Ricardo assess motorcycle stabilisation to support life-saving Blood Bike missions

SERV-OBN’s newest motorcycle, a BMW R1300RT, was assessed for high-speed stability under elevated speeds of up to 105 mph, the top speed permissible under blue-light riding conditions. The Ricardo team also assessed mass loading scenarios to ensure uneven weight distribution did not lead to instability issues.

The project has been a vital step in enabling SERV-OBN to continue its life-saving work, delivering blood and other time critical relevant materials to hospitals in their designated area.

Ricardo are leading experts in vehicle attributes testing across a wide range of vehicle platforms. Utilising both in-house and external test facilities, the team can accurately measure objective metrics for efficient benchmarking, development testing and validation.

Matt Little, Senior NVH Project Engineer at Ricardo said: “Blood Bikes is a critical service that helps to save 100s of lives in the UK every year. They need fast, reliable bikes that can keep their volunteers, cargo and the public safe. We were proud to once again be able to provide Blood Bikes with an assessment of the suitability of the BMW R1300RT motorcycle to enable them to continue to perform their vital live saving activities.”

Kamran Irani Chairman of SERV-OBN Blood Bikes covering Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Northamptonshire, said: “Our riders provide vital, rapid response services, to local communities, delivering blood products to the point of need. We also provide support for neonatal units collecting and delivering human milk to give premature babies the best start in life. The success of these deliveries is reliant on safe and stable transit. We were delighted to work with Ricardo again, who provided expert support on this project. We’d like to thank the team for their support.”