1) Joey Mathis Benefit Ride presented by NWSC ABATE
2) The KillaCycle - World's Fastest Electric Motorcycle
3) North Charleston to ban street sales
4) Payment change upsets prisoners
5) Afghan officer charged in hotel assault
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1) Joey Mathis Benefit Ride presented by NWSC ABATE
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FF Note: I look forward to seeing you at this event. Come by and say hello and you might find your photo in the Biker Ezine next week!
Joey Mathis Benefit Ride
presented by
N.West S.C. ABATE
August 18th
Everyone is Welcomed to join NWSC for Music, Food, and Fun at the Big Last Stop Party! Music will be provided by Crimson Rose. This ride will begin at the Lake Bowen Country Club.
First Bike Out at 11:30 am; Last Bike Out at 1:30 pm; Last Bike in at 6:30 pm
Costs: $20/rider; $10/passenger; Extra hand $10; Extra Card $5.
50/50 drawing at last stop! Best Hand $200; Second best $125; Worst $50!
For more info call 864-457-6771 or 864-457-5458
Rain date August 25, 2007
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2) The KillaCycle - World's Fastest Electric Motorcycle
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http://electricandhybridcars.com/index.php/pages/fastestmotorcycle.html
The KillaCycle - World's Fastest Electric Motorcycle
Straddling a 619-pound motorcycle, Scotty Pollacheck tucks in his knees and lowers his head as he awaits the green light. When he revs the engine, there's no roar. The bike moves so fast that within seconds all that's visible is a faint red taillight in the distance.
Pollacheck crosses the quarter-mile marker doing 156 mph, faster than any of the gas-powered cars, trucks or motorcycles in the drag sprints on this weekend at Portland International Raceway.
It's particularly impressive given that Pollacheck is riding a vehicle powered entirely by lithium-ion batteries.
Electric vehicles are making their presence felt at amateur drag races across the U.S., challenging gas-powered cars and motorcycles. The "amp heads," computer geeks and others driving the electron- powered vehicles are starting to kick some major rear end.
Pollacheck and his bike -- dubbed the KillaCycle -- are part of a growing movement that's exploiting breakthroughs in battery technology and soon could challenge the world's fastest- accelerating vehicles in the $1 billion drag-racing industry.
"In professional drag racing I expect to see the electrics eventually pass up the fuel dragsters," said Dick Brown, president of AeroBatteries, which sponsors White Zombie, the world's quickest-accelerating street-legal electric car, a 1972 white Datsun 1200.
"Electric gives you instant torque whereas gasoline you have to build up," he said.
Brown believes electric vehicles will challenge the top drag-racing records within five years.
The KillaCycle runs on 990 lithium-ion battery cells that feed two direct current motors, generating 350 horsepower. The bike accelerates from zero to 60 mph in just under a second, faster than many professional gas- powered drag motorcycles and within striking distance of the quickest bikes that run on nitromethane.
Except for the batteries he receives from sponsor A123 Systems, Bill Dube, KillaCycle's owner and designer, pays the costs of his racing team -- about $13,000 a year -- out of his own pocket. A123 makes KillaCycle's batteries.
"We have a chance of actually taking away some nitromethane records, perhaps the overall record," said Dube.
The National Electric Drag Racing Association's vehicles are posting faster and faster times at amateur meets, but they still have a way to go before matching professional world records. The fastest quarter-mile time by an electric vehicle is the KillaCycle's 8.16 seconds; that's 2.36 seconds off the nitromethane world record for drag bikes set by Larry "Spiderman" McBride last year.
Electric vehicle racers say battery technology advances will give EVs a shot at drag records.
"This is a disruptive technology, and there is a lot of room for improvement in this area," said Ric Fulop, founder and vice president of business development for A123.
Interesting KillaCycle Facts
The KillaCycle uses about $0.07 worth of electricity for each run down the strip.
The bike only uses ~300 W-hr / mile… including the burn-out
Including burn-outs, the KillaCycle could make 7 or more runs on one charge
Recharges in as little as 10 minutes. (Limited by charger. Battery can be recharged in 5 minutes.)
Zero to 60 MPH in 1.04 seconds, 45 feet.
Silent, aside from the chain and some tire noise.
The KillaCycle weighs 619 lbs.
Website: http://www.killacycle.com/
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3) North Charleston to ban street sales
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http://www.charleston.net/news/2007/aug/16/n_charleston_ban_street_sales13176/
North Charleston to ban street sales
By Warren Wise (Contact)
The Post and Courier
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Firefighters, charities and even newspaper salesmen will be banned from soliciting donations or selling their products in the streets of North Charleston under a proposal City Council unanimously adopted Wednesday.
"It puts us in an unfair position to decide who to allow and who not to allow to do it," Mayor Keith Summey said. "The safest way is not to allow solicitation on the streets of North Charleston."
The issue arose in June after Charles Murrell with African American Socio-Economic Development Inc. failed, on a 6-5 council vote, to win a permit to solicit funds. He wanted to stand at International Boulevard and Montague Avenue to raise $2,000.
Council rejected the request after several members said the intersection was dangerous and others opposed fundraising at intersections altogether, even for firefighters.
Murrell resubmitted his request and asked if he could shake buckets at the intersections of North Rhett Avenue and Remount Road and Rivers and Cosgrove avenues.
City Council almost voted on Murrell's request in late June but delayed action until it could take up the greater solicitation issue in a roundtable discussion.
The city has tried to curb the practice in the past but was successfully challenged on constitutional grounds by The Post and Courier, whose vendors sell newspapers at busy intersections.
