Hamm 2015 - 11 to 13 Sept

[Diesel Dave]

About to loose a hand.......

[coachgeo]

Dunno if this will work but here's a link to the Facebook photo's:....

Neither link works now. Expired link error

[Diesel Dave]

Ah well I hate Facebook anyway,
here's some footage instead:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLITTr6 ... e=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xbTNIB10Oo

And an album of the photo's

http://s301.photobucket.com/user/DaveWa ... lly?sort=3

[oldbmw]

A good rally, the electric bikes were food for thought.

This year went by diesel as the Triumph alternator failed, (now welded up). although with too many wheels for some but it did the 1100 Km on a tankful with 270 Km to spare (47 litre tank).

Meant I could take a bigger better warmer tent. Willys' food was as usual good value, had a huge plate of spare ribs

The drive back included some very heavy rain so quite pleased having a heater and air con.

[Stuart]

Just completed the report. Harder than usual what with the electric bikes coming along and a general shift perhaps to be more #Alt but it's done now & published: http://www.dieselbike.net/Hamm15/Hamm15.htm

Hope you like it!

[Dan J]

Lovely write up Stuart, even if I was one of the older guys turning up on a petrol bike and vexing you I wouldn't miss the rally for the world whatever I was riding. How vehicles are powered is all getting very interesting and while it'll take a long while to happen and for the future paths to be chosen I think there'll be big changes ahead. Maybe "alternative" isn't such a bad thing?

It was worth reading the article for the Jeff quote alone!

[Stuart]

Jeff is so predictable isn't he? Lol There's a lot of me thinking out loud in that piece, wondering about the future. But yeah, Alternative isn't a bad thing. Our rallies will open out to welcome more different bikes I think. It's all very interesting. And you Dan, are a very precious minority, someone who came into biking via the Alt route I think. That's more than I ever did

[gilburton]

Re Hamm report.
My biggest fear is that legislation will kill people experimenting.
With the VW scandal diesels will be going through a harder time and unless someone major comes up with a new diesel engine specially made for bikes I can't see any manufacturer dipping their toe in to diesel bikes.
While the main choice is still an industrial engine, and car engines are generally too large/heavy, diesel bikes will probably remain a hobby for the shed.

[sbrumby]

The bike big boys have had plenty of time to put their toe in and declined. The motorcycle world is mainly concerned with speed and fashion, British bikes took ten years to make even a small change look at the Enfield basically a 1940 bike. Honda had 20 changes to one model in one year and sometimes 20 new models in a year.
Most tyres are just fashion statements basically a slick with a few curved cuts in, carbon fibre bolt on bits, chrome bits, louder exhausts ect. ect. The diesel bike world has always been for the man in a shed and will remain that way. But in a way that remains the attraction. Don't think because of VW the diesel is doomed because for the foreseeable future there is no alternative. No petrol vans, lorries, trains, container ships, all plant the list is nearly endless. Even the Zeppelins ran with merc diesels.

[Dan J]

Sam - I think you're totally right as far as the bike manufacturers having the opportunity and not wanting to pursue. The bike market has become one where only significant volume production is economically viable and in diminishing markets such as many of the European countries this is why you're starting to see many bikes (and significant parts) being made in the far East - even by the Japanese manufacturers, Triumph and BMW - as it's the only way they can be made at a price they'll sell. There's very little room for someone to now take a gamble on something totally different with huge design and engineering costs when it'd have to sell for way above 'traditional' bikes prices. The new electric bike manufacturers are slowly getting somewhere but are still having a hard time making serious inroads in the short term. While they are showing the way forward petrol is simply still too cheap right now.

Another issue is that diesel technology has really only come far enough in the last ten or so years to make engines that would be (potentially) viable for a bike. You need an engine that is light enough to keep a bike useable and fun but at the same time will generate enough power to make your average biker consider parting with money for it. The Smart three pot engine was an absolutely brilliant start (by the likes of Neil, Heiko, Erik and Andreas) and showed what could be done - but that engine has Mercedes and tens of millions of Euros behind its development - which bike manufacturers simply do not have. BMW will invest that kind of money in a new diesel engine for its smaller cars because it can put the same engine in a MINI, a 1, 2, 3 (and maybe even higher) series cars which will sell in large numbers. Even the formidable GS is never going to recoup even a fraction of those costs. Light engine manufacturers such as Rotax (who supply some bike engines) similarly see no return on investment in small diesels and so have stuck with petrol.

