BMW

BMW combines wings and lights By Ben Purvis

Winglets have become an essential part of MotoGP racing over the last few years and spread to street bikes - in part to allow road-based racers in WSBK to gain the same aerodynamic benefit, but largely because race-rep riders want their bikes to look like those ridden by their on-track heroes.

On the street, though, winglets have little purpose. They might help tame wheelies on the track, as well as adding fractionally more front-end grip when you hit the brakes and even pushing the tyres into the tarmac during corners, but the speeds needed to feel those benefits are immense, far beyond anything that can legally be achieved on the road.

BMW has been looking at how they can add winglets to their street bikes but simultaneously give them a purpose, and the result is this patent for illuminated winglets. Illustrated on an S 1000 RR-style superbike, they look just like the winglets of racers, but contain strips of LED lights inset into their leading edges, acting as both daytime running lights - a legal requirement in many markets - and as turn signals.

It's not just a case of putting the lights in the winglets because they're there. BMW has a logical reason to do it. Winglets sit on the fairing sides, just where many road bikes already have protruding indicator lamps, so why not make the wings serve both purposes? It reduces the component count and swaps the indicators - normally ugly warts on the side of a bike - for something that riders actively want to see.

'finally, a reason for road bikes to have GP-style winglets'

Using the winglets for daytime running lights could be an even greater benefit. BMW's patent application points out that the winglets are the widest part of the bike, and by setting lights as far apart as possible, they emphasise the size of the bike to other traffic - making it appear bigger and closer than it might otherwise seem - and making it easier to judge the speed at which it's moving. The document says: "The motorcycle … appears wider for oncoming traffic, particularly in the dark, due to the laterally protruding flow guide elements. As a result, the motorcycle is more visible, and its speed can be estimated more easily."

The patent application also adds a further form of lighting to the winglets, projecting light down onto the ground when you come to a halt to give you a clearer view of the surface that you are about to put the side-stand down onto. Like the 'puddle lights' used by many modern cars when you open the door, the patent suggests the projector could be fitted with a transparent liquid-crystal display to create a pattern or logo in the light that hits the ground - an unnecessary flourish, but one that would certainly add another element of novelty.