Akira Bike Project by Matus1976

About this project

Hello and welcome to my Akira Bike Project. For the past 10 years I have been designing and building a very unique motorcycle which offers tremendous advantages in the realms of performance, practicality, and safety which has the potential to forge a new genre of motorcycles.

My Akira Bike project is a motorcycle unlike any other motorcycle. It is a recumbent, rear engine, two wheel steering vehicle with a powered egress system, dynamic stabilizer, and a powerful high torque flexible drive shaft that I invented for this project.

Top Image is my Functional Prototype, in progress. Bottom image is a rendering of the Production Prototype

Background

First, a little background. Motorcycles have changed little in a fundamental sense, while chassis engineering, engine technology, tires and braking components, etc, have evolved significantly, the overall design of the motorcycle hasn’t changed much, and though conventional upright bikes have significant advantages in off-road riding, they have some disadvantages on road.

Evolution of the motorcycle from high wheel bicycles to the safety bicycle to an engine added

Let's consider for a moment the history of the motorcycle. In the late 19th century people rode around on the first bicycles, the 'high wheel bikes' you know, the ones with giant front wheels that look comical by today’s standards and were nearly impossible to ride. Then someone figured that moving the riders feet away from the center of the wheel by using a leather belt to turn the wheel would be good, as the front wheel could be shrunk and the rider sit at waist height, thus the modern ‘safety bicycle’ was born. The safety bicycle is noteworthy for changing the perception of bicycles from dangerous toys ridden by adventurous young men to a practical tool for transportation that both men and women could use. One day, someone bolted an engine to the ‘safety bicycle’ ... and the modern motorcycle was born. Few stopped to ask if this was the best way to make a powered two wheel vehicle, and little incentive has since existed to change it, with motorcycle racing rules explicitly forbidding anything even remotely like a recumbent vehicle, and motorcycle sales heavily influenced by which bikes win the races, and conventional designs 'good enough'

Recumbent Motorcycles

With that in mind, let me tell you about my motorcycle, and what makes it a unique vehicle, and why it could do for motorcycles what the safety bicycle did for bicycles.

3D Model for the Functional Prototype

As a recumbent, It is a very long and low vehicle, almost ten feet long and barely four feet high, for this prototype. This unique geometry, known as ‘feet forward’ by enthusiasts, offers tremendous practical advantages. A long vehicle with a low center of gravity can accelerate faster and stop faster than conventional motorcycles, and such a vehicle also has a higher top speed potential as well as significantly better fuel efficiency.

It can accelerate faster because more power can be put to the rear wheel without raising the front off the ground, and thus wasting power and increasing the aerodynamic profile of the bike, like a sail raising in the wind. Professional drag racers hover their front wheel just fractions of an inch off the ground. The resistance for a body like a motorcycle to rotate, as in popping a wheely, is known in physics as the polar moment of inertia. This polar moment of inertia actually increases with the square of the distance, so a vehicle that is twice as long requires four times as much power to rotate. So a long low vehicle can put much more power to the wheel and use it for acceleration than a short tall one can.

In fact, Dan Gurney's "Alligator" an underpowered low center of gravity bike with a single cylinder 650cc engine had the fastest 0-30 time Cycle World had ever tested in a non drag bike. Though Gurney's bike is lite and small and you lean forward instead of backwards, my Production Prototype will have an engine with twice the power and should have similarly scaled performance characteristics.

And for similar reasons, a motorcycle like this can also stop much quicker with less weight getting transferred off the rear wheel and the braking can be more evenly distributed among the two wheels. This also means the rider can interact with the braking system in a much simpler fixed ratio, more like a car than conventional upright bikes where as weight is transferred to the front wheel braking pressure has to be reduced on the rear and increased on the front. During an emergency situation this is obviously something difficult and dangerous to attend to skillfully.

A bike like this has a higher top speed and greater fuel efficiency because it has less drag. Drag is influenced by two things, the frontal cross sectional area of the bike and the coefficient of drag. If you look at a bike from the front you get it's cross sectional area, this is representative of how much air must be moved out of the way. The Akira Bike Project's Production Prototype is only slightly higher than a fully prone rider on a Hayabusa.

