On the way to work today a sportbike caught my eye…it had no front fork, but a swing arm.
http://www.billmayersaddles.com/YamahaGTS.html
This got me thinking; how possible is it to fit the front suspension with a flexible or multi-segmented driveshaft to produce a full time 2 wheel drive bike, whose performance characteristics on par with all wheel drive performance automobiles like the Audi Quattro, amongst other awd supercars.
Rokon™ and a zillon hits with google…
Apparently it’s already been done. The Christini AWD which uses a secondary chain drive driven off the transmission. When the rear wheel starts to slip the front wheel starts to receive power, which seems useful for an off-road motorcycle. Yamaha is close to offering their own AWD system initially for an off-road bike but has tested the system on the R1 yielding a 5 second lap time difference! (cite) There is the matter of more moving & breakable parts in the systems and the extra complexity might not be worth the gains to the normal rider.
Haha, and if I read the dates on the news posts, the information might be timely.
(slinks back to lurking)
Yamaha (I think?) campagned a 2WD bike in the Paris-Dakar ralley. It used a hydraulic motor in the front hub, driven by a hydraulic pump at the countershaft. The hydraulic drive solves a number of mechanical problems, but is not terribly effecient.
I was aware of the Rokon and other attempts at delivering power to the front wheel using hydraulics or part time 2wd. Part time 2wd isnt like the Quattro awd, and hydraulics tend to cavitate at speed, eating up the hydraulic system.
I was looking for a fully mechanical system using a differential gear splitting speed and torque between front and rear wheels.