The parts are now finished being sourced and so
SPECIFICATIONS have just been released to the public ….
http://www.erikbrinkman.com/rbike/report.html

Production will begin in mid-2009

You may well be right.
I just don’t see the new generations wanting Harley’s.
I’d rather see the company get it quality issues solved
and get serious about North America making bikes that can compete with BMW etc and still be classic and very North American.
Anyway ….

A point of clarification ….
I got lots of people asking why shapeshifting.
Could it be as good as … (fill in the blank)

ShapeShifting on-the-fly (something to think about)

We are going to spend 3 years or so playing with some of these,
hooked to sensors and using A.I. software
to see where the comfort levels are in automating some of these.
…. with a cut-off option (as with the ant-lock and anti-spin).

Here is the list ….

1. DOWN a Steep Hill
As you start a steep slow descend, you stretch your bike out a bit
with feet stretched on pointing downhill
and the seat much lower and you tuck your body rearward.

2. UP a Steep Hill
As you ascend the hill,
you start fairly stretchy and slowly scrunch as you go up
to let the ShapeShift pull-it up
and you need more tight control as you do those last few feet of climb.

3. Tight Squeeze
When the trail goes tight between trees you need squeeze it in a bit,
then stretch it back on the other side.

4. Sharp Curves
You approach a sharp curve and need a little more belly clearance
and you need a shorter more nimble wheelbase,
so you scrunch into the curve and stretch back out of the curve
pulling itself out of the curve..

5. Creek Crossing
You approach the creek and so you scrunch high
to keep the nostril tucked high behind the side-pods
and keep splashes of water deflected from the intake and the rider,
and the tailpipe tilts down to keep water from backing up into it.
Then you stretch to let the ShapeShifting help pull up onto the other bank.

6. High Speed Cruising
You are riding in your most comfortable position
and you want or need to go smoother faster.
You are only a 10-inch wide frame, so if you stretch it out,
you have a longer faster more stable arrow in the wind.

7. High Speed Braking
You are stretched out and cruising the open road
and suddenly a deer pops up onto the road and just stands there.
So you clamp the binders full-on
and the bike frame slowly shortens as the bike slows,
because a shorter wheelbase stops quicker with better control.
Stopping benefits from a wheelbase best suited
for hard braking at that momenary speed,

8. Lock-n-Stretch over a Log
You kiss up to a log and plant the rear brake and then stretch
and in so doing “crawl” the bike.
The bike comes with a 21 inch front wheel to help in this option.

9. Pulling out of a Hole
There you are stuck in the mudhole. Seen it a thousand times.
Now you don’t worry about pulling the bike out.
You can stretch to both spread out the weight
and use the stretch-crawl method of “inch-worming” your way out
using the frame’s ShapeShifting.

10. In a SideSlide
The bike might want to scrunch a bit more
to help make the SideSlide easier to control.

11. If the Road gets Rough
The bike might want to raise up a bit
and shorten its wheelbase for better control.

Unfortunately, I really don’t see the Harley Davidson motor company taking on something so radical for their future design ideas. H-D is very much profit driven using designs and concepts that derived from its past heritage. Take the V-Rod for example, this motorcycle took years to reach production after its design stage, and has still not been accepted by the majority of the brands customer base.

For H-D, the problem with introducing revolutionary new concepts is a double edged sword – established customers want the heritage of the past….whilst potential new customer look at the brand as being responsible for old and dated designs.

I am sure that somewhere there is a more viable manufacturer of your vision and I wish every success to achieving your goal..

When I designed this, it was with the military in mind, because they are using a Kawasaki 650 right now (hard to believe). I wanted us to have a more solid domestic option.

I would entertain the idea of harley owning this. They do need to attract younger buyers, I agree.

You are also right that making it simple was the hardest part. The engine mounts are also the oil-lines for example. The bike is full of parts that do many functions. That was a grueling process to engineer the complex function into a bike with much less parts than an old-style bike.

I hope this shakes up the motorcycle industry.
We need a safer option than they are offering.
This is active safety at its best.
The police groups are also quite liking this for that reason.

Custom Motorcycle Talk by BeachCruiser
TheBeachCruiser.com