A comparison of frontal cross sectional areas

The Coeffecient of Drag comes from the difference in frontal air pressure compared to the air pressure in the rear of the vehicle. A common misconception in aerodynamic design is that the front is what is important, at highway speeds, the rear of the vehicle is far more important. The reason for this is that air has little difficulty getting out of it's own way as it is pushed aside by a vehicle moving through it, but it has great difficulty filling back in the void left over. The rear of a vehicle should taper smoothly to a closed body, it can not taper faster than the air can fill itself back in. At highway speeds, a conventional motorcycle is much too short to provide a gentle taper allowing air to fill back in the low pressure void left behind a vehicle. A long low recumbent bike has the necessary length.

Check out Motorcycle Fairing Designer Craig Vetter's appeal to FIM (motorcycle racing regulation body) on changing their rules to allow streamlining. It is a good primer on aerodynamic streamlining for motorcycles and how racing rules have hindered it.
http://craigvetter.com/pages/470MPG/TTXGP%20Fairing.html

http://craigvetter.com/Movies/2008-Vetter-FIM.mov

This all means that it takes less energy to push a vehicle through the air, which translates directly to fuel efficiency. Many motorcycles all ready get 40 – 50 miles per gallon, a long low recumbent will significantly increase that, reaching from 75 – 100 miles per gallon.

The reclined seating position is also highly adjustable and extremely comfortable for extended periods, seriously reducing driver fatigue, and it is also conducive to being harnessed with a seat belt like restraint system. Since the overwhelming majority of motorcycle accidents are front end collisions, then in the overwhelming majority of motorcycle accidents a recumbent motorcycle can offer similar protection that a small car can. Having personally suffered a painful front end collision, this advantage is of great interest to me.

The comfortable reclined seating position has numerous points of adjustability

Rear Engined

Unlike almost every other motorcycle ever made, the rider in this vehicle sits in front of the engine instead of straddling above it. Sitting up above an engine drastically increases the aerodynamic profile of the vehicle and raises the center of gravity, both detrimental effects. Putting the engine in front of the rider elongates the front and still causes the rider to straddle them, and also creates the need for a complex drive system to route the power of the engine under the rider and back up to the rear wheel.

In my bike, a nice V Twin engine is mounted transversely (side to side) which makes it take up significantly less space from the front to the back of the vehicle, while keeping the center of gravity (combined with the riders center) extremely low to the ground, and combined with the weight of the rider and the powered lifting front end, a nice even weight distribution among the whole length of the bike.

Powered Egress

Ok, so one notable disadvantage of a long low vehicle is egress… it’s like getting up out of a reclined beach chair – better if someone is standing next to you to help you up. In lieu of that, and realizing the advantage of getting some help up out of such a low seat, the truly inspired nature of the Anime Akira Bike shines through. In my build, just as the bike in the film does, and unlike any replica built yet, the entire front end, with the touch of a button, raises up. And once raised, locks in the raised position, allowing the rider to quickly and elegantly pull themselves up by the handlebars they are all ready holding. Another press off the button once seated, and you pull the handlebars down and they lock into the bike.

The raised front end cowling in the Production Prototype design

Dynamic Stabilization

You might be wondering, when you come to a stop on this vehicle, like any other motorcycle, won’t it just fall over? And sitting like that, so low and leaning back, won’t it be hard to hold the bike up? And of course you’d be right. On a conventional bike, holding the legs out and straight is sufficient for the smallest of adults to hold up even very heavy bikes, and it uses the strongest muscles of the leg to do so. In contrast, in my bike, if you were to put your legs out to hold it up, you would mostly be using your much weaker outer leg muscles. And even though the very low center of gravity makes that much easier, It would be still be preferable to use those strong quads to hold the bike up, if only I convert that same motion into one that holds a bike up…

Conventional motorcycle designs put the front brake on the right hand, and the rear brake at your right foot. Two different brakes are needed because of that complex braking control required to compensate for the shifting weight of the vehicle mentioned earlier. But a long low vehicle, like a car, doesn’t require those shifting ratios and can get equal performance with fixed ratios. A car typically would see it’s front wheels do 60% of the braking and the rear wheels handle 40%. This bike can get away with similar ratios, this means that your right hand can handle all the braking input, freeing up your right foot. Motorcyclists are all ready used to using the right foot during braking, but instead of creating a braking force, on my bike, your right foot will lower two stabilizers with casters, like a center stand with wheels, that will hold the bike up when you come to a stop. This is done by pushing your foot forward, using the same strong muscles a motorcyclist uses in an upright conventional bike.

A front view of the Production Prototype with dynamic stabilizers lowered.

In the future I would like to experiment with stabilization gyros. But a major advantage that comes from this is that these stabilizers can be lowered any time. If you are afraid of icy conditions, push the right foot forward to keep you upright. Hitting a patch of oil or sand? Push that right foot forward.

