DIY Electric Motorcycle Conversion

DIY Electric Motorcycle Conversion - The old rebel rolling chassis provided us with many of the needed parts - wheels, tires, brakes, etc... which was a real bonus - but it also supplied us with many rusty, broken, stripped or missing parts. In fact, most of our difficulties were because of the old parts, not because of the conversion itself. Without these annoyances, the conversion would have taken about two and a half days.

With an onboard 48V charger and 3-prong wall plug hardwired on, recharging is easy anywhere there's a wall outlet. Charging time depends upon how depleted the batteries are, but usually they were topped off after 5-8 hours.

source : http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy_DIY_Electric_Motorcycle_Conversion/

Introducing the Mission One Electric Sportbike: 150 MPH, 150 Mile Range

Well, I'm hearing more and more about electric vehicles and, in particular, electric motorcycles.

I rode the Vectrix electric scooter at Americade 2008 and wrote a review about it.

Today, I read an article about Mission Motors, a company that will unveil a revolutionary new vehicle at TED2009. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design.

The Mission One motorcycle promises to be the world's fastest production all-electric motorcycle. The sportbike has a top speed of 150 MPH, a range of 150 miles and uses a lithium ion battery pack.

Take a look at the vehicle itself and look at videos here.

Check out the press release for the introduction of the Mission One electric motorcycle.

Wear a Motorcycle

What a concept! Just walk up to your motorcycle, strap it on, and move off at up to 75 mph.

One future-looking college student, Jake Loniak, has come up with a design concept and even has a realistic animation of how it might work.

Read the complete story by Annemarie Conte and Esther Haynes, view the animation, and glimpse into the future.

electric dirt bike

Californian manufacturer Zero Motorcycles has launched the Zero X, an electric MX motorcycle that it says combines excellent performance with low noise and zero emissions.


Giving credit where it's due:
I got this information from my friends at Custom Motorcycle Talk by BeachCruiser.

I thought for those of you who don't read their site, this was too good to pass up. It is really cool.

They have a really good post about an electric dirt bike from Zero Motorcycles. The bike is called Zero X. I don't want to say much more about it as this is not my post. Just click the link below to go to Beach Cruiser's site to read about it. http://www.thebeachcruiser.com/blog/2008/04/18/new-american-electric-dirtbike.html

Thanks Train for posting this.

Mr. Motorcycle

I got my bike "Kenny" back on the road.

I did a Flickr flash badge called (My bike “Kenny” with his new paint job) on the right side of my blog page that shows the bike re-assembled with a new custom paint job. I even got to ride a bit on Saturday. Boy was it nice, and It felt great, since this was the first real ride I got to take since last Halloween when I broke the belt, and started the rebuild. See post from Tuesday, March 11th, 2008, The foot bone is connected to the ankle bone,.... is connected to my wallet. This explains the rebuild. I’m sure many of you can relate. http://01mrmotorcycle.blogspot.com/2008/03/foot-bone-is-connected-to-ankle-bone.html#links

For anyone wondering why I named my motorcycle “Kenny”…..
I was inspired by Beach, from Custom Motorcycle Talk by BeachCruiser. http://www.thebeachcruiser.com/blog/ . His blog post Archie 2 from April 3rd, 2008, gave me inspiration to name my motorcycle. None of my bikes had ever had names before. Both my mother and father are alive and kicking & I wanted to honor them while they are still with me, rather than doing so in remembrance of them. I can’t call my bike Ken and Shirley after both my parents. That would sound stupid. People would want to put me in a mental institution if I ran around referring to my bike that way. Since I think the bike is a masculine thing, I chose to give it a Male name rather than a female name. My mother understands. I honor both of them. Since Ken sounds a little too serious, I named the bike Kenny. I felt since the bike rebuild project was now complete, and Beach so inspired me, this was the time to name it. Thanks for all you do Mom & Dad.

Mr. Motorcycle

I have a question for you readers regarding Forward controls and comfort.

The photo above is me 2 yrs ago with my old paint job, from photo shoot gallery called Joy of Harley Davidson by http://www.pegasusphoto.com.

When I started customizing my bike, I went with the “It’s all about the looks” theme. It is lowered about 3.5 inches lower than stock. It has a low profile seat, no windshield, no fairing, and forward controls. I do really love the look, and understand I gave up a great deal of riding comfort for this look. I can deal with the lack of comfort that my low profile seat provides to me, and I can deal with the winds resistance that having no windshield or fairing provides. I actually like it and prefer it that way. I like being “in the wind” as they say, but my thighs tend to disagree.

My forward controls put me in a riding position that I love. The look is right for me and it is very comfortable on short rides, and or lower speeds. However, when I ride on the freeway at higher speeds and do any long distance riding, I can get some pretty tired thighs. I’m regularly fighting the wind’s urge to spread my legs apart farther than the stance of the bike already puts them naturally, and fighting gravity as well. Due to my opinion that footboards don’t fit the look of my bike, they are out of the running as far a solution for me. On longer, faster rides, I often times find myself putting the passenger foot pegs down, sticking my feet back there and riding crotch rocket style to give myself a break, but this is not a good solution, because the second I switch back to forward position my legs get tired again. So, I was thinking about going with stirrups. I’m wondering, do stirrups really help that much, or do all you forward control riders all fight the same battle as me and just deal with it?

Any one out there who uses stirrups, and has got an answer for me would be greatly appreciated.

Mr. Motorcycle

Ink, I think

I’ve wanted to do a post on tattoos lately, as I think tattoos and motorcycles kinda go hand in hand.

I have a few, literally.

I’ve recently seen Dave Perewitz get a tattoo on video http://www.lifeatperewitz.com/ at ACME Tattoo in Minnesota while he was here for the Donnie Smith Bike Show, and I recently commented on a fellow blogger’s post regarding a Harley tattoo he got.
http://harley-davidson-mystique.blogspot.com/ The comment was "similar" to what I’m about to tell you here:

I have three tattoos, and only three for a very good reason. I had two before I got married. I decided I needed a third tattoo and got the blessing from my wife. So, a friend and I decided we were going to get tattoos together after work one day. I told my wife I was going to get a Harley tattoo, which I honestly did intend to do. She said, "Are you sure? I don't want anything evil!" Well, needless to say, I came home with an evil tattoo, not related to Harleys at all. It started out innocent enough, but the tattoo artist asked if I wanted it embellished after he got the basic tattoo done. He said he had no one else in line and he’d do it for free. I said sure, and he made it kind of portrait looking, like it was under my skin. It looks pretty damn evil. This was to be my last tattoo if Mama was to remain happy. We all know if Mama ain’t happy, ain’t no one happy. She was not happy with me at all for a very long time. You should know if a very long time turns into too long, you ain’t happy with half your stuff. Well, It took a long time for her to stop complaining about it. She hates it to this day. She'd say "cover it up, It's looking at me!" I love my wife dearly, and the fight over wanting to get more tattoos is not worth it. I got a Harley though, and she doesn't complain about that,(much). The Harley is a whole different story. Anyway, I told him to enjoy his "first" tattoo, and said I'm sure there'll be more to come.

By the way, I still don’t have that Harley tattoo yet. And I love tattoos as much as my wife, Harleys, and custom paint.