Bosch is planning the next stages of a new rocket bike. But this isn't the jet-age motorcycle of the future you're expecting. This one will help keep you safer.
When the only thing between you and the road are two twoonie-size patches of rubber, things that you can ignore from behind the four wheels of a car suddenly become big problems. Oil, gravel, wet leaves. They can all cause a motorcyclist to lose control in an instant. To help make bikes safer, Bosch is developing ways to mitigate that slide.
So how does it work? The quickest way to stop a slide is to apply an external force. Unfortunately, that force is usually applied by a roadside object. The new system uses a gas accumulator and jet nozzles to keep the rider on course and upright.
Sensors detect wheel slip and know when a rider is beginning to slide. When that happens, the gas is released and is vented through nozzles on the appropriate side of the bike. It's like rocket boosters to keep you on the road. Bosch says the system's gas accumulator is like a passenger car airbag system, so it would most likely need to be replaced, along with your shorts, after use. But that's a big improvement over the alternative.
Bosch is also working on radar-based active safety systems, like those found on cars, to add to motorcycles. Adaptive cruise control that allows the driver to keep more of their attention on the road than on the speedometer, forward collision warning systems, and blind spot detection.
Right now, the jet bike is still in development. Bosch hasn't said when it will arrive in a production cycle.
