Harley girder front end neck attachments
The next big idea was to move the pivot points from the axle to the steering head. Improvement was desperately needed, so motorcycle engineers went back to the drawing board. Thing is, leaf springs are horse and buggy technology and have limited travel, problems with dirt and rust lodging between the leaves, and tend to make very long motorcycles. Indian and other American manufacturers used variations of this idea until 1945. Suspending the front wheel opened the door to higher speeds and a measure of rider comfort.This innovation solved the breakage problem and motorcycles got safer and a little more comfortable. It quickly became apparent that simply reinforcing the bicycle forks wasn't working, so new solutions were looked for.Įngineers at Iver-Johnson studied this problem and came up with the idea letting the wheel move within the fork, controlled by a hefty leaf spring. It worked, after a fashion, but the rider no had no spring whatsoever which was, shall we say, uncomfortable Worse, all the energy generated from the bike hitting a bump had nowhere to go, so collapsed wheels and broken frames appeared next, along with a few fatalities. The first improvement engineers came up with was to braze on a triangulated set of tubes to strengthen the bicycle fork. Double reinforced forks did not break, but frames, wheels, and riders did. In addition, metal fatigue was still poorly understood and broken forks (not to mention broken riders) became increasingly common as bikes got bigger and faster.Īptly named 1901 Achilles. It lacked strength and transmitted painful jolts to the hapless rider. The simple curved bicycle fork with which late 19th and early 20th century motorcycles were equipped just couldn't hack it anymore. See, once motorcycles were hitting speeds of 35 mph and weighing in at a whopping 80 pounds, better suspension became mandatory for both comfort and rider safety. The introduction of real front-end suspension to soak up bumps marked motorcycling’s first major departure from the bicycle since the first Industrial Revolution mad scientists engineers stuffed some steam engines into some bike frames and called it a day. HISTORY: Ask RideApart: What Was the First Motorcycle Ever Built That natural springy quality was good enough for motorcycles when they measured displacement in single numbers and weren't much faster than a bicycle, but as motorcycles got bigger, heavier, and faster, engineers needed something new to keep bikes safe and comfortable. That's why bicycle wheels are typically spoked and why the forks are often curved-to absorb shocks and help keep the wheels on the ground over bumps. See, common bicycles use the springy nature of steel for suspension rather than actual springs or fancy suspension setups. The first commercially available, internal combustion bikes-Indian's Camelback Single, the first generation Harley-Davidson singles, the 1904 Triumph, etc.-still had standard bicycle fork front ends. Motorcycles even still had pedals for the first decade or so of their existence. The earliest motorcycles were little more than bicycles with little engines clipped to the frames, and early motorcycle engineering was more like bicycle engineering. Now that we have that little primer out of the way, let's talk about motorcycle suspensions. Note the standard, non-sprung bicycle forks. This 1901 Indian Camelback Single is a bicycle in all but name. Also, landing is a bit hard on the spine and kidneys. Cool, right? The problem is, with your tires off the ground you cannot stop, steer, or speed up very well. It continues in the air until gravity pulls it back down. If there is enough forward energy for the vehicle to pass over the bump, it will be deflected into the air.
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If there is not enough forward inertia to push over the bump, the vehicle stops instantly and the rider or driver gets thrown off. When that vehicle hits a bump only one of two things can happen-it either stops dead or keeps going. Imagine vehicle with no suspension at all, like a skateboard. MOTORCYCLE: The Basics: Modern Motorcycle Suspensionīeyond the obvious comfort value, a suspension’s most important job is to keep the tire in contact with the road. How engineers control and minimize the effect of that bump is one of the biggest challenges in motorcycle design. Instead of a pretty tame old-person dance, it’s an obstruction in the road that jars your entire bike and body when you slam over it. For motorcyclists though, the bump is something completely different. Videos exist, I recommend that you do not watch them. You and your partner just stood beside one another and bumped hips while Parliament-Funkadelic laid down the beat. It was pretty simple as 70s-era dances went. What about the bump? In 1976, yours truly was in seventh grade and The Bump was the most popular dance around.