No prob on the criticism... I'm kinda in uncharted territory here, having never seen one of these things in person, and having never seen anyone on one in a video make it look graceful.

So, I guess to answer a few things I saw above.

One of the reasons I think the existing wheelie machines don't mimic true road conditions is the mass they are moving is too light. A single motorcycle dyno drum only weighs like 200 lbs. By using a dual dyno drum design, along with the huge... and I mean huge steel fly weight housed in the larger side of the dyno, the mass the motorcycle on my machine needs to move is right around 500lbs.

And as near as I can guess, what will make the machine feel more true to real wheelies, is the closer you can get the mass you are moving (drums and fly wheels), to the mass of the bike and rider, the more accurate the machine can simulate a real world wheelie. Think about it... in a real world wheelie, when you're at a dead stop, and dump the clutch, the rear tire is trying to move around 600lbs... now, if your machine only has 200 lbs of mass, it will just spool it up, and not mimic a real wheelie very well... Likewise, if the mass you are moving is say 2000 lbs... the bike would just flip, because there is too much mass to move, and you can't spin up that 2000 lbs very quickly.

So, I guess to answer the simulation part... I think this machine will be close. Also, I have the computer control system, and a giant eddie current brake, so If I need to hook it up to the computer and get it exact, I can go that way as well. But I would like it to be close with just the mass of the metal it'll be moving.

Let's see... Patent. Yes, this idea has already been patented by someone other than me. However, my design is nowhere near what the patent holds. Hense is the beauty of patents. One is able to make improvements, or even simply just differences in a design, and it then becomes a new product. Kind of like cell phones. They all work on the same principal.. but nokia is different than motorola etc... Both are cell phones, they just can't pirate the exact design, and sell it as their own. What... there is only 1 type of motorcycle in the world?

Ok... read something about downward pressure on the tire. Another good design I implimented in my machine, is I can adjust the down pressure to whatever I need to gain the traction I'm looking for. Basically, I can move the axle when the wheel is touching the dyno... and apply 3" of downward travel to the axle. So that issue has already been addressed in my prototype.

I certainly don't mind real stunters speaking their mind on this machine. I did however give a lot of thought on making it as real to true wheelies as possible, and believe I will gain what I want to learn from this machine. I agree with the left to right balance issue... but I personally don't think that will be a limiting factor in using the machine to learn. Steering is just steering, and left to right balance is just adjusted for in each real world wheelie anyways.

I've been busting my ass on this for ages... and the last few days have been killing me trying to get the final details done so I can mount my bike to it... But I'm trying to be patient and do the job right the first time around.

Things I think may be over looked about using this machine is such as... I lost a lot of confidence in using a hand brake when mine failed on me a year ago. So I'd like to get my confidence in that back. I'd also like to then learn seat standers. SS coasters, (pulling in the clutch, and using the hb) are something I think this machine could offer me. And I'm not sure how accurate it will feel, but I finally got idle this year, and hope the machine will be able to handle idle wheelies so that I can start opening up a larger variety of tricks to practice in the lots next year.

So I guess to sum it up, feel free to shoot it down... Who knows, it may not work like I expect it to. But I ultimately built this machine for me, and know what I desire to learn from it. Anything else is icing on the cake.

The machine may be ready by tomorrow afternoon... and hopefully I'll have my bike on it, and running it thru some tests.

- Pixel -