0:02 finally news of a revolutionary form of
0:04 transport that has just started coming
0:06 off the production line it's not quite a
0:08 motorbike and it's not quite a sports
0:14 what it is is an armchair
0:16 and a slippery fish
0:19 and a road train [Music]
0:44 they call it a feet forward
0:47 as an idea it predates jeremy clarkson
0:49 and post-dates man's invention of the shed
0:50 shed
0:52 27 home builds and three mayfly
0:54 production runs have culminated in one
0:56 universal response [Music]
1:04 that technically is the correct way to
1:24 wow suddenly
1:26 suddenly
1:28 the world i used to know i see it differently
1:31 differently [Music]
1:34 [Music]
1:52 in 1818 people straddled horses
1:55 gross in 1819 carl dries connected two
1:57 wheels with a raised frame so people
2:00 could straddle his dandy horse in 1867
2:02 sylvester roper put an engine in one it
2:04 was faster than any horse so he
2:06 straddled it until he died
2:09 that's how paradigms work we take an
2:12 arbitrary model and progress within it
2:15 motorcycles got more comfortable
2:16 more faster
2:20 but they're still horses with wheels [Music]
2:28 what if a motorcycle wasn't something
2:31 you sat on but something you sat in
2:32 in
2:34 and that could solve a few
2:37 anomalies a few cracks in the paradigm
2:39 of the straddled motorcycle [Music]
2:46 it's 2022 and motorcycles can't
2:49 accelerate any faster without flipping
2:51 over nor can they break any harder
2:53 without flipping over
2:55 this dead end to advancement is us
2:58 smacking into the glass walls of our paradigm
2:59 paradigm
3:01 see modern rubber can accelerate at 2
3:04 times gravity but earth only gives us 1g
3:06 downward so trigonometry says any center
3:09 of mass higher than 15 inches will flip
3:10 over backwards
3:13 to accelerate at full potential we need
3:16 an abnormally low motorcycle
3:40 if the future is greener on the electric
3:45 side then wind resistance is the fence
3:48 sneak under a 0.3 coefficient of
3:51 aerodynamic drag to stretch 500
3:54 kilometers on a charge
3:56 but motorcycles have an arrow factor of 0.4
3:58 0.4
4:03 your main mast drags range below 200. not
4:04 not far
4:05 far enough
4:07 enough
4:08 but remember that horseless carriages
4:11 were also crap it wasn't until motor
4:13 cars reinvented the paradigm that the
4:15 automobile made sense
4:18 shouldn't electric drive merit similar rethinking
4:19 rethinking
4:22 low and enclosed a drag coefficient of
4:27 0.19 for 400 kilometer range is trivial
4:30 this electron pulls as hard at 70 as it
4:32 does from a standstill i'm not wasting
4:34 any power fighting the wind
4:36 i have the frontal area of a lawn dart [Music]
4:39 [Music]
4:42 1970s quasars ran on old reliant robin
4:44 engines and could hit 180 kilometers an hour
4:45 hour
4:48 dan gurney's alligator made 230 from a
4:50 single xr 650 motor
4:53 it's possible to achieve range without
4:55 battery and speed without power you just
4:58 need brilliant aerodynamics you need an anomaly
5:17 six inches from the ground wow
5:19 wow [Music]
5:27 highway pegs inflatable seat bar
5:28 bar
5:32 all frills for what is testily speaking
5:33 a pommel horse
5:36 whereas a recliner requires no core
5:44 gore-tex jacket heated grips
5:46 smart helmet
5:49 all unnecessary in the bubble and i've
5:50 seen feet forwards with heaters air
5:54 conditioners voice commands and always trunks
5:59 you gotta fill the aerodynamic rear
6:02 vacuum anyway so an anomalously fat
6:05 booty designs itself [Music]
6:16 straddled motorcycles are inescapably
6:19 ejector seats so putting airbags on
6:21 bikes doesn't work great and putting
6:23 airbags on riders is like putting life
6:25 jackets on cannonballs
6:28 why not have seat belts
6:30 why not keep the rider in an engineered cocoon
6:32 cocoon
6:34 so crashes cost nothing more than a
6:45 because that means one final anomaly the
6:47 seating position that is unthinkably
6:49 weird in the way one paradigm always
6:53 looks from another i don't like it but i
6:54 don't have to
6:56 the feet forward position implores itself
6:57 itself [Music]
7:10 [Music] [Applause]
7:11 [Applause] [Music]
7:27 [Music] you
