Traction feedback device?

[bogan]

I'm going with starky on this, ride by feel, isn't that what riding is all about??? being pure unassited riding, no gadgets no traction control, no abs & the other BS. Your own brain can process these things better than any electronic aid. I'm not bagging your idea, but I'm still a learner rider, & if I'm mid-corner leant over there is no way I'm looking down to check if there is a light on!!! I'm too busy looking down the road for the next corner.
Personally I think you'd be better off developing a decent datalogging system with a gps. that you can download after your ride/race & look at all your inputs eg suspenion travel,steering angle, throttle input, brake pressure front/back, wheel speed, engine speed, lean angle, acceleration. even look at rider heart rate to see where you get stressed out the most.
Just my opinion though

yeh i hear what you are saying, but there are many riders (mostly begininers) whos feel of how much harder they can push the bike is wrong, either going to hard (and falling off) or not realising they can go a bit harder (and freezing up and drifting off line or hitting obstacle etc). A little gizmo that informs the rider (after you go round a corner) of how much grip he was actually using imo would be very useful, also datalogging will be very easy to add in for those who want it.

[LBD]

look mate, unless you have even a skerrick of evidence to back up your statements, please refrain from offering technical advice to those who do know about this sort of thing

So your a physics student huh? Guess that makes you an expert....

There is a wealth of knowledge and information available on this website that you could tap into to assist with your project but you seem set on alienating all those with the knowledge, experience and intellengence best able to assist...Cloudy thinking on a clear day IMO.

[bogan]

i dont claim to be an expert, but someone who tells me im wrong and offers no explanation is just not helping.

And the purpose of this post was not to nitpick all the tech details, just to figure out whether such a device would be useful, if so then i would do all the hardout physics modelling research, if not ill give up, and if itd be somewhere in between useful and useless then ill just make it and test it as i go probly

[LBD]

Concept has some merit, but I would not want one, as I said and voted earlier.

I and many others fail to see how you could make it work with all the variables however, you are of the opinion you can, so good luck there.

My suggestion would be to patent the idea/concept then come back to those on this thread, (and others in the industry), who have offered questions and serious technical feed back, and get into a technical discussion on the matter

[mujambee]

Even if it was possible to build something like that (which I belive it is not), I can't see much use for it. A learner will always ride too far from the limits to need something like that; and when you are nearing the limits, you are far to busy to watch a gauge.

Even further, if you too the difference of the front differential and the rear differential and wound the gain up a bit, you might end up with some interesting data - probably a squiggly little erratic line, but if the rider had a little "oops" it would be very revealing to check the graph later on, as that squiggly little line may just have a nasty big snatch in it, indicating that said "oops" was a little to close for comfort. This could perhaps be used to light an idiot light on the panel (to remain lit for some hours) to warn said idiot that both wheels WHERE IN FACT doing completely different things just *then*. You might call this idiot light a "DONT DO THAT AGAIN, SON" light.

That's what ABS and TCS have been doing for decades, nothing new there.

Your own brain can process these things better than any electronic aid.

And has much more info than any electronic device can gather.

look mate, unless you have even a skerrick of evidence to back up your statements, please refrain from offering technical advice to those who do know about this sort of thing

i dont claim to be an expert,

Yes you do

[mujambee]

Concept has some merit, but I would not want one, as I said and voted earlier.

I and many others fail to see how you could make it work with all the variables however, you are of the opinion you can, so good luck there.

My suggestion would be to patent the idea/concept then come back to those on this thread, (and others in the industry), who have offered questions and serious technical feed back, and get into a technical discussion on the matter

Really sensible, mostly agree.

However, next time you come across an innovative idea don't patent it. Just develop it. If you patent it and then spend 15 years on its development (and believe me, that's what would take you to develop something like this), you have 5 years left to get the benefit of it. Next time keep it to yourself, develop it in secret and patent it only when you have it fully develped and working. Then youll have your 20 years ahead to get the money.

[Hoon]

And the purpose of this post was not to nitpick all the tech details, just to figure out whether such a device would be useful, if so then i would do all the hardout physics modelling research, if not ill give up, and if itd be somewhere in between useful and useless then ill just make it and test it as i go probly

Yes it will be useful. Don't listen to the knockers - they are just trying to apply practical experience to theoretical knowledge which is like talking two different languages so it's only natural to resist. I know enough but not too much about both to know that grip is just a force acting against a friction (the contact patch) and that all the variables (lean, speed, bumps, dips, accel/decel) can be simplified into a vector if your model is accurate enough. If you can measure that force on the contact patch (or deduce it somehow) then theres no need to measure EVERY SINGLE VARIABLE that contributes to it - just like weighing a box instead of adding up the weights of every item inside it.

I realise that there will be some degree of error and limitations with your solution but these will only improve with more development - you gotta start somewhere!

One suggestion I would make is ditch the visual indicator and go for something audible like beeps that get closer together as you approach the limit. It'd be cool to know how braking, accelerating, weaving and throwing your weight around affects the grip available.

[CookMySock]

That's what ABS and TCS have been doing for decades, nothing new there.

No. ABS and TCS are designed to watch when a wheel has skidded (past tense) and take action to unlock it, or otherwise stabilise the vehicle. A black box such as in question, can go further than that and predict just how close on the curve we came to a disaster.