Even though only one leg is being used, it is plenty strong enough, since that rotating moment of inertia increases with the square of the distance and this bikes center of gravity is half the height of a conventional bike, which means it needs only 1/4 as much force to keep from falling over.

When not in use, this stabilizer folds neatly up under the body of the bike, and being spring loaded with an off center of rotation, won’t get stuck in the down position and will give if it’s down and you hit a large obstacle.

Two Wheel Steering

One of the biggest innovations being implemented in this bike project is two wheel steering. Yes you read that right, both the front wheel AND rear wheel of this vehicle will turn when you turn the handle bars. This helps compensate for the larger turning radius a long bike creates, but it also has many other advantages, which, unfortunately I can not discuss in detail until my patent protection is secured.

High Torque Flexible Drive

A major difficult that arises from a two wheel steering vehicle however is how to power that steered rear wheel. Most motorcycles are powered by either chains or solid drive shafts, with a handful powered by composite belts. All of these have unique advantages and disadvantages, chains are lightweight and can handle high loads, but require periodic maintenance and can catastrophically fail, while drive shafts are maintenance free and reliable, but heavy and require high tolerance, expense bevel gears.

Neither of these are practical for powering a steered rear wheel. Any chain would need to be flexible from side to side, to compensate for the wheel as it moved, or multiple sets of chains would be needed. Drive shafts and bevel gears could work, however a few pairs would be needed with each weighing a few pounds and being costly.

A few reasonable solutions exist, but none I found satisfactory, so I set out to make my own solution. Having studied physics and engineering and material properties for some time a solution came to me. The result is a flexible drive shaft that can handle the high torque of a high performance motorcycle and bend around multiple corners with minimal losses. A local university accepted this idea into their Intellectual property law clinic and sponsored all the intellectual property work drafting a patent required.

I have only been able to build a smaller prototype version of this drive shaft and need to build some stress testing equipment as well as build the machine required to build this high torque drive shaft, which will ultimately offer a viable new power delivery system to all vehicles. The first large scale prototype will be tested in this functional build.

Functional Prototype

Functional Prototype Current Progress

The current progress of this build is my Functional Prototype. Most complex builds go through multiple generations, the Functional Prototype is not optimized for speed or performance or for weight reduction and is just to test and refine the basic geometry and unique innovations of my build. I am about 80% complete with the functional prototype, and testing will progress through phases starting with refining the front end steering with a hard tail chain driven rear and progressing through adding and testing each unique innovation one by one until every aspect is tested.

Production Prototype

Renderings of the Production Prototype

The Production Prototype represents what a production model of this vehicle will look like. Every detail of this design is worked out down to individual bolts, it will be refined based on results of the testing of the Functional Prototype, and then will be built of all new high performance high quality components. Kickstarter funding will fund the completion and testing of the Functional Prototype, the successful demonstration of that will make raising money to build the Production Prototype a million times easier.

Akira Inspired

This bike project was born out of my lifelong passion for engineering design, construction, and invention. For years before this I had been working on a design for a futuristic aerodynamic motorcycle like vehicle, along with hundreds of other inventions. Finally one day I decided I must pick one and focus on it, and this was my choice. Around that time anniversary edition of Akira came out, and I realized how similar that design was to my own, and how remembered cool that bike was. So I decided to style my bike project with the futuristic organo metallic look depicted in the film, popularized by the movies creator Katsuhiro Otomo and another favorite artist of mine Syd Mead.

The current design of the Production Prototype

While other people have built Akira inspired bikes, I am quick to point out none are fully functional. Many have fake plastic ‘wheels’ covering their tiny scooter wheels. Others replicate the every scratch and sticker in the film, but are made of wood and don’t even have an engine. Most are simply too small, can not lean over at all, or woefully underpowered as Bikes over 400cc are very rare in Japan.

What you will be paying for...

Over the years, I’ve put about $50,000 into this project directly and easily double that in sweat equity. This is not a simple off the shelf assembly with a fancy paint job, this is a fundamentally different kind of motorcycle which has the potential, like the chopper, to forge a new category of bikes. The first critical step in this is finishing my functional prototype and testing and refining it in preparation for the production ready prototype. What you’ll be paying for all focuses on the functional prototype, not the production prototype (the fancy red one depicted) The popularity my working functional prototype will earn should make it easy enough to raise the funds to build the production prototype. I am caught currently in the inventors catch-22, I need money to finish my prototype, but I can't get money until my prototype is finished. I work full time and live in my shop, my income pays all regular (and minimized) expenses but leaves me little left over to work on this with. So please consider helping this project out.

