Building the Ultimate Racer - Part I
[by heitikender]Sunday, August 14th, 2005 at 4:43 amFor a long time now I have had an idea to build the perfect racer. Not from a personality or a hairstyle point, but with the help of technology. The following is an “informational” essay based on what I have managed to unearth from the latest news, journals and forums about how technology might help create the ultimate racer. Bike, or Man.
PART I
Vision
It’s old news that Tiger Woods had his eyes LASIK-ed to improve his vision and then some. But, the real gem for motorcycle racers is not to have perfect vision near the center of the vision field but to have balanced vision in the whole visual area. That’s more than 180 degree side to side. Near perfect vision in the center is the culprit for tunnel vision. Once something is locked on sight, we try to hold it there. Whether it’s a threat, a corner apex we missed or a rider in front of us we don’t want crash with. By making the very center of our vision field purposely foggy (not Carl) a little bit, we force the brain to “look” elsewhere. And that is a good thing. As tests have shown, people who have defective eyes (where the center, most sensitive area is damage) may notice more details generally and their eyes move less. Also, the corresponding brain areas are generally more developed. More gray matter and nerve connections mean more processing power means more options.
In the heat of the moment you will notice more likely that you’re about to miss your braking marker and you decide to brake at right moment. The other guy will surely miss and run wide.
Muscles / Nervous System
We needn’t have to remember that we should breathe from time to time. Nor do we “remind” our heart to pump or eyes to blink. Also, we don’t have to tell our hands to clamp on handlebars in case of emergency or body to tense up or wrist to roll off. We are so wrong in automatic ways that it’s ridiculous. But help is on the way. Recently, scientists have discovered a protein that can shut off nerve impulses temporarily. For the time being it’s on mice but since we have only 100 or so genes out of 25000 different from mice, but it may only be a matter of months before we have that possibility too. Before the race, we could have a shot of that protein into very distinct areas to turn off our reflexes. But lets keep breathing and pumping. At 200mph we really don’t want to have worries about our blood pressure. Which means, we should inject some adrenalin suppressor as well. We’re not running from lions on track. We are there for the win. “Survival Instinct” may not be what is really needed, and indeed has some possibly detrimental effects on the racetrack.
Balance System
As I wrote in forums (looking for the post…), the Japanese have invented a device that, placed behind the ears will trick our balance system to think the real balance is not where inner ear tells us it is. Now, lets take The Segway, “the human transporter”, and combine these two. A Segway does approximately 100 corrections per second. Compared this to human consciousness kicking in up to 80 per second (we talk about it in more detail in PART II), and it’s barely below our sense level. Therefore, the Segway seems to feel as solid as the ground. Now, lets put those same electronics to the already multimillion-dollar racebike. Rewire the Japanese invention to Segway and voilá we have perfectly a balanced multibody system. The same technology can be used to subtly move a rider’s legs, butt, arms, and head.
Gently, these systems “intuitively” know better where to look. When the bike “feels” tire slippage, let the balance system guide the rider to stand the bike up a little bit or move his weight in some direction. All this goes without rider’s knowledge. Have you ever tried to sprint on a horse? Or Elephant? You should. They are closest to “thinking bike”, especially a horse in a gallop on a twisty road. All you do is give general aim and the horse actuates everything by itself.
PART II
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Visual system revisited (quantum consciousness)
How our reality forms.
Heads Up Display. From all instrumentation to augment reality.
- Optimal maneuvers (more mathematics than the doctor ordered)
Road conditions, weather, wind, tire temperature. Let the bike decide the way. Lean angle, body position.
Less orthodox ways around the track
Rolling kneesliders, legs as extra brakes, lowsiding is just another way to reduce speed, highsiding gets you turned faster, endos are good not only for pictures, it’s ok to climb entirely to one side of the bike.
Heiti
August 14th, 2005 at 5:04 am
There have been some full-page ads in the last few editions of CycleNews showing both Jake Zemke and Miguel DuHamel as semi-augmented humans. Jake with a CBR1k frame as the backplate, Miguel with legs as a swingarm, and the knee as a rear disc. I couldn’t help but seeing those in my mind as I read this.
A great example of thinking WAY outside of the box. This will likely take a few days to digest, and another few to start making fun of you about it.
-jim
August 14th, 2005 at 10:02 pm
very cool article
i think when it comes to reflexes, however, you don’t want to shut those off. what you want is to RELEARN reflexes as they apply to the motorcycle.
relexes are absolutely necessary at the speed at which things happen in motorcycle racing.
rossi somehow hanging onto the bike in donington is a perfect example of the RIGHT reflexes; it may explain why he crashes so rarely.
the best example of someone who does the WRONG thing is Alex Hoffman during a QP session, i believe mid season last year. the bike goes into a wobble and he tightens up, gets thrown from the bike and then the bike straightens out and goes on it’s merry way. i guess with some riders it’s 100% bike, 0% rider >:)
one thing i would add to your building recipe is faster synapse responses both leading into the spinal column and in the brain. in this way the information that’s crucial to decision making is delivered much faster, processed faster, and acted on more correctly as a result.
there’s a great science fiction story called, i believe, the Blue Max, in which future pilots get injected with some sort of synthetic adrenaline direvative for a few seconds during actual arial combat (which happens so quickly it’s usually over in a few seconds).
August 15th, 2005 at 10:29 pm
Interesting & fun read. Sort of a six million dollar racer, I take it? Of course we’d have to adjust for inflation. How much is $6,000,000 in 1970’s money worth nowadays?
Kidding aside, if someone were to do these things, how would it be different than say, steroids? Don’t we want to see athletes that are naturally gifted and therefore so much better at the sport than we could ever be, rather than watch an artificially enhanced version?
Now, the idea of having the motorcycle “smart” and maybe even wired into the rider might be a different story. Same way that F1 is supposedly the pinnacle of automotive technology (not true anymore) and how that technology can be applied to racing, there could be a series with “smart” motorcycles. Might be a tad expensive, though.
(BTW, I didn’t know that about Tiger Woods and I think it’s cheating just as much as steroids, even though I did the LASIK thing myself a few years ago and have been enjoying my slightly better than average vision ever since…)
August 17th, 2005 at 10:48 pm
There is a huge difference in moving muscle with reaction and moving it by thought. Try take your hand away from heat in a slow, controlled motion
.
What I meant with shutting down reactions, was shutting down reactive, forceful muscle movements. To make way to smooth, controlled mucle movements.
With neuro impulses doing 100m/s we already in a nice speed. The problem is in brain that can compute only that fast. Rising neurochemical reactions doesn’t help. Rising the number of neurons doesn’t help much either. We have to dig to microtubulas level and make them collapse their quantum state faster. On Part II.