you don’t recognize the Kettenkrad?!?
up to a point the thing is only steered by the front wheel, sharper corners use the tank-like “stop one of the tracks”. if the driver expects really harsh outdoor tours the wheel can be removed and the beast worked like a tracked vehicle
I recognize it - still confused by it. It’s neat though. It seems completely over engineered to move 2 people, but neat. I guess wiki said it was used more as a tractor to move stuff. I wonder, could it pull something like artillery?
How does she ride with her arm such as it is? She could not clap or raise her arm at the convention last night from what I could tell.
according to this WW2 US intelligence bulletin the Kettenkrad could haul about half a ton, the German wiki article claims it was used to pull Leichtgeschütze (a series of recoilless guns with a weight of up to 550 kg) - both sources are within the same ballbark and it sounds about right for a vehicle weighting loaded 1500 kg
…the foundation of the whole German mechanical engineering industry…
Looks to be in wonderful condition. Not sure if the seat cover is original design. Some years, at least, had lengthwise fluted stitching. Did any have crosswise like this one? Those bar end mirrors do look great. Even the toaster might be a retrofit, as the look is so desirable. Doesn’t matter. It still looks cleaner and shinier than mine ever aspired to.
no, but this is: you’re 30 times more likely to die in a motorcycle accident than in a car accident. so i’ll stick to cars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorcycle_safety
Trump would ride a Can-Am…
This is an example of a statistic which needs careful examination.
The reason is that we need to be sure we are comparing equivalent populations.The article you cite cannot meaningfully be boiled down to that single statistic (and it’s one of the best Wikipedia articles I have seen which looks seriously at risk analysis.)
I’m not about to argue that motorcycles are not as dangerous as cars. The big question, however, for every individual, is “would I personally be thirty times as likely to die in a motorcycle accident as a car accident, other things being equal?”
The motorcycle riding population may on the whole be younger and more likely to engage in risky behaviour than the car driving population. Risk takers may be attracted to it. Motorcycles in general have higher acceleration and less braking capacity than cars, as well as less user protection.
It is well known that young drivers of cars have a much higher accident and death rate than the population as a whole, so any population skewed towards youth, inexperience and high speed would be expected to have a high fatality rate,
Fair weather riders who ride less powerful bikes within their capabilities and avoid bad riding are presumably much less likely to die in an accident than their opposites. Of course, the same may go for car driving. But I haven’t seen any evidence that the same person would be thirty times more likely to die (assumed per kilometre) on a bike as in a car.
Gabby Giffords riding a sensible bike ( and the BMW 5 series is the epitome of “sensible”) on good roads at moderate speeds and taking due care might be considerably safer than a young car driver. Feeling that she’s getting her life back might well be an acceptable tradeoff.
(A simple example of slightly bent statistics is the observation that on average cat owners have higher IQs than dog owners. This may be perfectly true and perfectly misleading. As it is more difficult to combine dog ownership with a “two urban professional” lifestyle, it may simply be that choice of pet is guided by circumstances which relate to the probability of employment in jobs which need a lot of commitment. This is an example of correlation having some basis in causation, but there being no direct link, i.e. cat ownership does not increase IQ - in fact the incidence of toxoplasmosis might even reduce it.)
Seat pattern looks a lot like my 76 R90s. Seat pan/shape do not.
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