A THREE DIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS OF RIDING POSTURE ON THREE DIFFERENT STYLES OF MOTORCYCLE

Effective motorcycle and personal protective equipment design depends heavily upon understanding the geometric relationship between the motorcycle and the motorcycle rider. Basic human factors issues such as forward vision, riding comfort, control location and operation all require knowledge of riding posture while operating a motorcycle. This study reports on the results of a study to determine the three dimensional location and orientation of body segments for nine motorcycle riders while sitting on one of three different motorcycles. Each subject had anthropometric characteristics that closely matched the 50 percentile MATD dummy used for ISO 13232 testing. Each subject was asked to assume a most comfortable riding position followed by a maximum forward and maximum rearward riding position on a conventional, sport and cruiser motorcycle. Twenty-eight reflective markers were placed on specific anatomical landmarks on the subject’s body and a calibrated 5 camera photogrammetry system was used to locate these markers in a 3 dimensional space. A total of 170 trials were conducted and these results were compared to a series of tests collected on the same motorcycles with the MATD dummy used for ISO 13232 testing. The data from this study provide unique three dimensional anthropometric data that could be used for future human factors motorcycle research. The results also suggest that improvements could be made to the existing MATD dummy to make it more closely match the anthropometric characteristics of a 50 percentile male motorcycle rider.