Remembering Mark Doman

I have reached the time when I am losing friends and family. Today, I am remembering Mark Doman. I met Mark in college and we have stayed in touch over those many years. Mark was a special person, adventurous, very intelligent, creative, open, and accepting of everyone. He was always doing something interesting, but was always more interested in hearing about what someone else was doing. He was a person that I admired so much. I would like to be more like him.

Mark was also one of the best engineers that I have ever known. Along the way, his career varied from making snow to designing roller coasters. I used to tease him that he would be a big hit at parties handing out business cards that said he was a roller coaster engineer. Once, while at Chrysler, I tried to hire Mark as a Vehicle Dynamics engineer. It had been years since he had done automotive engineering, but I knew with his engineering skills and curious intellect, he would catch up in no time. Alas, my boss couldn't see it that way, so Chrysler lost a wonderful opportunity.

You may be wondering what a remembrance of someone like Mark is doing in a blog that is mostly about motorcycles. Mark was also into motorcycles and, as usual with Mark, his story is a little unique.

When Mark was a teenager, his dad was working for Ford in Australia and Mark wanted a motorcycle. His dad was into antique cars, but also worried about his teenage son riding a motorcycle. Mark used a little psychology and got his father to approve him buying an antique motorcycle. As a result, his first motorcycle was a 1913 Douglas 350 motorcycle. How many of us can say something like that?

The Douglas was a British motorcycle that was unusual, even in its day. It had a opposed twin like a BMW, but the cylinders lay fore and aft and that resulted in a narrow, nimble bike with a low center of gravity. The 350 was rated at 2 ¾ HP and was a very reliable motorcycle. It was and still is considered to be quite sporty for the day and the 350 won the Isle of Man Junior TT in 1912. Naturally, even in choosing an antique, Mark chose an interestingly engineered and “high performance” bike.

From discussions with Mark, Stephen Wells says that the Douglas made it back to Ann Arbor, but was left behind in a shed when the family moved out of a rented house.

Another of Mark's motorcycles was a BSA 250 single. He had intended to restore that bike when he moved back to Ann Arbor from Utah, but it is one of those projects that never got done. The motorcycle images have been downloaded from Google images with credits for the Douglas going to Yesterdays.nl and the BSA to Wikipedia.

Mark's most modern motorcycle experience was on trials bikes in Utah. I remember him telling me about going out to a motocross area in Utah with himself and a friend on trials bikes. They would start out with the motocross bikes zipping around them, but soon they would be high on the mountain with the buzzing motocross bikes far below them. That appealed to the explorer side of Mark, in addition to the balance and skill of riding the motorcycle.

In the end, motorcycles were only a small part of Mark's life. It was a very full life, with family, friends, career, exploration, and adventure. Unfortunately, it was a little shorter than it should have been. There is not room here to tell all of the stories, so let me just say that Mark was a friend, a man who I greatly respect, and one I won't soon forget.

Edit:

The family's obituary is out and there was one phrase from it that really exemplifies Mark that I thought I would share.  "Mark assumed the best about everyone."  That was so true of Mark.  Imagine a world were everyone did the same.  One more thing that I need to work on in myself.

Automotive Outlier

What I like in a car, or motorcycle for that matter, is different from the vast majority out there and not what usually sells. At times in my past, that has provided challenges to me professionally. For example, when asked to tune a pick up truck. I don't even like pick up trucks, much less understand what drives people who buy them or what the character of a truck should be. It makes it hard to put yourself in the customers shoes and do a good job.

The thing is, I like to be actively involved in the process of driving. When done well, driving is like a dance between two partners, a tango if you will, with both partners communicating through their hands, feet, and body position to form a whole that is greater than the parts.

I want the car to respond to me as I control, hopefully with a little finesse, the throttle, the shifter, and the clutch. I want to feel the feedback from the clutch as it takes a bite and transfers torque. I want to hear and feel the engine respond to my change in throttle pressure and feel the gears engage as I slip them into position.

Even more important, I want the steering and the chassis to give me feedback about the traction at the road surface as I corner or make a correction to our path. And I want the brakes to tell me about the tire grip on the road and give me feedback on our stopping progress.

I am not alone in these desires. There is a group of vehicle dynamics engineers, racers, and other car enthusiasts that also value these things. But we are a small group and don't influence the market. After all, my desires are the antithesis of the self-driving car that is all the rage right now.

I also have a special weirdness in that I drive alone most of the time and don't think I need a big, heavy vehicle, just for me. Of course, little cars get better gas mileage, but its more than that.

If you think about it, a bicycle is the most efficient method of transportation for a single person. It weighs 30 pounds or less and can cost as little as a few hundred dollars. Ok, that's not a practical solution for most Americans, including myself, that don't live where a bicycle is practical for the distances we travel or the weather conditions, much less the lower safety of a bicycle in traffic with cars.

 

But do I really need a huge behemoth that barely fits on the road and weighs 5000 pounds or more just to carry me? My little Fiat does that job just fine in less than 3000 pounds and a lot less space. I wish it were the old days when a car that size weighed less than 2000 pounds. When the weather works, my motorcycle does much better at about 330 pounds.

The other thing about a small car is it's fun to drive all the time. You don't need a twisty road or anything. It becomes an extension of me which is fun on its own. Not to mention the tiny parking spaces or the ability to cut and weave through traffic in the little holes that only cars my size will fit.

