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[princec]

Cheaper yes but the point of them was stiffer forks, not cheaper forks.

Cas

[HoodRichOG]

But they're still tiny things.  The metacycle is never going to be a grom.  No one in their right mind commutes on a grom.  It's also not the cheapest bike Honda makes.

-Crissa

What's your beef with the Grom? I used to commute on a somewhat modified one 30 miles each way and it's awesome. Does 65-70mph and is pretty comfortable. The handling is awesome and it's a lot of fun. Also, 100mpg. Amazing for lane splitting.

The Grom is worlds better than the metacycle in basically every department.

[princec]

Well, apart from the petrol.

Cas

[TheRan]

Inverted forks are usually stiffer for two reasons, generally they use larger diameter tubes and they have a greater distance between the sliding bearing surfaces inside the forks (compare the length of the uppers on inverted forks to the lowers on traditional forks). Because of these reasons you can get away with using thinner wall and lighter tubing so for the same stiffness the inverted fork will be lighter (overall and just the unsprung portion), so if you find a traditional fork that's lighter than an inverted one it's because it has more flex.

[Crissa]

This is only half the story though. The very worst sort of unsprung weight is unsprung weight that rotates at 300rpm.

Yes and no.  That rotational inertia is what keeps us upright, so in some ways that makes it more stable at low speed.  Sort of.  It can do the opposite, too...

-Crissa

[Snafuperman]

Sorry, but any company that reproduces the Reliant Robin's layout in their lineup - even in mirror-image - cannot expect to be taken seriously by the AngloSaxon consumer. Just sayin'...

What the hell kind of racist stuff are you posting here?  Not being an "AngloSaxon" I take exception to this type of posting, implying that YOU are a more discerning consumer, huh?

[wavelet]

Sorry, but any company that reproduces the Reliant Robin's layout in their lineup - even in mirror-image - cannot expect to be taken seriously by the AngloSaxon consumer. Just sayin'...

What the hell kind of racist stuff are you posting here?  Not being an "AngloSaxon" I take exception to this type of posting, implying that YOU are a more discerning consumer, huh?

You obviously aren't British (neither am I), so you missed the cultural reference... By Anglo-Saxon he simply meant British, as the Reliant Robin was a famous in the UK in the 1970s & 1980s, for being 3-wheeled, cheap and having a fibreglass body.

[JaimeC]

[JaimeC]

By the way, a friend of mine tried to put a deposit down on a Sonders Metacycle with two different credit cards.  Both credit card companies rejected the charge (American Express and the Bank of America).  American Express told him they don't allow these kinds of transactions at all.  More troubling was the response from Bank of America.  They said they will not do business with Sondors due to multiple complaints they received about the company...

Caveat Emptor.

[MVetter]

Completely meaningless but Sondors Metacycle is an anagram of As Motorcycles End.





not my videos

[Oldun]

Sorry, but any company that reproduces the Reliant Robin's layout in their lineup - even in mirror-image - cannot expect to be taken seriously by the AngloSaxon consumer. Just sayin'...

What the hell kind of racist stuff are you posting here?  Not being an "AngloSaxon" I take exception to this type of posting, implying that YOU are a more discerning consumer, huh?

Wow, that escalated quickly. If you're not familiar with the @RobinReliant laugh-fests on UK telly over time, that's one thing. If you want to hate-call-me-out without any other research or curiosity, that's another thing. BTW and FWIW, I'm not AngloSaxon either - I'm Portuguese. But many of my best friends are AngloSaxons bwahaha...

[Crissa]

BTW, they had to seriously overbalance the Reliants to get them to roll on cue.  It wasn't just trick driving, but mis-aligned wheels and weights.  I'm trying to remember where I read that...

-Crissa

[wavelet]

BTW, they had to seriously overbalance the Reliants to get them to roll on cue.  It wasn't just trick driving, but mis-aligned wheels and weights.  I'm trying to remember where I read that...

-Crissa

Not just the Robin videos. Top Gear isn't exactly known for intellectual honesty.
One of the presenters (possibly Jeremy Clarkson himself, the most famous one) once said that it was an entertainment show, not an automotive one, implying it shouldn't be expected to be factual.
He was eventually suspended, probably for one too many crashes.

[TheRan]

Completely meaningless but Sondors Metacycle is an anagram of As Motorcycles End.





not my videos

I don't know if his math is correct but I do know that a 15hp/11kW 125cc gas bike can top 70mph, and when you take into consideration how much power is lost through the gearbox and drivetrain I have no reason to doubt the Metacycle can hit 80mph with over twice the power at the rear wheel. Also using his acceleration formula gives my base model DS a 0-60mph time of 3.3 seconds or 1.9 seconds to 34mph. I know the Zero doesn't give you full torque from a stop (the Metacycle probably doesn't either) but even if it did I can't see it being able to accelerate that quickly so perhaps there are other things that need to be taken into consideration.

[Crissa]

...I have no reason to doubt the Metacycle can hit 80mph with over twice the power at the rear wheel...

That's not quite how electric motors work, though, they are bound by their coils to certain limitations in rotation.  Not to mention the motor controller.

Just because it 'has the power' doesn't mean it 'has the speed'.

I also have no reason to think it can or can't, either, I don't know anything about the parts they're using.  But it's perfectly logical that it might not.

-Crissa