CR: Hybrids make more sense than ever

Out of curiosity do you think motorcycles should be allowed on public roads?

 

Absolutely. I've owned 8 street bikes and 1 dirt bike, ridden 80k miles, half of them gnarly backroads well over the %&. Regular at Alices / Skywood Trading Post. Rode a lot with Gary J. , Doc Wong, Andy the SBR founder, Mike, and more. Good people, good riders.

btw, I was thinking of a '87 Ford Escort with world's lousiest headrest when I wrote that comments. Neck still tweaked from that whiplash.

You're a bikeaholic too right?



Ok form above, but that's my tall a$$ on a wannabee racer bike. Sold last bike year ago. I'm out. Not the time to ride now. Maybe in 10 years.

Cars vs. motorcycles - Cars are exponentially more convenient.

so, yes I do. Lane 'sharing' ought to stay legal in CA also. I don't want to sit in freeway parking lot on a bike.

OT, I'd be saving at least 5 cents / mile on gas, every mile had I bought 3rd Gen Prius / nav over Accord Cpe EX which are similar in price.
Last conventional I buy though. For sure.

 

take off more for less maintenance

in 100,000 miles the matrix will need 3 sets of front pads and one rear if driven in an urban environment.

$200+$200+$300=$700 on the low end

not having to go to a mechanic as much...priceless

 

Indeed- Prizm was a Corolla.

Right, the new Fiesta gets quite reasonable safety scores. It's an IIHS Top Safety Pick and 4-stars overall in the new NHTSA ratings. Not bad for something barely over 2500 lbs. Small cars can be made relatively safe, but they still won't "win" a head-on with a much more massive car, of course.

 

Cycle -
I live 6 miles from Alice's up on King's Mountain so yeah I ride. Got tired of my Nighthawk 750; just too cold natured in winter and not nimble enough on the backroads and so I got me one of the new CBR 250's. Incredible flick-ability on roads like Tunitas, easy easy ride, fuel injected so no more 10 minute warm-ups when I haven't ridden in a month due to bad weather and I'm averaging over 80 mpg - with less power than the old carburated 750 but way more than a traditional 250 (VStar, Nighthawk, Rebel).
I just think it's funny that safety standards on cars have gotten so strict that simple engineering fixes allowing cheap, highly efficient cars are no longer possible but we still allow motorcycles, the safest of which is orders of magnitude more dangerous than even a Yugo or East German Trabant or Tata motors job. And don't count out options like that in the US; economic upheaval may well lead to sea changes in attitudes regarding what sort of compromises we are willing to live with.

 

I very strongly doubt it. Ditching HSD forces ditching of the Atkinson cycle and the fixed operating load curve, and probably means cutting stop-start and the extremely wide range of effective gear ratios. I don't see how the weight savings could possibly make up for those losses.