Your money will be going to:

- metal and materials for the build
- metal and materials for building test equipment
- a purchase of a second old used motorcycle (~1980 Honda CX500 <$1,000) to ensure a reliable engine with parts to spare in this build,
- all the necessary electrical harness equipment and supplies
- new brake components, line, discs pads etc
- linear actuators, solenoids
- welding, cutting, machining equipment
- New front and rear tires and wheel assemblies
- Bearings, nuts and bolts, etc

Any extra money raised will all go to the development of the Production Prototype!!

About Me

So who am I, I am an avid motorcyclist and "Do It Yourselfer" and passionate student of physics, science, philosophy, politics and history. But my deepest passion is inventing, with a particular focus on transportation related technologies.

Links

Please check out, and like, our Facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Matus1976s-Akira-Bike-Project/214421691926565

Visit the web page which details the history of the build and includes a discussion forum. (See the "Status" page to check out the build history)
http://www.matus1976.com/akira_bike/welcome.htm

See my YouTube page for many videos relating to the bike project
http://www.youtube.com/user/matus1976

Please share a link to this Kickstarter page!

Spread the word on motorcycle forums, on your own personal pages, in blog posts... Thanks!

FAQ

I don’t believe your claim to high fuel efficiency

Beyond the engine, two primary things effect fuel efficiency, the frontal cross sectional area and the co-efficient of drag (CoD).

See http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzo6gwsmzC1rnuvsno1_400.jpg for a comparison of my frontal cross sectional area with, for example, a Gold Wing.
A long low recumbent geometry has a smaller cross sectional area compared to other bikes, which right away will increase fuel efficiency (unless the drag is significantly higher to cause more of a problem than the smaller cross sectional area solves)
In regards to aerodynamic drag, most motorcycles are absolutely horrible. While your rear view mirror might be slightly streamed and the nose of your bike sharp, a proper aerodynamically designed vehicle would be long with a gentle taper toward the rear. In fact, the rear of a vehicle is as important, if not more important, than the front.

Check out Motorcycle Fairing Designer Craig Vetter's presentation to FIM (The motorcycle racing governing body) on streamlining http://craigvetter.com/pages/470MPG/TTXGP%20Fairing.html
A square front end that has a gentle tear drop taper toward the rear will have a LOWER CoD than a spherical front end which is suddenly cut off. This is because air has little difficulty getting out of it’s own way but has a hard time pushing itself back into voids. As the air ‘piles up’ in front of a vehicle it creates a buffer that resembles the front end of an aerodynamic shape, this builds up pressure in front of the vehicle.

Conversely in the rear end of a vehicle, if the profile of the vehicle suddenly cuts off, as in conventional motorcycle designs (or even gently cuts off but does so at a steeper angle than is appropriate for the air) the air has more difficulty filling in the void behind the vehicle and so perpetuates a low pressure area.

It is better to use an appropriate taper and then suddenly cut off the back then it is to use an inappropriate taper which closes to a point. The difference in the pressure on the front and the pressure on the rear becomes aerodynamic drag, and how much of that void is filled in by the air rushing past the vehicle is highly influenced by the shape and geometry of the vehicle, where a long teardrop shape is optimal. A short wheelbase motorcycle has about half the wheelbase length necessary for an appropriate taper at high motorcycle speeds. So a long wheelbase vehicle can have a shape that is more conducive to a gentle tapered drop off in the rear of the vehicle, thus have a lower CoD, and thus greater fuel efficiency and a higher top speed.

Last updated: Monday Feb 20, 8:37am EST
Your Rake and Trail are too steep, they will cause excessive ‘fork flop’ and poor handling

My front end is a leading link suspension, while the rake is far closer to the horizontal than conventional, the trail is shortened and you retain the light feel of a conventional steeper rake while getting greater stability as well as anti-dive because of the offset. Honda's Rune has a trailing link suspension, which is very similar. Smart chopper builders put leading links on when they use a steep rake because it handles quite well. Check out Tony Foale's Motorcycle Handling and Chassis design if you want to get more familiar with different front ends. I also have a video simulation of the leading link front end on youtube.
Last updated: Monday Feb 20, 8:37am EST
Whats up with those big square-ish tires

The tires are rounded and certainly not small, they are aircraft tires. Regular motorcycle tires were not available at the time I started the project in the size required. The front tire is 24" diameter and the rear is 32" The rear is not as rounded as I would prefer, but this is just a functional prototype for basic testing.