In the end, "lean angle" is unimportant. My understanding is, many of not most bikes will lean right over until they scrape things, and the newbie should not really be concerned with his bike losing traction except for in slippery conditions.

There is little or no point beeping or flashing a bright warning light at the rider in the middle of some "oopsie".. that is only going to distract and alarm him right when he should be remaining cool and probably taking little or no "preventative" action at all.. But it would be useful after getting a fright, to look down at the display to discover it either smiling sweetly or glaring alarmingly at you - just like some mentor that actually DID have the knowledge to analyse your little slip-and-slide and categorize it for you - that I would buy - then I can just ride until it snarled at me, and then slow down a bit.

Steve

[bogan]

claiming to know about something is not the same as claiming to be an expert.

thanks hoon and steve, thats exactly the idea im going for. Beeps are a good idea, though may have to increase the volume with speed or something to overcome wind noise.

Though it is important to listen to the knockers as well, as they are also target market, and some have brought up good points:
such as the misuse of the device by trying to push it right up to, or over the limits
or people relying on it to much and not developing a feel for the bike/road. Although i think these would not apply to a significant portion of riders, they still need to be taken into account.

[ducatilover]

I'll tell you what mate, you can test it on my bike. I like shiny gadgets, although I may choose to ignore it for a while so I don't base my riding on it untill a good amount of data is acquired I think it is a great idea, even to tell somebody they are too violent with the throttle and/or brakes. I would not give it 1% accuracy even if that was possible, based purely on the belief that a silly new rider would be chasing to get the lights maxed out.

[Maki]

A total and utter waste of time. A mate totaled his bike by slipping on a manhole cover. A gizmo like that would have done nothing to help. How about gravel on the road, painted lines, diesel spills, water, etc. etc. etc...?

In fact a gizmo like that would be a very bad idea because it would give new bikers the idea that they have a lot of available grip, much more than they thought. Then when the day comes that they encounter a surface that provides less grip than what they are used to they will end up on their bum with a broken bike because they slipped and the gizmo did nothing to warn them...

[bogan]

I'll tell you what mate, you can test it on my bike. I like shiny gadgets, although I may choose to ignore it for a while so I don't base my riding on it untill a good amount of data is acquired I think it is a great idea, even to tell somebody they are too violent with the throttle and/or brakes. I would not give it 1% accuracy even if that was possible, based purely on the belief that a silly new rider would be chasing to get the lights maxed out.

thanks man, ill keep that in mind for when ive done sufficient testing on my own bike.

A total and utter waste of time. A mate totaled his bike by slipping on a manhole cover. A gizmo like that would have done nothing to help. How about gravel on the road, painted lines, diesel spills, water, etc. etc. etc...?

In fact a gizmo like that would be a very bad idea because it would give new bikers the idea that they have a lot of available grip, much more than they thought. Then when the day comes that they encounter a surface that provides less grip than what they are used to they will end up on their bum with a broken bike because they slipped and the gizmo did nothing to warn them...

as stated before, the rider is responsible for avoiding bad road surfaces and obstacles, but by knowing how much traction is actually available the rider is better equiped for a quick evasion manuover. It is designed to be a training device, rather than a warning device.

[Maki]

as stated before, the rider is responsible for avoiding bad road surfaces and obstacles, but by knowing how much traction is actually available the rider is better equiped for a quick evasion manuover. It is designed to be a training device, rather than a warning device.

The point I was trying to make is that the device HAS NO WAY OF KNOWING how much traction is actually available. It depends on a number of factors and interaction between these factors. Off the top of my head I can mention, apart from water, diesel, gravel, melted asphalt, etc...

Tyre temperature.

Tyre condition

Road temperature

Road surface type

Road surface condition

Humidity

wind

Interaction between the above.

I am afraid the device would train the rider to become overconfident, resulting in problems when a sub optimal road surface is encountered.

[CookMySock]

I am afraid the device would train the rider to become overconfident, resulting in problems when a sub optimal road surface is encountered.

I think you would be right. There is no replacing the human element, but I think no device could or should to claim to do this. The rider will remain responsible for detecting faulty road surfaces.

The point I was trying to make is that the device HAS NO WAY OF KNOWING how much traction is actually available.

You underestimate modern electronics, digital signal processing, and software / mathematics. It is very easy to attach multiple high-definition sensors to any process whatsoever, and then spend a year writing code and applying physics and mathematics to it, and be able to pull out factoids you didn't even know where there. Take it a step further, and do detailed data logging and upload it to an Artificial neural network and watch the arcane imaginary become the truth.

Steve

[bogan]

The point I was trying to make is that the device HAS NO WAY OF KNOWING how much traction is actually available. It depends on a number of factors and interaction between these factors. Off the top of my head I can mention, apart from water, diesel, gravel, melted asphalt, etc...

Tyre temperature.

Tyre condition

Road temperature

Road surface type

Road surface condition

Humidity

wind

Interaction between the above.

I am afraid the device would train the rider to become overconfident, resulting in problems when a sub optimal road surface is encountered.

i see what you are saying, it does not know how much traction is currently available, but it does know how much is available in an ideal situation. The idea is that in knowing the ideal you can use all that traction in order to get out of a sticky situation, and scale accordingly. A similar principal to track days for riders, once they know how hard they can push thier bikes on the track (ideal conditions) they will perform better on the road. Of course its still better to do a track day and get the experience of pushing it to the limit, but you get the idea.