Are there any hub-center-steering bicycles?
 

On another bicycle forum the subject of hub-center steering came up. There's a few motorcycle examples of this dating back at least 90 years, but no bicycle examples that I could find in a few days of online searching, or anyone else knew of.

There are many forkless designs, but not all forkless types are hub-center steering.
The type I am looking for is specific: those with a stationary axle that extends completely through the wheel, with a movable bearing carrier attached to that part to allow left-right steering. These types all use relatively large-diameter wheel bearings, since the entire turning pivot must be contained inside the diameter of the front wheel bearings. They also typically use connecting suspension pieces on both sides of the wheel.

The basic design is shown here, as the "DiFazio" diagram:
http://www.tonyfoale.com/Articles/Steer/STEER.htm

Two vintage examples are the 1921 Neracar-
http://www.bikeexif.com/1921-ner-a-car
and the 1929 Majestic-
http://thevintagent.blogspot.com/200...estic-new.html

A modern example would be the Bimota Tesi 3D-
http://www.webbikeworld.com/bimota/tesi-3d/

These examples are not identical; there are variations on this based on how they fix the rake angle and how they deal with braking forces (if a front brake is present) but they all share the same basic mechanics--with the huge-diameter wheel bearings--since the entire steering pivot must fit inside the wheel bearings' diameter.

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Any examples would be helpful, even custom/show bikes.

And I'm not claiming that [for a bicycle at least] there are much of any significant technical advantages to this type of steering but that doesn't matter much, since the end purpose is for a custom cruiser bicycle. I just want to know if it's ever been done before.

So far, every example I have found of forkless bicycle steering is a monofork or a kingpin/knuckle joint type, like this-
http://www.bike-trend.com/forkless-b...kkila-bicycle/
This above is NOT what I am looking for.
Also note that this type connects the wheel to the frame on one side of the wheel only--it isn't possible to have linking pieces on both sides of the wheel, since you cannot reach the wheel's pivot point from both sides of the wheel.

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IMO this should have been posted in the C&V forum as they are familiar with many early and wonderous bicycle designs.

Some design school projects come out from time to time, but though they look good,
don't go further than a prototype.

Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hub-center_steering

It sounds like the benefits for bicycles would be limited at best. I could see it maybe being useful for things like front-loading cargo bikes such as CETMAcargo, or exotic reverse-trike and quad cycle configurations. I'm not sure if mountain bikes have enough of the same problems with their front suspensions that motorcycles do to make it worthwhile there.

Bike development tends to come from racing and trickle down. Anything that adds a couple of pounds is the kiss of death.

having a High powered motor helps . measured in HP rather than a few watts.

There's a saying in the motorcycle world that the conventional fork is the worst suspension design- except all the others. Can't see a real-world benefit to hub center steering.

Having ridden both the Tesi and the Yamaha GTS I can say they are different. Very different. I could see the design being nice on a velomobile or perhaps a 'bent. The attendant hardware would not be welcome weight nor would doing it w/o suspension. Composite and ultralight metals would be best suited. I say if ya want one start studying and build one. Can't say I've ever seen a bicycle with this,not that I've seen everything either.

Give James Parker of RADD Technologies a yell. He's the guy who designed the Yamaha GTS and a genuine nice guy. He may be able to answer the question.