless waste of energy.

[quade]

Originally Posted by KSagal

So... If I follow your logic, then he decided to crash into that minivan, and then realized it was embarrassing, so he decided to lie about a stuck throttle, even in obvious pain. Your presumption is that his embarrassment was more important to him than the pain? Or that he really did not mind damaging that machine, and was only embarrassed about it?

I suspect that something mechanically or electronically did go wrong . . .

The most important component of any powered device is the nut that holds the controls. When that fails, disaster is imminent.