Last updated: Monday Feb 20, 8:37am EST
The Recumbent Geometry is conducive to using a seat belt, isn’t it better to drop the bike or get thrown off of it in an accident?

No, generally it is not better to drop or jump off a bike, despite popular misconceptions. The best thing to do is reduce your forward velocity as much as possible and nothing is better at that than motorcycle rubber on pavement. Steel on pavement and leather on pavement have about half the coeffecient of friction as tire rubber on pavement.

The vast majority of motorcycle crashes are front impact collisions and in these a long low vehicle with a seat belt offers as much protection as a small car. If you drop your bike you can slide under a car or into a guard rail. If you don't and get thrown over the vehicle or thing you hit, your head will likely take the full impact of the velocity of your body, which will crush your neck even if you have a helmet on.

In a side impact, you're screwed in a car or on a motorcycle.
Racing is about the only place it might make sense to drop your bike if you start losing control because it is a far more controlled environment, you won't slide into a guard rail or under a speeding SUV, you'll slide into nice soft hay bails or impact absorbers. Still, if you are about to run straight into another vehicle that lost control and suddenly came in front of you, a seat belt would be better. But it doesn't matter in racing since just about everything about this design is not allowed in racing which is not about evolving the best motorcycle design but encouraging highly entertaining and competitive races.

Last updated: Monday Feb 20, 8:37am EST
If it’s such a good design, why isn’t anyone making them?

Many innovative people have tried to get ‘feet forward’ motorcycles onto the market with varying levels of progress, but ‘big motorcycle’ is highly reluctant. Why? Large companies are weary of major changes and are risk averse. Though competitive, they by their nature focus on only doing just enough to be more competitive than the next guy. Motorcycle racing regulations prohibit almost all of the aspects of a recumbent design (even though they are superior) and people like to buy motorcycles that look like the ones winning races.
See this article (http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/may2011/id20110527_276850.htm) in Business Week, where only 16 percent of Innovations come from large companies. Large established corporations are notoriously conservative and short term focused. Not to mention the corporate culture which emphasizes conformity and bureaucracy.

Last updated: Monday Feb 20, 8:37am EST
This bike looks flimsy, poorly engineered…

This is just a functional prototype to test the general geometry and to refine the various aspects of it. It is heavy and underpowered - again, just for testing. It is rare that any unique new thing springs out fully refined in it's first version. Gurney's alligator went through 6 versions (http://www.allamericanracers.com/alligator/alligator_tech.html) I'm trying to do mine in two. The production prototype will have round tubing and all new high end components and integrate the results of testing from the prototype. It is however certainly not flimsy, if anything it is way over engineered.

Last updated: Monday Feb 20, 8:37am EST
It looks really heavy

This is proof-of-design work to obtain further funding so I can get better (lighter) materials to work with refine the design. I don't expect any ground breaking results from my heavy and under powered prototype, but a nice video of this thing powered and working decently will make raising money to build and test the production prototype (probably about 150k) a million times easier. THAT bike will perform exceptionally well as there is tremendous potential in the design.
Last updated: Monday Feb 20, 8:37am EST
$40,000 is not enough to start manufacturing!

No it isn't, this is money to finish and refine the Functional Prototype. A working Functional Prototype will make rising money for production a million times easier. Angel investors and Venture Capitalists do not generally touch companies or ideas that are at the seed / prototype stage. But you can be part of it.

Last updated: Monday Feb 20, 8:37am EST
I’m skeptical of your acceleration rate claims

A long wheel base and low center of gravity enable most of those claims, this bike will have about half the aerodynamic profile of a rider on a cruiser and about 2/3rds that of a prone rider on a sport bike, all with about half the aerodynamic drag of either. So right there significantly greater fuel efficiencies are enabled. Also the long wheel base enables much higher acceleration rates as more power can be put into the rear wheel that is not wasted on popping a wheelie. For this same reason you can decelerate faster with a less complex control over the braking as less weight is transferred during the braking. Dan Gurney's woefully underpowered and recumbant like low center of gravity "Alligator" (A single cylinder 650 cc) had the FASTEST 0-30 acceleration rate Cycle World had ever tested for a non-drag bike. This is solely because of it's geometry.
Last updated: Monday Feb 20, 8:37am EST
Your bike looks nothing like Gurney’s Alligator, why make comparisons?

