Freindly competiton for 2013 meetup

[Niri Te]

If I knew that we were going to get this 70 MPG motorcycle before I cancelled the rooms, we would be UP THERE right NOW. With this bike, we could have made it to Seattle and back to El Paso for 180 dollars in Gasoline. (Granted, the 225 dirt / street bike could only maintain (uphill), 60 to 63MPH two up), BUT we would have the unofficial cheapest per mile transportation to and from "gold star" for sure. Guess how we are coming up NEXT year?? (Let's see if someone gets better than 70MPG for private transportation). HEY, we ARE an ecological bunch, after all.
Ateyo and I will spring for a NICE, but 10 inch high Trophy to the person / team that burns the least fuel per gallon for the trip up, so save your fuel receipts!! Let's see how efficient a vehicle we can travel THE FULL DISTANCE up there in or on, so no sticking your 21 speed on the Amtrack.
We are in the process of stretching a step through motor scooter frame into a trike that will be powered by a duplicate of the same engine that powers the bike, the trike will have a carbon fiber body that Ateyo and I are currently hand laying up. Let's just say that the thing looks like something that should be parked in a hanger at the AFB at Groom Lake. The highest point off the ground will be the top of the vertical stabilizer, which will be 40 inches off the ground. We will sit one semi-behind the other, the rear person's legs from the knees down, will be between the hips / thighs of the person in front, and the inside of the trike body, and we will be semi-reclining, (Formula one style). The vehicle will be registered and tagged as a motorcycle in the State of Texas, with all it's lights and a horn.
WHO'S "GAME" for a little Engineering competition to promote frugality in fuel consumption with a TRUE cross country machine??? Niri Te

[iron_jones]

I guess I better get my winged shoes.

Oi! Hermes!

[JayWalker]

My 1977 Kawasaki gets 45+ mpg But that's the best I've got.

[Niri Te]

Originally Posted by JayWalker

My 1977 Kawasaki gets 45+ mpg But that's the best I've got.

That's a HELL of a lot better than a LOT of cars out there, and slightly better than the very newest, highly expensive ones. SHOOT, bring it out next year. If we get enough of us out there, even just five or six that actually MAKE the trip, we could start our own Clan, and come up with a great Na'vi name for an Olo' that tries really hard to live in balance with Nature.
Perhaps 'Eylan ayfalulukana would not object to our using that word that he came up with for a clan name.
Niri Te

[Niri Te]

Well, today, after Ateyo and I pour a concrete stanchion for a vertical support for the sunshade over our shooting station on our private range out here, we will grab some brunch, and then start to jig up the 3 foot extension of the original scooter's frame. This will allow the two of us to sit, semi-reclining in partial tandem, keeping the maximum height of the trike at 40 inches. If I ever figure out, (read work up the energy to desire to figure out), how to load photos up with a URL here, I will load photos of the progress of the high mileage trike here. If not, I will let everyone know when they can go to Learnnavi, and check out the photos that I can load there straight from my "C" drive.
Time to pour some concrete, HAYALOVAY !!!
ta Niri Te

[Sight Unseen]

I drive an old '99 Lincoln Navigator. It gets about 11MPG. Assuming gas is $3.50, it would cost me $1550 to make a trip to and from Seattle (in Houston).

This is not my ideal vehicle by any means, but it's what I got and it gets me to work. Personally I hate the idea of carrying around 6 empty seats with me everywhere I go.

[Niri Te]

Originally Posted by Sight Unseen

I drive an old '99 Lincoln Navigator. It gets about 11MPG. Assuming gas is $3.50, it would cost me $1550 to make a trip to and from Seattle (in Houston).

This is not my ideal vehicle by any means, but it's what I got and it gets me to work. Personally I hate the idea of carrying around 6 empty seats with me everywhere I go.

I hear you ma tsmuk, I hear you. I have an F-350 one ton dualie stretch cab pickup with a 460 cubic inch engine that gets around EIGHT miles to the gallon, even WITH it's four speed overdrive automatic transmission. I only use it when Ateyo and I go into El Paso to get a ton and a half of building materials that we split between the bed of the truck, and the trailer that it pulls. That engine goes through gasoline like a 747, but it will climb the Huecos on the el Paso / Hudspeth County line, like there is nothing but an extra bag of groceries in the truck. That is the ONLY occasion when we drive that truck. otherwise, we have two 4 cylinder 4 wheel drive Jeep Wranglers, which get 16 to the gallon, and the motorcycle that gets SEVENTY miles to the gallon. Care to guess WHICH vehicle gets the lion's share of the usage in this household?
We were planing on building the trike over a year before AVATAR even came out, I designed the optimum body for it about the time that AVATAR came out, (But we didn't see it till about seven or eight months ago), I designed the frame to fit the body about a year ago, and we started acquiring the parts to modify the scooter that we bought 3 years ago, this past March.
I should have the thing all welded up by September, and the body on it, by November. There will be no problem with the registration, because in the State of Texas, as long as it has only three wheels, it is a Motorcycle, and as long as the part of the frame that has the VIN stamped into it, then it is still THAT motorcycle. The bike is still registered and tagged, but we ride the other one while it is being transformed.
Niri Te

[Sight Unseen]

Originally Posted by Niri Te

I should have the thing all welded up by September, and the body on it, by November. There will be no problem with the registration, because in the State of Texas, as long as it has only three wheels, it is a Motorcycle, and as long as the part of the frame that has the VIN stamped into it, then it is still THAT motorcycle. The bike is still registered and tagged, but we ride the other one while it is being transformed.
Niri Te

DIY Trike? Very cool.

