4th semester project - by far the most fun! Never fails, when you want to design a bike, go look at... diamond rings! I was struck by the beauty of a tension mounted solitaire: a gold ring, two platinum inserts that magically hold the solitaire in mid-air!  I tried to convey the same idea in the design of the bike...
		ELECTRONIC AND MECHANICAL Drive by wire steering single arm front and back in a zig zag pattern From left or right, one wheel is always fully exposed. It makes the bike visually light from any side. The suspensions bolt directly to the engine block, which acts as a stressed member (like a F1 engine).
		Alias Model As seen in the first sketch, the rear swingarm follows the same curves as the gas tank. A sacrifice of engineering to design, the chain has to go through the swingarm. This is seen today on today's superbikes and recently spotted on Foggy's bike. (Foggy a.k.a. Carl Fogarty, 4 time World Superbike Champion with Ducati, for those who just joined us!) The "guns" come under the seat "a la 916" to keep good aerodynamics NB. forget a "biposto" version, isn't bike riding a selfish pleasure anyway? :-)
		Carat "Carat" was the name I gave it. It was a good name because of the inspiration, not to mention that it was the name of a special edition HondaVFR (Interceptor). "Carat" back in the 80s in Europe. Was it named the same in the US?  Feel free write to me about that...
		Carat seen from the left. I took my time with the model, adding small details everywhere. I would like to redo it and get better lighting and shading. Ray-traycing everything was the way to go back in school. Now that I know better I would definitely shade and light it very differently. 916 rip-off?  Well, this bike was designed in 1997, almost three years before the release of the RC51. From the looks of it, Honda is following the same footsteps I took.