Interesting article on how EV racing motorcycles are improving year on year. Love the futuristic whizz of the bikes as they fly past - no noise makers needed YouTues: Electric bikes storm the Isle of Man TT IOM TT [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_Man_TT[/ame]
Very cool videos. I always like to watch the IOM TT. Like Hemmingway said, "There are ony three sports; bull fighting, mountain climbing and motorcycle racing. Everything else is just a game."
Impressive for an electric. If they can maintain a 4 mph faster speed for 3 laps instead of one, they will be a match for the 125cc race bikes. http://www.manxgrandprix.org/Races 2010/Lightweight/Result sheet Ultra Lightweight.pdf
The thing is a little pricey, costing about as much as a volt, but its very cool. Lightning Motorcycles raises land speed record to 215.960 mph, starts taking orders I would think the main obstacles are in fabricating parts for a more maneuverable bike. It is old tech to get an electric bike to go fast in a straight line, newer to get it to handle as well as a normal bike at speed.
Yeah Baby We must have a few other m/c guys on here ? - my "passion" is the old ('69-'76) Kawasaki 2 stroke - 3 cylinder 500's (H1 series). I have over 20 of them ! In 1969 when the Mach III came out - it was THE world's fastest production m/c.
There are enough people out their now capable of designing excellent handling motorcycles from scratch that I think that's not much of an issue as long as the weight is kept down. Their biggest problem is battery capacity, which feeds back into keeping the weight down. I would agree that doing one lap of the Isle of Man (37.7 miles) at that speed is a major accomplishment for an electric vehicle, even if it is a long ways from matching a 125cc race bike for the common 3 lap race..
Hoping for more competitions just like this, with every conceivable type of vehicle, including airplanes. The more people are involved with design-to-the-limits electric tech, the better the battery storage will get.
