Next-Gen Motorbikes: Hauling Eco-Ass

by Jordan Yerman | May 10, 2008 at 11:36 am

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Motorcycles are cool: on that we can all agree. However, they aren't as fuel-efficient as some may think. Indeed, some sportbikes only achieve gas mileage in the high thirties. Meanwhile, bike designers and engineers are already competing for tomorrow's market: eco-conscious motorcyclists. Powered by everything from fuel cells to electricity to hydrogen/water mixtures, the bikes and scooters described below are pushing design and efficiency to the street-legal limit. However, power delivery varies. The drag bike, for example, is a furious maelstrom of two-wheeled power, but some of these bikes top out at 50mph, too slow for most riders. Sure, you'll most likely never hit the 198mph limit on your ZX10R unless you're on the track (and an expert rider), but the potential of such a speed sure sells a lot of bikes.

Creators of eco-friendly motorcycles are pushing the limits of their designs to make them desirable to a biking community that sees little difference between their (relatively) efficient gas engines and the new-fuel wave of alternatives. Riding bikes is all about the cool factor, so the crazier and more technologically advanced they get, the more people will want to ride them, clean fuel or not.

Some of the designs look more like bicycles than motorcycles, but some look like Motards from Mars.

Just for grins, I'm attaching a video of Bill Dube inadvertently demonstrating the sphincter-clenching power of the 400hp Killacycle. The name alone should serve as adequate warning.
(My own bike gets roughly 50mpg during real-world, non-street-racing use; I'd be thrilled to try out one of these alt-cycles, but not the slow ones...)