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HISTORY
1924 350 Raleigh- converted in England for trialling. 1930 REX sidecar- converted to drive both bike wheels by Einar Stormark. 1937 FN M60- solo converted by Stormark. c.1960's Rokon (still in production)- The
ROKON is a small 2WD motorcycle with no suspension and a top speed of around
60 kph. They have big chunky tyres and have been powered by a multitude
of small 2 stroke motors and recently by 4 strokes. A shaft runs up the
backbone with a bevel drive gearbox in the steering head and chain down
to the front wheel.
1980 SWM trials bike- with cable drive to the front. c. 1983 DR 250 Suzuki- with hydraulic front wheel drive developed for the Australian army (still chain to rear)- not carried through to production. Rumoured to have 5 % of power to front wheel, standard front forks retained. 1987 Suzuki NUDA- concept bike (A shaft drive hub-steer 2WD road bike) is shown at the Tokyo motor show. An earlier concept 2WD, the "Falcorustyco" featured hub-steer, hydraulic drive and hydraulic steering but none of these features have yet gone into production. 1988 XR 250- at Honda 'Ideas Day' also with hydraulic front drive and chain rear. Standard front forks also used. Hose sizes indicate quite low power to front. Note- Honda are reputed to have built a 2WS based on a 400 more recently- it was used to test 100+ mph handling. 1988 Sunshine 2WD- using standard front forks and 4 chains driving the front through a sissor action linkage. Yamaha and Maico versions built. 1989 Savard- hub steer Yamaha 600 raced in France. A bit simpler than the Sunshine in that it had 'only' 3 chains driving the front wheel. Race results were very good. Savard had previously built Kawaski and Husqvarna versions. 1990 Dryvtech 2x2x2- fully hydraulic / hydrostatic drive to both wheels. 1991 Damian 'Coma'- used small Suzuki motor and a very unusual fabricated aluminium front end. 3 chains to front drive. 1991 Suzuki- get publicity on 2 different 2 wheel drive models. The Lander using multiple chain drive to the front with leading link forks and the XF-5 using a 'sliding spline' and a series of right angle drives with telescopic front forks. (And 3 chains as well to the front drive !) Neither bike seems to have been sold outside Japan. 1992 Fantic 305- trials bike converted using 5 chains to the front drive (std. forks) - claimed weight increase was only 7 kg. See Website here. 1993 Xereb CR500- Honda hill climber built in Australia using front forks modified to pivot at the top triple clamp like the BMW 'Telever' system (Which hadn't been released then) A 'radius' arm running from the gearbox sprocket the top of the fork slider controls the fore / aft fork movement. Only 2 chains are used to drive the front - although this necessitated removing the magneto and shortening the crankshaft. Very neat design. 1998 Ohlins 2WD enduro- based on a Yamaha 250 motocrosser and uses a small hydraulic motor (thought to be gear type motor) tucked neatly in behind the right hand fork leg driving the front wheel via an internal ring gear with a ratio that appears to be about 10:1. From the hose sizes and size of the hydraulic motor it is safe to assume that the amount of power to the front wheel would be less than 10 % of that to the rear ( still by chain drive ). I don't think that this sort of power split is enough to alter the handling of the bike - either for the better or for the worse. I believe up to 60 % of the power must be available to the front wheel ( but not all the time ) to give the sort of handling that a 4WD rally car enjoys. 5 to 10 % of the power to the front will just feel vague - neither here nor there - not 1 wheel drive and not really 2 wheel drive. The other point is that 2WD bikes really needs to be hub steer as well - Sam Xereb's CR 500 2WD made that clear - although his design is good in that the 'stay arm' attaches half way up the front forks - thus limiting the amount the forks extend under power. 2000 Mekhalian R001- This is an interesting project in that it takes a new angle on 2WD bikes - it is (by the designers description) literally half a 4WD car. Chains run down the left hand side in arms fixed to the frame - both wheels are driven by short shafts with universals in a similar way to a FWD or 4WD car. It uses a Suzuki GS1000 motor - it is unknown how the torque is split between the 2 wheels.
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