Motorcycles can become unstable when operating at high speeds and at high cornering levels. For example, they can exhibit an oscillation at the rear wheel commonly known as “weave.” A system and method is provided which utilizes a high-fidelity computer simulation model of a 2- or 3-wheel motorcycle to predict operating states such as yaw rate, lateral acceleration and roll angle for a stable motorcycle at a given speed and steer angle. The operating state of a physical motorcycle can be measured and compared to that of the model at every instant in time to determine if the operating state of the physical motorcycle differs from that of the simulation model in such a way as to indicate loss of stability. The nature of that difference can then be used to intervene in the operation of the motorcycle independent of driver actions by application of brakes, modulating the engine torque or applying torques to urge the steering system in a corrective direction. Thus by comparing the physical response of the motorcycle to that of the computer model in an on-board controller these interventions can be applied at a time and intensity to stabilize the motorcycle and prevent a loss of control.

A method for damping a lateral pendular motion of a single-track motor vehicle having a front wheel, where—the presence of a pendular motion is ascertained, and—the moment of inertia of the front wheel is increased as a function of it.

In a method for automatically adjusting the speed of a motorcycle as a function of the longitudinal distance as well as the lateral distance of a motorcycle from a preceding other vehicle, a minimum lateral distance to be maintained is determined as a function of the type of the other vehicle.

A braking force control apparatus for a saddle ride vehicle includes a transmission controller which reduces driving force of an engine by a predetermined speed reduction ratio and transmits the driving force to a drive wheel, a clutch device which connects—disconnects the driving force between the engine and the transmission, a brake device which generates braking force on the drive wheel, and a sensor which detects a state of the transmission. The transmission switches between a neutral state and an in-gear state, and when the sensor detects that the transmission is switching from the neutral state to the in-gear state, the controller causes the brake device to generate braking force on the drive wheel, and then releases the braking force upon completion of the switching to the in-gear state.

A variable speed control system includes a multiple-speed transmission which changes a speed of an engine output in multiple stages based on a change in meshing state of a dog clutch which is caused in association with an operation of a change pedal connected mechanically, a pedal load detection device which detects an operation load of the change pedal, and a control unit which suppresses or shuts off an engine output to the multiple-speed transmission and permits a speed change action of the multiple-speed transmission by the change pedal when a detected pedal load exceeds a pedal load threshold. The variable speed control system further includes an engine revolution speed detection sensor which detects an engine revolution speed. The control unit changes the pedal load threshold according to the engine revolution speed detected. Such variable speed control system can realize a stable speed change action irrespective of running conditions.

A motorcycle (300) includes a clutch lever (14), a clutch switch (15) configured to detect whether or not the clutch lever (14) is gripped, a vehicle speed sensor (16) configured to detect a vehicle speed, a hydraulic rear brake (18), a pressurizing unit (17) configured to perform a pressurizing process that applies an oil pressure to the rear brake (18), and a microcontroller (19) configured to control the pressurizing process by the pressurizing unit (17) based on results of the detection by the vehicle speed sensor (16) and the clutch switch (15).

A number of variations may include a cable movement detector for determining a movement of a cable. A light source may be directed at the cable. A light detector may receive a reflection of the light source from the cable.

The invention regards a method, a system and a vehicle for analyzing a rider performance. The vehicle is any vehicle that employs a roll angle change for changing its driving direction. Firstly, physical motion parameters of the vehicle in motion are sensed and the measured data is supplied to computing unit. In the computing unit, segments in a time series of measured data are determined by processing the measured data in the computing unit. Each segment corresponds to a rider control behavior and the plurality of such consecutive rider control behavior build a riding maneuver. In the computing unit, the measured data within one segment for at least one of the segments is analyzed by computing at least one characteristic value for the respective segment and/or the sequence of determined segments is analyzed. Finally, an analysis result indicating the rider performance or rider skills is output.

There is provided a two-wheeled vehicle overturn prevention method, wherein maximum allowable lean angles corresponding to vehicle body velocities are preset in relation to lean angles of a vehicle body, and in a case where an actual lean angle of the vehicle body exceeds a maximum allowable lean angle corresponding to an actual vehicle body velocity of the vehicle body or in a case where an estimated lean angle of the vehicle body after a predetermined amount of time exceeds or looks to exceed a maximum allowable lean angle corresponding to an estimated vehicle body velocity, the two-wheeled vehicle overturn prevention method is adapted to accelerate the vehicle body or keep the vehicle body from decelerating.

A driving force control system according to an embodiment of the present invention includes: an absolute bank angle detector configured to detect an absolute bank angle that is the absolute value of a vehicle's bank angle; a calculation circuit configured to calculate a relative bank angle that is the vehicle's relative angle with respect to a maximum absolute bank angle that is the maximum value of the absolute bank angle; and a controller configured to control driving force based on the relative bank angle.