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 of two and six ratios, reverse gear is very rare. 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 2,300 cubic centimetres (140 cu in) Triumph Rocket 3 have become common. In the USA, motorcycles with large capacities have been common for much longer.
Read more about Motorcycle Engine: History, Types, Two-stroke and Four-stroke, Cylinder Heads (four-stroke), Valve Control (four-stroke), Unit Construction, Cylinders and Configuration, Diesel
Famous quotes containing the words motorcycle and/or engine:
“Actually being married seemed so crowded with unspoken rules and odd secrets and unfathomable responsibilities that it had no more occurred to her to imagine being married herself than it had to imagine driving a motorcycle or having a job. She had, however, thought about being a bride, which had more to do with being the center of attention and looking inexplicably, temporarily beautiful than it did with sharing a double bed with someone with hairy legs and a drawer full of boxer shorts.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“Industrial man—a sentient reciprocating engine having a fluctuating output, coupled to an iron wheel revolving with uniform velocity. And then we wonder why this should be the golden age of revolution and mental derangement.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)