[Edited: changed from motorcycle to scooter] Egg-shaped folding wireframe cage around bike keeps you safe like in a car. Including airbag. Bike itself tilts and bends but suspended cage stays horizontally aligned with the ground due to gravity.

If crashed into, energy is sent around and above bike and rider, and absorbed before pulling the bike out of its way. Rider is safely elastically suspended in the middle.
-- pashute, Dec 05 2017

Ah yes, here it is .... Auto_20Body_20Experience
[normzone, Dec 05 2017]

Protection when folded https://www.alibaba....7945afc9sDszBG&s=p
For the norm [pashute, Dec 06 2017]

role cage https://thekneeslid...cage-the-babe-cage/
- too small for this idea [pashute, Dec 06 2017]

Scooter - that's the word I was looking for https://www.youtube...watch?v=cBd7-nh0Gss
- still too small - and not suspended. [pashute, Dec 06 2017]

//elastically suspended// https://www.ebay.co...57?iid=162127958049
hamster ball [pashute, Dec 06 2017]

Prior Art http://scooterresou...spot.co.nz/2009/02/
The Quasar [neutrinos_shadow, Dec 06 2017]

Prior Art http://www.bmwblog....5/12/22/the-bmw-c1/
BMW C1 [neutrinos_shadow, Dec 06 2017]

Can I buy the stripped-down collapsible version that only functions as protection for your motorcycle while it's parked?
-- normzone, Dec 05 2017


// suspended cage stays horizontally aligned with the ground due to gravity. //

Would you mind giving a brief but accurate resumé of your experience of riding motorcycles ?

We consider that it would be appropriate to at least allow you the opportunity to answer the enquiry, before launching an exhaustively-considered vicious ad-hominem attack both on you, and your idea.
-- 8th of 7, Dec 05 2017


Oh come now, [8th]. This is much like asking the posters of anti-gun ideas if they've ever had any firearms training.

It's not only fair, but potentially entertaining.
-- normzone, Dec 05 2017


//elastically suspended// Ah, thereby ensuring a good amount of bouncing around. In an accident, you really don't want anything to be elastic. You want plastic deformation.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 05 2017


My wife's Toyota Corolla was rear ended at a stop light - a full size pickup truck pushed it out into the intersection.

She was fine - it was interesting to see how the whole rear end of the car crumpled in stages. I believe I have an idea on the 'bakery regarding affixing another crumple zone assembly right over the old one.

That idea was about as well received as this one.
-- normzone, Dec 05 2017


//You want plastic deformation.//

You don't want plastic deformation on motorcycles. I had to watch the plastics on mine deform after a long day of replacing the brakes. It was particularly a long day since it started with repairing the aforementioned plastics.
-- bs0u0155, Dec 05 2017


For folded protection its the same full version with [this](see link) on it.

My experience is with city bikes like a Vespa, don't know what they're called in English (mopeds?). See [3rd link] for a too small protection cage. Mine is the size of a car.
-- pashute, Dec 06 2017


You don't always want //plastic deformation//. You can definitely have the driver //elastically suspended// as in [4th link](hamster ball).
-- pashute, Dec 06 2017


It depends on what you want from a crash. If you seek entertainment, elastic suspension is fine. If you seek a long life, go for plastic.

The important thing in a crash is to absorb and dissipate energy: the energy of the crash has to go somewhere, and you don't want it going into a skull fracture.

Elastic collisions absorb no energy. If you have a rigid car body, and the driver is suspended elastically in it, then a collision will just leave the driver bouncing back and forth violently; welcome to whiplash world. Same goes for an elastic car body with the driver suspended rigidly in it.

Plastic deformation (as when steel crumples) absorbs a large amount of energy and dissipates as heat within the deformed structure.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 06 2017


If neither elasticity, nor plastic deformation, are acceptable to you, may we recommend the obvious and indisputable benefits of reactive armour ?
-- 8th of 7, Dec 06 2017


I'd tend more towards active armour : blow away anything coming along too fast on an intercept trajectory. That way the paint doesn't get scraped.
-- FlyingToaster, Dec 06 2017


Ah, you must be the one with a small phalanx gun in the basket of your treadly, [ft]. How do you find the recoil?
-- pertinax, Dec 07 2017


Manageable, once I switched out the Vulcan with a Mauser RMK. Before that, not so much.
-- FlyingToaster, Dec 07 2017


I think you would be lucky to get very far down the street while riding in a motorcycle with a hammock seat managed by gravity. You would be lucky to find a car and then run into it.

Even if you sought out a car, and turned to hit it, to test your crumple zone, I feel it would take an expert hammock-bike rider, to take the turn successfully without being thrown down the road. The only thing that could really improve on this idea is to get reverse gearing for the handlebars, so you can't make it out of the driveway.
-- mylodon, Dec 07 2017



random, halfbakery