Some of you guys in the Bay area might want to partake in this.... http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/electricross/ Free rides / drinks / food Click on link for details. Anyone ever ride this track? T
A friend of mine works for Zero and another friend rides one...totally unrelated. He loves riding it!
Then I went and re-fixed and found it fixed and wondered why img tags were screwy..your too fast for me Dean!
Wish I was closer. I really like this idea and effort. E-bikes will rule one day in the near future I hope. Once they get them to weight 200 or less and go 100 plus miles it's all over.
Yes I'll be there with the Fox racing team, my friend Paul will ride as part of the team, also, he hosts Neil the Zero owner and creator at his home track for testing. He is out of Scotts Valley and holds demo's for his electric MX'er. Boy talking about quick out of the hole. Most people loop them out because of the quick no-sound power. The track is supercrossey with long lap times. It is at Santa Clara Fairgrounds in San Jose, site of the old San Jose Mile.
It worked GREAT! Putting it on the calender worked great! I forgot all about this event but took a quick peek at the bottom of the forum and this event showed up with a link to this thread!
Pictures... The press were there and the bikes liked to jump. The flagmen were not so there... Random pics Some were nose heavy. I got the impression some knew how to ride better than others Suspension may need stiffening
A.J.Foyt... on a Segway. Awwww I have NO idea what these are but there were a bunch of them Useless lights - more on that later I got the distinct impression these were more bicycle oriented people than motorcycle people The crowds were not large. Even the riders style looked more bicycleish to me. This was a nice refreshing change - this guy looked bored Sorta near the SJ airport
Coming into the pits Coming into the pits - with some assistance, more on that later Here is what it is all about They seemed concerned to keep the chains lubed - and kept pouring water on the motor when changing batteries. That is the battery - not small. A solar solution, which in at an event like this appeared less than useful cause they were using up a lot of electricity .
I hope I'm not stepping on any toes but... These were my observations I was amazed that the bikes were so quiet They did great on the track There was a wide variety of talent levels - I watched the track for a while and the fast guys definitely had less time per battery... but the slow guys were covering far less ground. It appeared a certain battery charge got a certain number of laps then had to be changed. I was told the bike is $10k and extra batteries were $3k (I really dunno though) I was told everyone was supposed to only use 3 batteries, but at least 1 person said that one team had 4 The batteries were supposed to get 45 minutes per charge - some got 3 some got 23. Everyone should know by now I like to do my own research so I sat down in the shade for an hour or so (between 3 & 5pm, race started at 11am) and wrote the times in/out of the pits and that is where the info came from. Maybe someone grabbed a partially charged battery and that is the one that only lasted 3 minutes - dunno. But I did not see one bike out there for more than 23 minutes and more than once they needed help getting in. One guy got yelled at for cutting the track - cause his bike was otta juice. I was told to fully charge a battery using the fast method took an hour. Doing the math... it is going to be a long night waiting for batteries to charge. I was also told that initially the chargers were popping the circuit breakers - this was an old fairgrounds and not high tech. They were also told that once the overhead lights came on they could no longer use the electricity to charge the batteries... I did see a BIG generator being towed in with a "Ultra quiet" sign on the side so hopefully they don't have to wait till the sun comes up to charge the batteries. In any event those halogen lights in one of the pics may not be useful with no juice. The race ends at 11 am tomorrow and was told whoever makes the most laps in those 24 hours will go in the Guinness book of world records.... seems to me no matter what happens a lot of people are learning a lot of things at this event - I did. I may even go back down there in the morning and see how they are doing and who won. I did not see anyone with warm clothes at all and it looked like it was going to be too cold for shorts which many were wearing in the pits. Did you like the little girl with the fuzzy dog pic? .
