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Comment by leon_sbt | Hacker News Reader

Really interesting concept. I like the general lines of the bike. Looks really well thought out/clean sheet mechanical design.

Two points of contention:

1) After putting over 40k+ miles on various bikes, I never once wished there was a self balancing feature to make it stand up on its own. At a stop light; I put my foot down; at a really long stop light, I put the kickstand down.

If the self balancing feature can function as form of driver aid. Meaning you declarivity tell the bike "I want this line with this apex"; then the bike will follow through with it's active systems. That would be wild.

2) The device right behind the rider gives me goosebumps. In a crash; seems like a great way to break your back and be pinned in the bike.

Background data:MechE background. Owned and crashed high CC several motorcycles. I'm doing totally fine healthwise; just really lucky.

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>After putting over 40k+ miles on various bikes, I never once wished there was a self balancing feature to make it stand up on its own. At a stop light; I put my foot down; at a really long stop light, I put the kickstand down.

As someone with 138cm height, All I ever wanted on a normal sized motor-bike is self-balancing.

So far my options to ride a normal size bike is to convert it to three-wheeler with after-market attachments(I'm not confident about the safety, Quality of such work), Going for a 3-wheel scooter like Peugeot Metropolis(Not really a bike).

Self-balancing bikes would make the dream come true for many like me.

You have a very valid point. I'm 5'11" so getting my foot down at stop lights has never been an issue; unless I'm dealing with a 450cc dirt bike.

My GF is about 5'2 and stopping a motorcycle in traffic is actually a pretty big deal. She isn't tall enough to put her foot down, without awkwardly angling the bike. The only bike should could ride of mine is a 250cc ninja. The 400cc+ supermoto was way to awkward/tall for her to comfortably ride.

I'm totally open to the self-balancing idea now.

Thank you for considering my point of view.

A friend of mine is a harley guy and said harley is making a bike that solves this by lowering the bike when stopping.

What do you think of Yamaha Niken? Looks like it would be more similar to a normal motorcycle than a 3-wheel scooter.

https://www.yamahamotorsports.com/sport-touring/models/niken

Not really sure about Abhishek, but based on thr name he's an Indian and I'm fairly sure that Niken is

A. NA in india B. Too expensive C. We get conversion kits which can add two side wheels as a rear wheel/chassis attachment which many handicapped people use here in India.

Yeah, it's expensive (and I wasn't aware that there might be availability limitations in India).

Although a self balancing bike would probably not be cheap either, at least until they become much more common.

Self-balancing e-bike could be helpful in more than one way to those with disabilities, Considering our travel range is on average limited to those without physical limitations I would be happy to charge my bike at home without awkward petrol(gas) station visits.

Rumor is that Mahindra is going to introduce Metropolis in the price range of 2.5LacsINR to 3.5 Lacs INR (~5000 USD), Not sure how they are going to manage that(possibly eyeing police force) but at that price it's going to be a deal and unlikely to be matched by other 3-wheelers currently in the Intl. market(In terms of price).

I had explored it sometime back it seems like a better option to Metropolis/MP3 for those who prefer bikes, need assistance with balancing and don't mind the premium. But it isn't available where I live(importing vehicles is huge pain & cost-prohibitive).

I personally think one failing of these concept vehicles is that they are clean slate... and too weird.

As an example, early electric cars and fuel cell vehicles were/are uniformly non-uniform. The GM ev1 had fender shrouds, and the that corbin electric vehicle had 3 wheels.

Personally I would like an electric bike that performed and looked like a sportbike.

related: I found it interesting that the look of sportbikes actually derives from racing rules. Originally racing bikes chased aerodynamics with long streamlined fairings usually shrouding at least the front tire. Then racing rules came along that said the fairings couldn't extend past the front axle, and that set up the look.

Right there with you on two. I don’t yet understand the thinking behind that, but I’ll keep reading. It looks really threatening.

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