But what is fast becoming the problem for the diesel internal combustion engine is exhaust emissions. It’s now hitting diesel from both the technical complexities of exhaust treatment and on the political side. Exhaust scrubbing and fuel additives aside diesel engines cannot burn cleanly under load - it’s part of their principle of operation. While recent understanding and technological advances have improved fuel injection techniques to minimise noise and smoke the latter is still always there - you simply don’t see it in recent cars and lorries (which are ironically now much cleaner than cars) thanks to particulate filters (cleaning soot). The ultimate irony is that lorries today are significantly cleaner than cars. The obsession with carbon emissions and fuel consumption has resulted in engines being pushed to maximise these at the cost of everything else. Running diesels much hotter, with higher turbo pressures and using less fuel sounds marvellous on the face of it but has a price to pay. The hotter the burn the more oxides of nitrogen you get. Lower CO2 = higher NOx (and incidentally the same has happened with the gas boilers in our houses, offices and factories - where much of this pollution now comes from). This is where VW lost their way - cars tuned for efficiency which had no means of passing NOx emissions regulations and certainly not without urea injection. Hence software to recognise when the emissions test was being conducted - much more fuel used and, where fitted, urea. Turned straight back off when test over. And urea exhaust injection only works when done at reasonably high injection rates which is why you’ll see 100 litre urea containers on recently built lorries. To better control the fuel injection and comply with emissions regulations at injector pressures are hitting the 2.5k bar/40k PSI mark now - something that would’ve been mind boggling to think 10 odd years back.

None of this is bike friendly. Who’d want a diesel motorbike with a urea tank, particulate filter and catalyser on it? Yeah sure you could probably get something through current EU regs without all that but the second anyone started pushing diesel bike engines in volume there’d be a very quick update to the emission rules. And do I want injector lines with 2000 bar of pressure in them right by my groin?! No thank you… I don’t imagine any of this is insurmountable but the costs to produce something viable are astronomical. The bike industry doesn’t have it and likely never will. Even the car manufacturers are struggling to meet emission requirements with billions in the bank (hence again, the VW situation).

So. Back to Sam. I think it will always be ‘for the man in a shed’. The people attracted by something they can’t buy tend to be the ones to go build it themselves - or pay someone else who can for a unique bike. Is that really a bad thing though? I think it’s a great thing. The diesel bike rallies are something to behold - people who have engineered completely different solutions to biking. Got engines to mate up with gearboxes they were never designed for. And so on. This is a far cry from Triumph or Yamaha selling someone a different rear end they can bolt on in 10 minutes and think they’ve customised their bike…

But... the fuel economy drive hasn't all been in vain in the biking world. Some of the bike manufacturers are starting to take economy seriously where they wouldn't have cared only a few years back. You've only got to look at Honda (NC700 and 750 plus now the 500) and the BMW 800 twin - large bikes that are being designed to be economical whilst still having a decent level of power. A mate has just bought the NC500X and is averaging 75mpg out of it while mercilessly thrashing it - I personally think that's incredible. I hear of folk getting 80mpg out of the Rotax powered BMW twins. Quick wins are now happening by the manufacturers simply starting to care - because their customers are.

I’d take a guess that you’ll see a lot more of that over the next 10 or so years now. Small, turbo engined bikes tuned for economy rather than outright power. Engines being downsized. But all petrol. Electric bikes will start to mature too. Once capacities increase and charge rates come down there’ll be more interest in them.

If you want a diesel bike that looks like X, has Y power and will do Z miles to the gallon (or litres per 100km!) then start thinking, designing and building. If nothing else there’s a lot of folk out there prepared to help, support and have a go!

[Diesel Dave]

If everybody had a dieselbike, I'd buy a petrol....

Or perhaps steam....

[Dan J]

If everybody had a dieselbike, I'd buy a petrol....

Or perhaps steam....

And there's that aspect of it all too, though I refer you back to my 'pressures near groin' point above!

[Diesel Dave]

Or one of these with a generator in the PAV type single wheel trailer:



Trouble is nobody makes a controller that allows charging at the same time as powering the motor......

[sbrumby]

I think BMW has a trail bike out now with petrol engine back wheel and front wheel electric this also has braking regeneration.

[coachgeo]

I think BMW has a trail bike out now with petrol engine back wheel and front wheel electric this also has braking regeneration.

sorry for continueing the off topic. Maybe split this out to another thread?

anyway....... here may be what your talking about. It's a Prototype not in production by an aftermarket company for the BMW.

http://www.gizmag.com/wunderlich-electr ... 0gs/40558/