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two-wheel drive

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BMW Motorrad is already playing around with the idea of its electric future, teasing us with electric scooters and fancy futuristic concepts that practically ride themselves, but what if the company’s future actually rested in its past?

Take for instance this electric sidecar concept by Spanish transportation design student Iago Valiño. Drawing off-road inspiration from the El Solitario troupe, the concept is a nod to BMW’s sidecars from the WWII era, but with an obviously modern flare.

What? You’re still riding around on your adventure bike with only one-wheel drive…like a sucker??! Well, the good folks at Christini have a solution for you, if you’re riding on one of those orange ADV machines.

Releasing their acclaimed two-wheel drive system for motorcycle for the KTM Adventure lineup, Christini is once again shaking up the off-road world.

An interesting find from the folks at Motorcycle.com, it looks like Suzuki is getting crazy with its scooter designs, as a patent for a two-wheel drive scooter has popped-up at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and that is not the only item of interest when looking at the front-end of the motorcycle.

The 2WD system features an electric hub motor on the front wheel, which assists the gas-powered rear wheel, making this a hybrid-powered motorcycle. The patent also shows a a non-conventional front-end suspension setup, on what looks like Burgman scooter design.

The electric side of the motorcycle industry is slowly showing life again, as we first got the flash in the pan, and now we are getting the sizzle. Some of that sizzle is coming from projects that have been in the works for quite some time, like the Alta Motors Redshift.

However, some of that sizzle is coming from new players, like Armotia. The Italian-based outfit has two interesting offerings to show us, the Armotia Due R and the Armotia Due X.

The Due R is Armotia’s electric supermoto, while the Due X is the company’s electric enduro model. Both bikes feature a two-wheel drive setup that makes 15hp, 5.1 kWh battery pack, and a smartphone dash.

BMW aftermarket parts specialist Wunderlich really knows how to promote itself. The German company is known for its one-off machines and concepts, some which have tipped BMW’s hand when it comes to new models. For a boutique German brand, it is impressive that it is known around the world.

So, it shouldn’t surprise us that Wunderlich is grabbing headlines once again, this time with an intriguing concept: a two-wheel drive BMW R1200GS that uses a hybrid drivetrain with an electric front-end that was developed with Italy’s electric specialist Evolt.

Wunderlich calls its creation the BMW R1200GS LC, and it features a 10 kW hub motor on its front wheel, in addition to the GS’s boxer-twin gas engine. The electric motor has regenerative braking, which helps charge its modest battery pack (located under the front beak, to our eye).

Back in 2013, Yamaha debuted two electric motorcycle concepts: the Yamaha PES1 street bike and the Yamaha PED1 dirt bike. This was a big deal, because Yamaha said it planned to bring an electric motorcycle to market by 2016.

Well, here we are just a few weeks from the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show, where 2016 models from the Japanese manufacturers would typically debut…and it seems Yamaha has more electric motorcycle concepts for us.

The Yamaha PES2, as the name suggests, is an evolution of the PES1, though it does look slightly more ready for production than its predecessor.

In the coming years, US special forces may be riding a tw0-wheel drive, hybrid-electric, multi-fuel motorcycle co-developed by BRD Motorcycles and Logos Technologies. Helping make this project possible is a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

The goal is to make a single-track vehicle for US expeditionary and special forces that will be nearly silent in operation, yet also capable of traveling long distances. Details on the proposed machine are light, of course, but it sounds like the 2WD dirt bike will be based off the BRD RedShift MX (shown above), and use an electric drivetrain, as well as a multi-fuel internal combustion engine to achieve its goals.

Coming from left field but hitting it squarely in the “awesome” section, Hero recently unveiled a 150cc diesel engine powered motorcycle called the “RNT”. The oil burner, with its square lines, flat surfaces and 1980’s Sci-fi aesthetics looks fantastically practical and more like a scooter than a motorcycle.

The RNT concept weighs about 300 lbs, has a top speed of 44mph, and a tank capacity of 1.5 gallons. At that weight, the Hero RNT 150 is quite pudgy compared to your typical 150cc scooter but the potential benefits of the increased efficiency and range of the Diesel might make up for that.

To top it all off, the concept features two wheel drive. It’ll be interesting to see if and how Hero goes forward with this concept.

Motorcycling’s two-wheeled culture has seemed resistant to two-wheel drive machines, but maybe this video will be the breakthrough moment. After all, if one-wheeled burnouts are cool, then two-wheeled ones have to be twice as cool, right?

The logical conclusion to one of the more illogical undertakings we have seen, Gregor Halenda set out to convert his KTM Adventure 990 to use a Christini AWD system, and drive the bike’s front wheel for ultimate off-roadability. You know…because.

The process was not easy one, and it involved a bit of engineering prowess on the part of Cosentino Engineering to get the job done; but the result of all that hard work is a truly unique machine, and of course an epic two-wheeled burnout video.

There is a massive build thread on the ADV Rider forum for you gear-heads to spend hours poring over, and for the less technically advanced, there is a 2WD drive for dummies explanation in the video. Enjoy!

Riding a Ural is an interesting experience. For starters, the Russian-made sidecar can trace its origins back to BMW’s WWII-era three-wheeler, and includes a near facsimile of the German company’s now iconic boxer-twin motor as its power plant. While BMW Motorrad has changed significantly in the decades since the Second World War, IMZ-Ural remains sort of stuck in time.

One could use pejorative comparisons to farm equipment while riding the Cossack motorcycle, and they would not be inaccurate. In our modern time of silky smooth gearboxes, stout motors, and powerful brakes, the Ural T sidecar lacks just about all of these superlatives — and yet, the brand has been booming.

Maybe it is the two-wheel drive off-raodability of the Ural’s design, which has struck a chord with the ADV crowd. Maybe its the machine’s “authentic” and low-tech pedigree, which appeals to motorcycle enthusiasts who feel constantly corned by the growth of rider aids like slipper clutches, anti-lock brakes, traction control, and their progeny.

Or, maybe it is the company’s obscure brand and its Soviet heritage, which resonates enough counterculture “fuck the man” goodness to lure in the skinny-jean espresso-sipping crowd. The answer is probably “all of the above” to be honest.

Naw…we’re just having some fun today, but not as much fun as Nicky Hayden’s pit crew during the Brno test. Staging this photo of the team supposedly starting up the Desmosedici’s new two-wheel drive system, the photo plays right into the rumors that Ducati is literally trying anything under the sun to make the GP11 work for Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden. With Filippo Preziosi essentially saying there are no sacred cows at the Italian racing effort, we honestly wouldn’t put it past Ducati Corse to give the two-wheel drive system a go…too bad its banned by MotoGP rules.

Source: GPone (whose post is far funnier than ours)