Letters to the Editor
Aycharaych
Published Letters: 2086 Editor's Choice: 3
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Being efficient..
[Read the article: How to get better gas mileage]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Where I live, walking or bicycling is simply not practical, it's a hilly area and as soon as I pull out of my driveway there is a very steep hill that is hard to get up even in low gear on my 24 speed bike. There are no shoulders on the roads and nothing even approaching a bike lane, to walk or ride a bicycle is simply asking to be killed or seriously injured.
Motorcycles are a good way to save fuel. Frankly, scooters and mopeds are almost as dangerous as a bicycle because they simply lack the power to keep up with traffic, even on back roads and on the highway they are insanely dangerous.
Back in 1983 I had a Honda FT500 Ascot, a single cylinder 500cc street bike.. The bike would go about 90 at top speed and would cruise 75 with no problem.. Even with my aggressive riding the mileage was over 50 mpg. Big single cylinder engines are quite efficient when designed for low rpm torque rather than top end horsepower.
One of the things that could be done to increase fuel mileage is to require that manufacturers absolutely not release horsepower figures for their cars. High horsepower makes for an inefficient engine since high horsepower requires the torque peak of the engine to be set at a very high rpm. Infernal combustion engines are most efficient near their torque peak and tuning engines for low rpm torque not only improves acceleration but increases efficiency at cruising speeds. That is one reason diesel cycle engines are efficient, the torque peak is at considerably lower rpms than an otto cycle engine (gasoline).
Another mandated requirement should be a miles per gallon gauge in every vehicle that is conspicuously displayed on the top of the dash, it really helps people to be aware of what driving techniques help boost mileage.
Turbocharging a smaller engine to produce the same torque as a larger engine also increases efficiency since a fair portion of the residual energy in the exhaust is used to spin the turbocharger when high torque is needed. Turbodiesels are among the most fuel efficient engines available outside of hybrids and turbodiesels have a great deal of development work already done since they are used almost to the exclusion of any other type of engine in heavy trucks.
Manual transmission vehicles are still more efficient than automatics, there are far fewer moving parts and no torque converter is necessary to allow slippage at low rpms. Driver education should be done exclusively in manual transmission cars except for those cases where an individual is handicapped such that they cannot drive a stick. A six speed manual makes driving efficiently quite easy since there is a gear for every situation..
Modern motorcycles benefit greatly from aerodynamic fairings, there is a great deal of turbulence around the rider on a naked bike, this increases drag and lowers fuel mileage.
I suspect that a turbodiesel motorcycle with an aerodynamic fairing could be made that would easily run over 100 mph and still get near or over 100 mpg at reasonable speeds. I'd buy one if it were not too expensive. I guarantee that such a bike could be made a very fun vehicle to ride.
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A few more points regarding motorcycles..
[Read the article: How to get better gas mileage]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]First, a motorcycle is safer than a scooter because it handles better, stops better and has larger diameter wheels. A small wheel on a scooter can drop into a large pothole and not come back out, you go over the handlebars. The larger wheel on a bike will ride through the same pothole. I've literally ridden over a curb in the dark before and not crashed, although I did get a hell of a jolt.
Second, motorcycles should be allowed to "split lanes", they do in England and California, both places where there are a lot of motorcycles.. This would greatly increase the desirability of riding bikes in most places, particularly where there is a lot of traffic. Lane splitting in heavy traffic is not nearly as dangerous as it seems, since path control is much easier than speed control. Stopping and starting in heavy traffic is where most fender benders happen and there is no such thing as a fender bender on a bike.
Third, motorcycles should have a higher speed limit than cars for two reasons. Riding with prevailing traffic, cagers (the bikers name for car drivers) will crawl right up your butt and you have to "live in your mirrors" watching the morons behind you instead of the idiots in front. It's actually saver to ride a bit faster than prevailing traffic in most situations. Also motorcycles are more efficient than cars so should be allowed a little leeway.
As a long time biker with nearly a million miles on motorcycles, you would be amazed at how fast I can get through moderate traffic, treating the cars like a moving slalom course. With adequate training and practice most people can do it. With a bike you only have to move a few feet sideways to change lanes, with a car you have to move nearly a dozen feet to do so.