|
A motorcycle engine is an engine that powers a motorcycle. Motorcycle engines may be two-stroke or four-stroke internal combustion engines, but other types have been used in small numbers. The engine typically drives the rear wheel. Most engines have a gearbox with two to six ratios, reverse gear is rare but does exist for sidecar use. Power is sent to the driven wheel by belt, chain or shaft. In Europe, before the 1969 Honda CB750, engine capacities typically ranged from about 50 cc to 750 cc; but since then machines with capacities up to Triumph Rocket 3 have become common. In the USA, motorcycles with large capacities have been common for much longer. ==History== (詳細はsteam engines. The earliest example is the French Michaux-Perreaux steam velocipede of 1868. This was followed by the American Roper steam velocipede of 1869, and a number of other steam powered two and three wheelers, manufactured and sold to the public on through the early 20th century. Using frames based both on the earlier boneshaker and the later—and in many ways completely modern—safety bicycle design, these early steam motorcycles experimented with a variety of engine placement strategies, as well as transmission and options. While today nearly every motorcycle has its engine in the center of the frame; this became standard only around 1900-1910 after nearly every possible engine location was tried. The origins of the scooter engine arrangement (including the shaft drive) can be traced back to the 19th century but the current layout became generally adopted after the Great War. The modern equivalent became universally popular in the 1950s and remains much the same today.〔 The Otto cycle gasoline internal combustion engine was first used on an experimental two-wheeler created by Gottlieb Daimler to test the practicality of such an engine in a vehicle. This motorcycle, the Daimler Reitwagen, is credited as the ''world's first motorcycle'' by many authorities, partially on the assumption that a motorcycle is defined not as any two-wheel motor vehicle, but a two-wheel ''internal combustion engine'' motor vehicle.〔 The Oxford English Dictionary, for example, defines the word motorcycle this way.〔|〕 The steam cycles were also simply neglected and forgotten by many historians, even as the Michaux-Perreaux waited forty years on display in the National Motor Museum, Beaulieu. In recent years, a surge in interest in clean energy has put many new electric powered two wheelers on the market, and they are registered as motorcycles or scooters, without the type of powerplant being an issue. Diesel motorcycles were also been experimented with briefly throughout the 20th century, and are again the subject of interest due to fuel economy and the needs of military logistics. The USMC has ordered a new diesel motorcycle, the M1030 M1, that can use the same fuel, JP-8, as the rest of their armored vehicles, aircraft, cars and trucks. The overwhelming majority of the motorcycles produced and used in the world today have small displacement air-cooled single-cylinder engines, both two- and four-strokes. In the wealthier parts of the world, Europe and Japan, larger displacements and multiple cylinders are common alongside small-displacement bikes required by various licensing and rider experience requirements, and so a very diverse range of sizes, cylinder numbers, configurations, and cooling systems are seen on the road. Many developed countries have graduated licensing, where a rider is licensed for a period of time to ride only smaller-displacement motorcycles before being allowed to ride larger ones. In the United States, there are no such mandates, and so the mix is skewed even further to the largest displacements, consumer demand drives manufacturers to offer their largest motorcycles to that country, and to export far fewer sub- models to the American market. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Motorcycle engine」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|