motorcycles

How to build a commercially viable flying car: first, make it a motorcycle. The idea of creating a personal transportation craft that can both take to the skies and travel along the ground has been alive as long as science fiction. But meeting both the FAA's regulations for aircraft while simultaneously meeting the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration's guidelines for automobiles means compromises on both sides.

In 1989, François Knorreck took a long ride in the sidecar of a friend’s motorcycle and enjoyed it so much that he decided to build a rig of his own. Now, 20 years, 63 bodywork molds and innumerable headaches later, he has it: a handcrafted masterpiece that’s part motorcycle, part Lamborghini.

In a high-velocity demonstration that proves green and badass can coexist in the same vehicle, Mission Motors has set a new speed record for electric motorcycles.

Topping out at 161 mph, the Mission One motorcycle beat out 70 percent of the gasoline-burning bikes during a recent event at the Bonneville Speedway in Utah.

A pit crew swarms around an open-wheel racecar, but instead of hoisting a fuel-fill tank they hot-swap its battery packs and send the driver back into the race. That could be the scene at next year's TTXGP -- an all-electric motorcycle race set for its inaugural running this Friday on the UK's Isle of Man. The event's organizers announced this week they were seeking to include four-wheeled vehicles for 2010.

To all the parents and potential doctoral students who worry a Ph.D in political philosophy will lead to a lifetime of waiting tables, here's a counter-argument: it could lead to jobs running your own motorcycle shop and writing about how the trades -- good old-fashioned working with your hands -- are slipping away from us.

Welcome to the inaugural episode of Technology Under Review Now. Every week, the editors and writers of Popular Science will take their T.U.R.N. breaking down the tech behind the newest gadgets, autos, computers, cameras and more. Dying to see something specific in action? Drop us a suggestion in the comments section. And be sure to tune in to popsci.com/TURN each week.

Buell did not break the mold when it made the 1125CR racing bike. Instead, it washed the mold away—to create a sturdier body.

The transportation program at the Art Center College of Design has produced legendary car designers, including BMW chief of design Chris Bangle and Henrik Fisker, the creator of the Fisker Karma electric supercar. But this year, after professor Bumsuk Lim’s inaugural motorcycle-design class, the buzz is all about bikes, especially Jake Loniak’s exoskeleton motorcycle concept Deus Ex Machina.

Among his other unusual hobbies (he also builds sculptures featuring fire-spewing robots), 32-year-old Justin Gray makes custom electric motorcycles. To create his latest drag racer, the R144, Gray tore the motor and gasoline systems out of a 1999 Yamaha R1, a bike with a frame large enough to hold the extra parts he needed for the conversion. Since the gas engine had been an important structural element in the original bike, he built his own aluminum motor bracket to hold the modified bike together.