Because newspapers could be sold, the mayor said it was not right not to allow others to use the streets, too.
Solicitors had to request permission from the city, though several council members cited recent incidents in which out-of-town groups stood at busy intersections asking for money without a permit.
"Nobody should be standing in the streets," Councilman Kurt Taylor said. "That's where cars should be."
Both Taylor and Mayor Pro Tem Bob King called it a safety issue. "The first one that gets killed, we are going to be responsible for it," King said. "If we do it for one, we have to do it all."
Summey said not all people are honest either. "For every five good causes, there's a scam artist out there, too," he said.
The mayor cited a recent example of a man at North Rhett Avenue and the Mark Clark Expressway holding up a sign that read, "Will work for food."
Because people stopped to give him money, traffic backed up and a police officer asked him to move along. The man told the officer he made $75,000 a year with his sign and would go elsewhere.
Councilwoman Rhonda Jerome was concerned that forcing firefighters off the streets and into malls or shopping centers to collect money for charity could cut their collections in half.
Summey said it would be up to city leaders to help firefighters find alternative ways to raise money.
The city's attorneys are expected to draft an ordinance and present it to City Council in coming weeks before the ban can take effect.
Reach Warren Wise at 745-5850 or wwise@postandcourier.com.
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4) Payment change upsets prisoners
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FF Note: I help build Lieber Prison back in the day when I was riding a brand new Ironhead Sportster and doing electrical work.
http://www.charleston.net/news/2007/aug/16/payment_change_upsets_prisoners13166/
Payment change upsets prisoners
By Brian Hicks (Contact)
The Post and Courier
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Lieber inmates on lockdown to avoid unrest, official says
Most people gripe about how much money the government takes out of their paychecks, but very few of them end up in maximum security lockdown for it.
An entire dormitory at Lieber Correctional Institution in Ridgeville has been confined to their cells since Tuesday after the inmates learned that, because of a new state law, their take-home — or take-cell — pay is going to be about 10 percent of the 35 cents to $1.05 an hour that they earn working in the prison industries program.
"We got word through some of the prisoners that people were not happy about the changes," Department of Corrections spokesman Josh Gelinas said Wednesday. "Rather than face unrest, they took this action."
The change is a result of a new law to help the Department of Corrections contract its inmate labor to some private businesses. While lawmakers were working on the pertinent section of code, they changed some of the withholding for inmates.
Previously, between 20 percent and 30 percent of inmates' money was taken to pay restitution to their victims, any child support they owed, and room and board. Now, under the new law, between 45 percent and 55 percent of an inmate's salary is going into these programs.
The law also requires inmates who don't owe anyone restitution to pay 20 percent into the South Carolina Victim's Compensation Fund anyway.
And now, 10 percent of inmates' pay goes into an escrow account that they get when they are paroled.
At Lieber, some of the 200 prisoners in the industries program re-tread tires for a company; others rebuild car transmissions. But they apparently got word of the changes after Tony Ellis, the Corrections Department's head of the prison industries program, visited Lieber and explained the program to staff on Monday.
By Tuesday, when staff explained the changes to inmates, the rumor mill was already in full swing. They asked questions; they seemed unhappy.
Guards received word that some inmates were quite upset, which prompted the lockdown.
On Wednesday, Ellis returned to Lieber and explained the changes to the inmates in person. They were offered papers to sign saying they agreed to keep working; 137 signed, another 52 have not. The whole lot was sent back to their cells, where they are not allowed outside for exercise or pretty much anything else.
Sen. Michael Fair, R-Greenville, said the purpose of his bill was to give the Corrections Department the ability to deal with private businesses hoping to contract cheap prison labor — the state gets paid for the use of inmate labor, and the prisoners get paid from someone other than state coffers.
Fair said the program does not take away jobs from the general public because, if not for cheap prisoner labor, these jobs would go overseas.
"It's all about recruiting industry, and it gives the inmates something to do, and makes them productive," Fair said. "It doesn't sound like they're being very productive down there."
With most of the inmates resigned to the new withholding amounts, Corrections officials expect the lockdown to end at some point soon, but they aren't sure exactly when.
"They're still trying to determine whether they will go back to a regular work schedule on Thursday (today)," Gelinas said.
Reach Brian Hicks at 937-5561 or bhicks@postandcourier.com.
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5) Afghan officer charged in hotel assault
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http://www.charleston.net/news/2007/aug/15/afghan_officer_charged_hotel_assault13033/
Afghan officer charged in hotel assault
Associated Press
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
COLUMBIA — An Afghan officer who came to South Carolina for police training was arrested Tuesday and charged with assaulting a maid at a Columbia hotel, police said.
Mohammad Arif Nabel, 43, of Kabul, is charged with kidnapping and assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, both felonies, Sheriff Leon Lott said.
The 38-year-old maid told police Nabel invited her into his room Tuesday morning requesting shampoo, then grabbed her and threw her on the bed. The woman said that as Nabel groped her, she fought back and managed to get away, Lott said.
A lieutenant colonel in the Afghanistan University Police Academy, Nabel and four other Afghan officers were training with the Columbia Police Department, which was chosen by the U.S. Army to host the pilot program.
The rest of Nabel's group will return to Afghanistan on Saturday as scheduled. Training was suspended Tuesday after the victim reported the incident.
Investigators learned that a similar incident occurred last week at the hotel. Nabel has been implicated but not charged in that incident, Lott said.
Nabel told authorities he did nothing wrong, Lott said.
Nabel was being held Tuesday at a Richland County jail and will be prosecuted in the United States, Lott said.
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