Also, are you saying I could get a plasma cutter, find a random vehicle in a junkyard, cut out the part of the chassis with the VIN, and use it to register another vehicle?

[Niri Te]

Texas has some pretty strict rules about vehicles in junkyards, I was going to build up another Dirt Track Stock Car for the Short Track in El Paso, and hit FIVE different junkyards looking for a car to turn into a stock car, and they ALL told me the SAME THING. They are FORBIDDEN by law to sell a car out of a junk yard, I also learned that once a particular VIN is entered into the State's databank as being junked, it can NOT be re registered.
The reason that I can DO this, is because the motorcycle that is being turned into a Trike, is currently REGISTERED to me, and INSURED as my bike.
Niri Te

[Human No More]

Cheapest per mile?
~£0.18/mile, tax included. (~£0.14/mile, no tax).

Fuel efficiency?
Gallons/Passenger Mile: 0.01665 (60.06 passenger MPG)
(Boeing 777-300ER, full load).

[Niri Te]

Originally Posted by Human No More

Cheapest per mile?
~£0.18/mile, tax included. (~£0.14/mile, no tax).

Fuel efficiency?
Gallons/Passenger Mile: 0.01665 (60.06 passenger MPG)
(Boeing 777-300ER, full load).

Well seeing as NONE of us will never OWN our own triple seven, the whole idea of the Boeing seems a bit moot, but since it is here, and since we are talking about the ability of a PRIVATELY OWNED vehicle to cover a distance, passenger miles go right out the window.
The Boeing according to your figures, then burns 0.999...... gallons a mile AT CRUISE altitude, a LOT more in thicker air, (TRUST ME, I know what I'm talking about here).
OK. so a fraction over one mile per gallon. My 2,100 dollar, 2006 Dirt / Street bike gets SEVENTY miles per gallon, so the bike wins. By the way, how many Million does a triple seven go for, delivered in the UK???
I have a good idea, you seem like a pretty smart guy, why not go find a Royal Enfield, stretch it so that you are semi reclining, either put two wheels in the back, (Trike) or two in the front like the old Morgan SS, my absolute favorite car by the way, (We call 2 front, 1 rear a "Tadpole"). You could just take the stretched frame, and put a REALLY slick glass or carbon body on it, with small outrigger wheels either side of midships to hold the bike up at a slight lean when at a traffic light or Stop Sign, but neither outrigger touching the ground when you are running, leaving it registered as a motorcycle.
Put a small highly efficient engine in it, and you could SMOKE my mileage numbers with the 225 C.C. Yamaha.
Niri Te

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by Niri Te

Well seeing as NONE of us will never OWN our own triple seven, the whole idea of the Boeing seems a bit moot, but since it is here, and since we are talking about the ability of a PRIVATELY OWNED vehicle to cover a distance, passenger miles go right out the window.

Oh, wow, you got me there... </s>

I hate holier-than-thou attitudes, so my post seemed appropriate.

The Boeing according to your figures, then burns 0.999...... gallons a mile AT CRUISE altitude, a LOT more in thicker air, (TRUST ME, I know what I'm talking about here).
OK. so a fraction over one mile per gallon.

...for 365 passengers plus cargo. I'd be genuinely interested in the data regarding thicker air, though (the data I was using was normalised for typical cruising altitudes plus takeoff/landing phases).
Taking the QM2 as an example of a modern ship, 3000 passengers * 0.0057mpg = 17.1 passenger mpg. Since what we're talking about is simple mathematics, I think I do too.

[Niri Te]

The engines on a Jet aircraft burn more fuel in pounds per hour, when the jet is at lower altitudes, look in a POH for a Boeing.
It is not "holier than thou" to attempt to come up with a vehicle that burns less fuel per mile, consequently less pollution per mile. As a matter of fact, I would think that such an attitude would be a VERY AVATAR type of attitude to have, and if I could turn it into a fun challenge for other Americans to try to come up with vehicles that would get really good mileage, I wouldn't have minded the cost of the trophy, or even if someone got better fuel mileage than Tee and I did. My motive for this was to spur development at the grass roots level, NOT to see who the Mirror said was "Holiest of All".
Niri Te

[Raiden]

Okay.

Let's hold the meetup in Portland, OR.

.....Oops, I win.

[Niri Te]

Originally Posted by Raiden

Okay.

Let's hold the meetup in Portland, OR.

.....Oops, I win.

Especially if you get your 21 speed, and put one of these tiny "Helper Motors" on it to drive the front wheel from it's friction wheel against the outside diameter of the front tire. Remember, it's NOT the cheapest amount spent on fuel, it's the BEST fuel mileage in a real world vehicle.
If there are going to be several people or teams doing this, it would be great if the local newspaper, and TV Stations knew about it. THEN we could get a photo for the media to publish of all the different vehicles, and their respective fuel mileages. THAT would prove that a lot of us serious AVATAR fans are not just hung up on an "Escapist" movie, but that we PRACTICE what the real message of the movie was all about.
Niri Te