If you’re like we are, the closer the first spring ride gets, the more impatient and wacko you go. Still, with weeks, and in certain areas months, until the weather becomes fully rider-friendly, here’s a very nice treat to care a bit for your withdrawal syndrome: Victory’s Oculus Rift virtual motorcycle ride.
We’ve had other bike-related contraptions based on the Oculus Rift virtual system, but this one is bike-specific, says Victory’s Rod Krois. The system has been tailored to provide an accurate response for the Victory Gunner, one of the company’s fairly recent additions in the roadster segment. Fancy a modern ride, here's a Tron light cycle!
The Victory Virtual Ride was presented at Chicago during the Progressive International Motorcycle Show and judging by what we can see in the video after the jump, this system is a really cool piece of technology. It appears like the response the rider’s input are translated into the virtual world in such a way that they mimic what a Victory Gunner would behave like in the real world.
A very strong educational purpose to this system
If we skip the ludic aspect of the Oculus Rift, this system has a very strong educational value. That is riders can safely experiment how riding a big, heavy and torquey bike feels like, even without leaving the room. The riders’ Oculus Rift experience may vary according to mistakes, such as bad positioning, inconsistent throttling, understeering and all, but the result will not be a nasty crash wrecking an expensive bike and causing injuries.
It’s really awesome to see virtual reality making inroads in the bike territory. The possibilities such technologies come with are yet to be explored solid involvement from motorcycle manufacturers can really help push things into the next phase. Of course, adding a computer controlled fan in the whole game could be the next best thing, imitating speed, but until then, having the possibility to take a virtual ride on a Gunner around Sturgis sounds literally awesome.
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