We’ve all been there, riding a motorcycle in conditions that are far from ideal, and right there in the middle of your path is a pile of loose gravel or oil right in the path of a bikes front wheels. Anyone who has ridden in India might find a similar incident comes to recall. In most cases, skill and luck usually are enough to get you through. The problem is on that one day your luck doesn’t come through or said oil spill/gravel patch is in the middle of the corner and you’re already leaned over, physics just stop being on the side of your bike. This usually ends with a helmet full of gravel. According to a report on rideapart, the good people at Bosch are working on technology that will change that. Now while most of the time equipment from Bosh comes in the form of an invisible sensor to keep you safe. Working silently and thanklessly in the background. This technology is the polar opposite. You will know when these thrusters are working.
In theory, the concept is not that hard to wrap your head around. When the motorcycle detects a lateral slide, the kind that you might encounter on a gravel patch or oil spill, the motorcycle deploys a compressed gas thruster to counter the lateral sliding force. Straightening you out and sending on your way sans the usual dose of road rash that comes with going down on gravel.
All of which seems easy until you realize that measuring that slide and applying the correct amount of counterforces a going to be a challenge. Something that Bosch, who have spent the better part of a decade trying to perfect know all too well, luckily for us and them, their IMU (inertial measurement units) for bikes are a revelation in technology.
Considering that this technology is still very much in a development phase. There is already a video out that shows how it works, check it out. As to when you can expect to see it, Bosch is still trying to decide whether they will ever use this technology commercially or not.
