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Michael Sturtz is that rare speed freak who hates the idea of spitting carbon into the air. So he built a biodiesel motorcycle—a really, really fast one.
Sturtz and his team at the Crucible, an industrial-arts group in Oakland, California, started with a BMW diesel car engine and fitted it to an old motorcycle. They spent weeks building a frame, linking the disparate pieces, and creating a fuel-delivery system with biodiesel-compatible parts. Then the engine's computer shut down the engine for four days. "It thought the car was stolen," Sturtz explains.
After some skilled hacking (and pleas to BMW for security codes), they got the green machine to hit 130 mph. At Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats next month, Sturtz is aiming for a record 160.
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