Gurney's alligator is an 'almost' feet forward bike. It has a comparatively long and low wheelbase of a feet forward, only it has an awkward (imo) leaning forward seating position. If the rider simply leans back, it would be a conventional feet forward recumbent. The specs would all remain the same however. As a single Cylinder 650, it is a woefully under powered vehicle, yet it's 0-30 time exceeded all non-drag bikes Cycle World had ever tested. Why? Because the long low wheelbase and low center of gravity enabled far more power to be put to the rear wheel without wasting power on popping a wheelie (which incidently increases the aerodynamic profile and drag) A vehicle that is twice as long has four times the polar moment of inertia and thus requires four times as much energy to pop a wheelie.

My Functional Prototype is a simple, heavy vehicle to test the general geometry and my particular design. My Production Prototype is very similar to a scaled up high powered Gurney Alligator type vehicle except it has an actual recumbent seating position and two wheel steering. With over twice the power, it should have comparably impressive performance figures.

Last updated: Monday Feb 20, 8:37am EST
Do you have any video of the frame being ridden? I have concerns about the stability of the steering (Xenu99 from Reddit.com)

No, no videos of that, the rolling chassis is not complete yet nor is the drive train. When I do there will be plenty of videos. The first stage will be a simple hard tail while I iron out any problems with the leading link / anti dive front end, I don't anticipate any significant ones though. I'll probably be working on the front end in the next few weeks. Then I'll add suspension to the rear and update the drive train to my patented high torque flexible drive shaft, then I'll be upgrading the rear end to the steered single sided swing arm. All 3 of these stages are covered under the kickstarter estimate.

Last updated: Monday Feb 20, 8:37am EST
This isn't Akira's bike. Akira was a little boy with Godlike powers that could fly. This is Kaneda's bike from the movie and graphic novels called 'Akira' (El_Camino_SS at Reddit.com)

The bike never got a name in the movie or the comic, people usually refer to it as the "Power Bike" so yeah instead of the "Bike Kaneda Rides in the movie Akira Project" I went with the "Akira Bike Project"

Last updated: Monday Feb 20, 8:37am EST
Other people have already built Akira Inspire bikes.

There are a few other Akira inspired motorcycles, but none are fully functional, most are actually just scooters with and are made to look like in the most accurate aesthetic sense possible the bike from Akira, some even have fake plastic covers to hide their unreasonably tiny wheels. All of them are far too small (notice how their heads always tower far above the windscreens) I talk about the other builds on my page here (http://www.matus1976.com/akira_bike/media.html) scroll down...

Last updated: Monday Feb 20, 8:37am EST
Why does an extreme rake angle make a bike feel heavy and how does a leading link front suspension with offset fix that?

Imagine a vertical steering column with no trail and compare that with a completely horizontal steering column. In the vertical case when you turn the handlebars all you do is rotate the plane of rotation of the wheel. But when the steering column is horizontal (the equivalent of a 90 degree rake) then when you turn the handlebars the plane of rotation pulls the bottom of the wheel up and away from the road, so the whole front end of the bike would pitch down and forward. Any rake in between those is just a mix of those effects. So when you try to turn the wheel straight, you are actually lifting up the weight of the front end. How much this happens depends on how far the steering axis is from the contact patch (where the tire touches the ground) If they intersect, there is no effect. The offset of a leading link (or trailing link) suspension allows you to move the axis of rotation separately from the rake angle, so you can move it back closer to the contact patch of the tire, reduce excessive trail, and maintain a nice tight controlled feel.

Last updated: Monday Feb 20, 8:37am EST
Seatbelt? I think the last thing I want is to be strapped to a giant piece of hot, angry metal in a crash.

Falling off a motorcycle does not make you safer, unless you happen to know exactly what kind of accident you will get in. Your best bet is always to reduce your forward velocity as much as possible and nothing is better at than then motorcycle tire rubber (This is also what MSF teaches) Even a dropped bike will take longer to come to a stop than one in a controlled stop, and a person sliding on the ground in leathers has half the coeffecient of friction to stop them, so they'll slide twice as far or slam into something at twice the speed. The idea that it is a good idea to jump off a vehicle comes mostly from movies and racers who have nice soft impact absorbers to slide into.

Last updated: Monday Feb 20, 8:37am EST
Will electricity shoot out of the rims of the wheels?!?

No

Last updated: Monday Feb 20, 8:37am EST

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This project reached the deadline without achieving its funding goal on March 17.