Sorry to be the tech nerd but were the boots velcroed to the floorboards? I read someone referring to the velcro on pit lane. I rode with an amputee at YCRS, he had a special footpeg and attachment to his prosthetic lower leg that locked together. At first I was thinking that is what you guys would do, but velcro makes more sense as it would allow him to separate from the bike in event of a crash? Would love to see pics of the landing gear and shifting setup. I have a friend down here who doesn't have use of his arm. Clutch lever on the right, front brake master cylinder on the left foot.
We did use velcro but our final design won't have the need for it. Being able to separate from the bike is important to me. Doug is finalizing the landing gear set up. We used electronic shifting from ProShift out of the UK. Left forefinger hit the upshift button and left thumb hit downshift button.
That was Matt Spicer. Fellow FZ07 rider. He caught me in the T3 chicane on my very first time out on the bike and yea, I was crazy slow. The closing speed caught him off-guard but I was fine. Matt's good people and helps many other FZ07 and SV650 riders out with custom machined parts and stuff.
Pm me your email and I can send some pics and also drawings, etc of the landing gear. I can also send a patent release for a couple units for free provided who ever will make them does it at a fair price and only at a fair price. I don’t have time to make another set and I don’t think what I would charge would be fair at this moment as my time is very very limited. Most of the landing gear stuff is just basic calculations of radii, distances, etc. hardest part is packaging it all so it’s safe, reliable and looking like it’s supposed to be there. I had a goal for it to be very functional/ user friendly, relatively fast (2s), not get hung up it you come in contact with another rider but also ascetically pleasing. It has about a 600% margin safety for strength but it’s also hard to foresee spikes in dynamic loads that may be encountered on the street ie small pothole, etc. weight difference was only 1.1kg / side and I can always take weight out.
Matt is a great guy, he pulled parts off his FZ so I could go test mine at Homestead the week before Road America. I was actually thinking he would be interested in this project, because he's an FZ guy and an engineer. Kind of ironic that you met that way! Hat is off to you, Joe, and everyone involved.
I saw video somewhere of another para rider and he mentioned magnets in his boots and rearsets that were strong enough to hold while riding but would release in the event of a crash. Don't know if that would be better or worse than velcro.
Thought of that route as well. Electro magnet would be ideal. Main goal is to have joe be completely independent of any assistance. I have looked at and thought of so many ideas. Next tine we get out the Velcro will be attached to the bike in such a way he may be able to reach down and do it himself but we are still in the learning phases. We’ve taken a lot of the concerns, mainly from the safety aspect that we didn’t like about other set ups and tried to address those. That was the main reason for the landing gear the way it is so we don’t have two big legs sticking out the back that could easily hang up with another rider on the track. Plus also keeping in my dynamics of the bike and keeping all the weight as low as possible. Like everything things evolve and we’ve already learned a lot. There is also the thing of joe being a seasoned racer vs a lot of other people being mostly street riders and track day people. That makes a big difference as Joe thinks and understands the dynamics of what a bikes doing which makes my life easier.
I still think a U section bolted to the bottom of your carbon footplates would work well. The U section can rest over the footpeg. Have the U section be an inch or so longer then the width of the peg in the vertical direction so if I get a spasm it won't accidentally lift my foot off the peg. Cut some slots on the edges of the carbon footplate that velcro can be looped through to hold the footplate to my boot versus having the footplate bolted to the bike.
It might be worth having a separate control system just for the rider aids which could logically control various things like electromagnets, landing gear, landing gear brake(s), etc. So the system could automaticaly retract/actuate then disarm itself at a certain speed threshold if say the 'retract' button is not pushed, and also automatically arm itself, and do system checks prior to the 'deploy' button being pressed. Likewise it might be nice to incorporate a 3-axis gyro and some small actuation in the landing gear to really help keep the bike upright when motionless if the pavement is slighly uneven, sloped or irregular. Obviously don't know what they look like so just thinking out loud, FWIW. Doug Henry's rigs seem to use an external cage but it looks like assistance is req'd for both starting and stopping. Maybe would be worth trying to get in touch with him to see if there's some room for collaboration. Maybe next is a sliding seat like in a scull, but with an actuator and mounted sideways! VERY COOL in any case, keep it up!
Doug Henry and I have talked a few times. Needs on the dirt are radically different obviously but there are some similar issues.
The magnetic foot retention system I saw on FB had a 70 kg holding force. That seems rather high. While it looks very convenient I feel that level of force could be an issue in a crash. My idea allows free movement in the up vertical motion with all other force directions being contained. I think this is optimal but until we test it, we won't know for sure. Even in the up direction my foot would need to move vertical upwards over 3" before my foot would not remain on the footpeg.
I actually have that option with Joes landing gear via and arduino card. Like everything on this project I am starting simple though and just using tried and true methods for motion -relays, limits switches and a second “backup” switch in case a relay happens to fail”. I prefer relays for now as I want to ensure that if the actuator sees a high load when we are learning it doesn’t overload a switch, etc. Ya probably way too cautious but I’ve a,ready dropped him once, would rather not do it again. You have no idea how long his first lap was for me, I was very confident in my work but you still worry. I had the unit for thr shifter in a temp location so I could fine tune it with joe on the bike if needed (didn’t need to which was great) and someone inadvertently tugged on one of the wires connecting the shift unit so it was getting a sporadic signal. Now that we’ve shaken it down I can make a proper harness with proper mil spec connectors but that’s the type of thing that keeps me up at night- like tonight. I found some further improvement I can make on the landing gear to make it a bit more compact, have a bit more strength and keep thr weight the same. These things are tough for me because I am not riding it, whatever joe needs to keep him comfortable on the track I try to make happen. He wanted the landing gear pointed a different way than me but I’m not the one who has to use it. After seeing joe ride the bike a lot of things make more sense to me as we had a lot of theories but you really just have to see it. I tried riding the bike as much as I could simulating how joe would but I wasn’t even close. The landing gear will go through a couple revisions, starting simple then once that proves to be robust and meet all the functionality Joe wants I’ll modify / install a more compact version (which also means more moving parts) as well as electronics that are a bit more fancy. One thing I need to figure out is kind of an auto launch control, which isn’t too too hard but not a priority right now. I really wish I had more time in the day as I’d love to make 10-20 sets that are somewhat modular as each bikes just enough different to piss you off. The fz is pretty tight on real estate and also have to keep max lean angle in mind so it has to stay within that envelope, that envelope would change with myself or mongo on the bike as we may not corner that low but those poor springs. I am not sure what a gyro will do in uneven pavement, just like aircraft the landing gear doesn’t move once extended or retracted. And yes that’s a huge paragraph, I don’t care
