Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Electric Motorcycles: What a farce

Ok this post has been coming for a while now and I've had enough of the clap trap going around in the motorcycle media that these things are the best thing since sliced bread. Yes the electric motorcycle. Even that term 'electric motorcycle' is a farce.  For starters to be classified as a motorcycle it simply needs to have an engine not a clumsy battery pack and electric motor. These are no more than electric bicycles in my eye's and they are the the future of motorcycles they say.


Motorcycles are about passion, something that should illicit a response that makes the senses tingle with excitement that make you feel alive, feel something. That roar of the crossplane R1 or the V4 RSV something that raises the hackles on the back of your neck. I feel nothing when I hear an electric bike, soulless.

Let me show you what I mean. The following is an electric farcycle.

Video above borrowed from Night fury youtube channel.


Do I know that electric motors are more efficient than petrol engines. Sure I do. Do I care. Not one bit. I won't be riding my bike at 14,000 ft at pikes peak so its meaningless that your ebike performance is better at altitude.

Do I know that Ebikes are cheaper to run. Duh, yes. Do you know that ebikes are more expensive to buy and more inconvenient to operate.

Do you ebike lovers care that you have to sit around for hours waiting for your battery to charge every 200km. Yeah thats fucken convenient. And what if all the chargers are being used so you have to wait 2 hours before you can put yours on for 2 hours. Fuck off.


Now listen to some pure 1 litre gas guzzling brilliance.....



Video above borrowed from Riccardo Parigi youtube channel.


Until an electric bike is on par with what the current crop of bikes can deliver I can't see them taking off with the exception of the inner city muppet er I mean the inner city metro-sexual hipster with his man bun riding around in amongst all those cars with their distracted drivers on their phones and the hipsters on their nice quiet unseen, unheard e-bikes. Maybe it's not all bad.....


I've been riding motorcycles for over 25 years now. I love the the fact I am sitting on top of a noisy mechanical internal combustion engine, a masterpiece of over 100 years of refinements and riding with the wind in my face, the adrenaline rush that comes with hitting the perfect apex, corner after corner and the roar of that inefficient, noisy gas guzzling engine below. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Would I ever ride and E-bike? Sure why not, but you won't catch me buying one. Call me old, call me a dinosaur. I, for one will never ever own an electric bicycle, the soulless and passionless.

Electric motorcycles are the future they say.



FUCK OFF I SAY.





12 comments:

  1. You're at least 99% right...

    Currently the only places for them are in town and on the farm (the NZ made UBCO is pretty cool). Theoretically I could have one for my commute, only it mean buying another bike (and they're too expensive still). https://banditrider.blogspot.com/2019/03/leccy-cool.html

    But, no current offerings will allow me to do any of the recreational riding (99.9% of my riding). LD riding, out. Adventure riding, out. Trail riding, damn scary.

    And yeah, definitely agree: they have no soul. ICE engines are available in all sorts of flavours, each offering a different experience. I've certainly been lucky enough to ride some bikes that were alive, fire-breathing monsters that really got ya heart racing. (I need another V-twin or sports bike in the shed).

    The future may bring improvements and some may be forced on us...our joke of a government has just announced incentives for buying electric or hybrid vehicles and more tax on gas guzzlers. No they haven't said where the electricity will come from yet, perhaps they'll fire up our Huntly (coal) power station again...

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    1. Wow that's the first time anyone said I've been right, ever...
      If you used it as a commuter to and from work and your work was within 50km then thats probably fine. Take it anywhere else forget it.
      If every vehicle was suddenly turned electric, our powergrid would not be able to sustain it and we would have blackouts, they would need more coal fired powerstations.

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  2. Yep I tend to agree but what does that mean? I think it means that motorcycles are doomed. If the “replacement” e-bikes are so soul less, so uninspiring, so inconvenient then they are doomed.
    Best find another hobby......

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    1. There's plenty of gas guzzlers out there still, so I think i'll be pushing up the daisys before I can't ride one anymore. And there's always photography as my newish hobby, but I won't be photographing electric bikes.

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  3. I think that both motorcycles and cars as a source of fun (as opposed to commuting etc) has a limited amount of time left - maybe 3 decades or thereabouts. After that, it will be down to collectors to keep our sort of machinery alive. I suppose it's progress to reduce pollution and oil dependence but I don't have to like it ..... (and I bloody well don't!)

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    1. Completely agree. What a sad society we will become with no car or motorcycles. I'm mean whats left?
      Maybe I'll become one of those old geezer collectors!

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  4. I actually want motorcycle manufacturers to be talking about electric because I wish personal motorcycle riding to survive into the future.

    There is considerable anti motorcycle sentiment in governments and society and already partial bans in some countries. If cars go hybrid and electric so too need bikes or an excuse to ban them is handed on a platter.

    Solutions to provide better audible and riding experience will arrive with new technology. Think of tech we had in 1999. That was a mere 20 years ago. I can think of innovations that might arrive such as how top spec sports cars now simulate the sound of engine using speakers in car. Maybe you will be able to select different types of engines from a menu and then computers will make the bike's electric power delivery feel like that and in helmet sounds will be perfect match.

    Perhaps nobody will be allowed in charge of a personal vehicle, deemed too dangerous and Google will be driving everything in future.

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    1. The motorcycle manufacturer have been looking at this for some time and a few have some offerings. I don't think i'll be around riding long enough to be forced into electric. Petrol should see me out so I don't really care what happens after that.
      That last statement is probably right. What a sad world it will become when that happens. Safe but sad.

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  5. I am old enough to know I won't be around when electric motorcycles become the standard.

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    1. I won't be around and riding when electric is the only thing left standing either.

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