[Kenneth_Moore]

I've been reading quite a few m/c "history" journals lately, and something has come up that I wonder if anyone around here knows more about it (he looks pointedly at MSCUDDY).

Sometime in the 40s or 50s, it appears that "Dustbin" fairings were banned from motorcycle racing. If you're not familiar with them, "dustbin" fairings were very large, very rounded fairings that usually included a long, torpedo shaped nose section and then a quite full faring back around the rider's legs. It seems like it was a very big deal at the time, and had a major impact on racing.

Why did they ban those big, and IMHO, beautiful fairings? Was it a safety issue? Were they trying to make the race bikes more like the bikes they sold? Enquiring minds want to know!

 

[Kenneth_Moore]

Here's an excerpt from a post on Roadracer X. Looks like the Brits did it so their old thumpers could still compete with the German & Italian bikes of the period that used them to great success. The FIM banned dustbin fairings in 1957 btw.

cafe (racer) society (archive): Ode to the Dustbin Fairing:

AHA! I suspect that Gluge's points are correct, but it's also quite believable that "politics" had a role to play. Just look how HD manipulated the AMA rules for decades over here. Thanks for the link Mr. Cuddy! (And, if you ever get the urge to write up some of those gorgeous streamliner bikes, I'd love to read it).

 

[Kenneth_Moore]

Now Hold On There, Pod'ner!

Hogwash. It's not possible to improve fuel mileage by that much with a simple different fairing.

Don't be so hasty to cast aspersions, Madame Sachi! I read about the work Craig Vetter has done as well. Apparently some of the super-faired bikes are easily capable of the kind of mileage Gluge refers to, perhaps considerably more.

 

[Kenneth_Moore]

Here's an interesting quote from Mr. Cuddy's link. The author is promoting a return of the extreme fairings to modern racing:

"Second, fully faired bikes would be a modern sponsor’s dream. Seamless rolling billboards with lots of logo space would make it easier for MotoGP teams to defray costs by attracting outside money."

Money oughta do it!

 

[Kenneth_Moore]

it's like everyone forgot. Same with dustbin fairings.

Not quite everyone! Did you see in Mr. Cuddy's link that a company called Airtec is making the fairings?!?! Wouldn't THAT be cool...make it a B2 stealth configuration and line it with RAM (radar absorbing material) and now you're getting somewhere...

 

[Kenneth_Moore]

Yea I think Airtech will make you one too if you ask. ..

Nah, that's just idle chatter on my part...besides, making the DL Urban Assault Cycle attractive would be scary!

However, there is this nice little farkel out there:

http://www.nabble.com/JVM-fairing-lowers,-$575-limited-time-price.-td14441801.html

Maybe when the year end bonus rolls in, I'll roll some of it back out again!

 

[Kenneth_Moore]

Ha HAAAAAAAA....here we go again...

Sachi Darlin' I get 253 mpg on my Dyna after taking Gluges advice...In fact I get such good gas mileage I have to drain the tank every few days to keep it from back filling........

Snarli, Gluge is NOT making this up! Go look at that Vetter site, those bikes were doing 400 mpg in contest trim. It hardly seems a stretch of the imagination to me that a well tuned "street" dustbin bike could do 200 mpg. Hell, I could almost double the mileage on the Conster if I tried by handling the throttle right!

 

[Kenneth_Moore]

Ok, I did. the bikes were in "contest trim" he says. They use a 125-200 cc engine and they are geared so high as to be unusable for anything except for mileage contests.

Ya just can't be nice and say, "ok, Gluge, it looks like those fairings could really boost those MPG numbers" could ya? C'mon, it's Christmas for crying out loud!

 

[Kenneth_Moore]

To get a 100% increase in mileage you would need roughly a 50% drop in drag. If a dustbin will give this much advantage then you very well might get the 100% increase.

Naturally the speeds you are going to travel is critical. If you are doing stop and go city driving then a big fairing like that will increase weight and any gains in aerodynamics would be offset by the extra fuel needed to accelerate the thing. Also the drag increases with the square of the speed. So your advantage will be greater at higher speeds.

A dustbin would make good sense for highway riding and would probably be a mistake in an urban setting.

Gluge's initial statement was that adding a dustbin type fairing doubled the mpg of his friends bike.

I could google up mulitple projects where cars got 350 mpg, and bikes got considerably more (YES, in IDEAL conditions). So saying this guy's bike got what, 90-100 mpg with a dustbin fairing seems to be a reasonable claim to me.

Crap, I wish the rain would quit. I wanna go riding and the kid won't go unless it's dry. Kids today....when I was 9 we'd ride through 5' of snow and vicious ice storms. AND WE LIKE IT THAT WAY!!!