An now comes the conundrum. The Fiat is getting old and will need to be replaced in a few years. You can't buy a new one and there aren't very many options out there that match what the Fiat offers me. The Mini might have been one, but they went automatic transmission across the board in 2020. For now, you can still buy a VW Golf, a Subaru Impreza, and maybe one model of Mazda 3 with a manual transmission, but those are imperfect solutions bigger, heavier, and much thirstier than the Fiat. Plus they don't fit my too tall body very well. And, in the past, I wouldn't have said the Impreza is great at the tango mentioned above. I would have to drive current versions of each, but at least there is a chance of a nice tango with the VW and Mazda offerings.

All of this shifting to fat, heavy and automatic transmission cars got me wondering how to stay involved as a driver? In truth, I hate automatic transmissions as much as anything because the computer never does what I want, and the whole connection to the engine is just sloppy. My utter dislike of automatic transmissions led me to an unusual place. What about an electric car?

Most electric cars are one speed, direct connection between the wheels and the motor. More than that, to get good range, the driver needs to be very involved with throttle control and managing the traffic opportunities for least energy usage. Some electric cars even give you control over the amount of regenerative braking available. I have enjoyed my electric car driving experience, in part because the management of energy is very involving. It is something similar to controlling the lean angle of a motorcycle, even in normal riding.

Electric vehicle range is improving and recharging opportunities are growing in availability to the point that an electric vehicle could, in theory, become a primary vehicle. There is even one EV available with 4000 pounds towing capacity. That is something I am thinking about as I suspect towing a motorcycle to a place to ride will be more attractive as I get into my 70's.

At the moment, the barriers are the up front cost and the rest of the driver involvement equation (steering, handling, brakes). And one philosophical question that got me started thinking about this in the first place.

Although there have been small EV, including the Fiat 500e, they have been too small for acceptable range. I have a friend that drove his little Mitsubishi EV from Michigan to Minnesota for an EV convention. It took him 3 days each way because he could only go 60 miles before recharging.

A practical EV would need 200+ mile range, preferably closer to 300 mile range. That's a lot of batteries, battery volume, and mass. All of the proposed or currently available EV with a range of 200 or more mile range are 4000 pounds or more and much bigger than a Fiat. From a fuel economy standpoint, they get an equivalent of 70 to 90 mpg, but what do I do about the idea of such a huge vehicle carrying around just little old me?

Maybe if I have to drive something bigger, and if VW does a good job with the intangibles, maybe a production version of something like this would be funky and fun. Lots to think about.  This photo was borrowed from carscoop.com.  It is the concept car, so you can imagine it would look a little different.  As for other photo credits, the suspension system photo came from guideautoweb.com, man with a car on his back came from iconfinder.com, and the twisty road photo from BHM photo.

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Motorcycle Soundscape

Since I'm not riding motorcycles much, its nice to have this distraction.
 

 This video is a nice entertainment  (~15 min).  Use the best speakers you can.


https://www.motorcyclistonline.com/story/reviews/best-sounding-motorcycles-of-all-time/

Their choices are very good, but I might have nominated a few more, if possible.  For example, Ian's V-8 and the Guzzi V-8.  I would have loved to hear the Honda straight 6 GP bike, but I don't think anyone is running on of those.  How about some of Millyard's specials.

In addition to the sound, I enjoyed the differences in cornering speed between bikes with the same rider and the same track.  Also, the visual acceleration on the straight.  I was surprised how slow the Britten was in the corners, but then again, it is not replaceable.  It did boggie down the straights.
 

Note: All the pictures were copied from the same Motorcyclist article that has the video.   Nice job, guys.

Devil's Haircut

For the most part, I have kept this blog away from politics, social media, and finances.  In part, I have done that because I have good friends that agree on motorcycles, travel, and audio, but not on politics, etc.  Anyway, the coronavirus is changing things and I will take a moment on a subject that some may consider political.  Quick, turn away if this will bother you.

The Devil's Haircut is a local hair salon where I get my haircut every month.  They are a little unusual, but in a fun way.  They dress slightly goth, are mostly in their late 20's, ealy 30's, and they have part of a wall with cassette tapes as wallpaper.  Actually, its kind of fun to read the titles on that wall.

I'm lucky to be comfortable in my retirement.  I'm not rich, but I was a good saver and I had good jobs all my life.  A lot of the working people around me aren't as lucky.  For the first time, I am in a high risk group when it comes to the virus, so I am working on my "social distancing".  Meanwhile, dining rooms in restaurants are closing by law, so some of the places I like to eat are at business risk along with virus risk.  The same is true for the women that cuts my hair and the other women that I hire to clean my house.  I will be letting my hair go long and cleaning my own house for the near future.

So where does that leave the servers, heck the owners, of the restaurants I like?  How about the haircutter and house cleaner?  Media commentators suggest that we are going to have to tip-tip-tip when all this is over, just to help folks around us recover.  I am taking that a step farther.  It won't a total answer, but I am paying for haircuts, house cleaning, and sending tips to servers, even though I'm staying at home.  I hope you will think about ways you can help the people around you, if you can afford to.

Rain Racing

Once in a while, I run across old photos when looking for something else.  I had completely forgotten about this one, but it gave me a laugh when I found it.

This was on a practice day at the old Detroit Gran Prix when the cars were Formula 1 and it ran through the streets around the Renaissance Center.  As far as I can tell, there is a clear bin liner and two cardboard boxes.💦😃