Damn, now you've got me wanting to start building one of the damn things! I don't have an Etek, but I do have a matched pair of 500-Watt brushless motors. So, just out of curiosity, Aaron, what sort of rubber are you running on that puppy, and how does the power get into the bike power-train: freewheeling crankset, or something more exotic? I have a NOS Shimano Integer freewheeling crankset unit for a Schwinn Suburban I have reserved for some deal like that. . A: The motors were located in front of the BB and attached to the cranks using a freewheeling crankset, then a second chain went from the crankset to the rear wheel. . The way I look at it Jim, I'd LOVE to see as many people as possible out on the salt this year. I encourage anyone who is remotely interested to make a go of it. I can say with 100% certainty that it was the most memorable moment in my life. I couldn't possibly explain the emotion which overwhelms you as you sit on the "zero line" staring down the infamous 5-mile black stripe and thinking "Son of a Bitch, I'm sitting in the same spot as Mickey Thompson, Burt Monroe and every other land speed record setting person in history. I'm so not worthy of sitting here". . If you're interested. . . act on your instinct and come on out. All the info can be found at: . Q: I've wanted to do that almost as long as I can remember, at least as far back as when Mickey Thompson made the run in that incredibly-cool streamliner of his with the four V-8s under the shell. I think they were Pontiacs. What a guy! . The cool thing about your Bonneville run, is that it doesn't sound like a particularly big bucks operation. Even with the electrical power aspects and such, it's still basically a bicycle with some fairly pricey parts mounted on a handmade frame. Sounds like about a quarter of the bikes in our gallery, put in those terms. And most of mine already sport composite fairings just for style. Man, we could party like it's 1959! . I realize that it's probably already occurred to you that your new employer is already in the E-bike business, and that you could probably get almost anything you need off the warehouse shelf, especially those cool Lithium batteries? Man, you could do for Pacific Cycle what Burt Munro did for Indian Motorcycles! We need to continue this discussion, Dude. . Well, Aaron, I can see that you've had a pretty interesting time since our last chat. I know it's early on, and that anyone in the bike biz has to be security-smart, but is there anything in particular you could share about your plans for Pacific Cycles' products? For instance, now that you're once again involved with Dyno, will we be seeing new and startling stuff in the Kustom Kruiser line? A: I'm still trying to grow my Pacific legs and learn where our priorities lie. I've already pitched a project that would include a trip to Bonneville, nonetheless! .. I can say that the (Dyno) Kustom Kruisers have been a topic of discussion. Currently we have an all-new alloy platform for which a lot of tooling has been opened. That being said, dramatic changes may be an unwise decision until the existing tooling is fully amortized. I'd love to hear some feedback from your readers, as to what they think would be cool to see. Maybe someone could start a string on the Kustom Cruisers message board or something. .Q: Well, the Dyno machines you already designed are still considered pretty cool hipster rides, so I imagine that tooling's still got legs in the marketplace. I'm sure that when our readers see that you're interested in message board member input, though, they'll start posting their brainstorms, pronto. Also, as I recall, you still had a lot of stuff in your sketchbooks that hadn't made it into the pipeline yet. One could do worse than dust those off. . As usual, Aaron, it's been a ball. In my opinion, Discovery Channel could do a lot worse, programming-wise, than to just follow you around with a video crew. Until then, we'll just keep on checking in with you to see what you're getting up to. Thanks again. . A: Thanks, Jim. It's an honor to be in your consideration as an interview subject for BR&K. It was great speaking to you; and hopefully I'll see you on the Salt this year! |
A: It was designed and built specifically for Bonneville. The bike on their website was a collaboration between Nirve and ZVO (that's how I orginally met Marcus). Nirve had teamed up with ZVO to develop their electric bike and part of the agreement was that Nirve would help ZVO commercialize their bike. The bike pictured on the ZVO site is the 4th electric bike I designed in my career. The production bike features the drive-train technology ZVO developed which is unique to anything on the market. It supplies the electric power through the existing drive-train of the bike (a Shimano Auto-D 8-spd) which fully optimizes the efficiency of the motor. Anyone who has ever ridden an electric bike knows that you typically have two separate drive trains (human power and electric power) and the electric power drive train usually leaves a lot to be desired with speed. With ZVO's system, you have 8 spds of electric and human power. It's AWESOME! . For Bonneville, it used a similar type system, but had (2) 500W Heisman motors which drove through a 14-spd. Roholoff hub. Unfortunately, our speed controller couldn't hang with the amps at speeds of over 60 mph, which was only 8th gear! If we could have got to the 14th gear we would have done a minimum of 80mph. Here's the fun statistic. . . .An F-4 Phantom cruises at Mach 1.8 at 55,000 ft (16,765 m). The aircraft' turbojet engines produce 11,560 lb (51,430 N) of thrust at its cruise speed of 1,742 ft/s (531 m/s). This combination of force and speed equates to a power of 36,620 hp (27,310 kW). The F-4 weighs 30,000 lbs (empty) 62,000 lb. take off maximum weight. Speed = 1500 mph. Using the 30,000 lb. number, the F-4 Phantom has a 20:1 weight to speed ratio. . By comparison, our MachineX "Bonneville" model weighs 65 pounds (fully loaded) and has a maximum speed of 65 mph (a 1:1 weight to speed ratio). This equates to a 19x factor of greater speed to weight than an F-4 Phantom! . Q: 65 pounds? Man, that's damn light for an electric bike with two motors and maybe twenty miles worth of battery capacity! It looks pretty small in the photos, though, so I can believe it. Tell me, Aaron, what did it feel like going that fast on a dinky little machine like that? . A: We used a 48V NiMh battery pack which weighed twenty pounds, our 65 pound vehicle ran for two hours on 1/2 charge (meaning we could have run the event with only 5 pounds of batteries thus netting more speed). Our total energy consumption cost per run was $0.10, with a total electricity cost during the duration of the event of $1.00 +/- (not counting the gas usage for the rental van to and from Bonneville ). . Honestly, it didn't seem fast enough! It was a twitchy little bike so I was more concentrated on keeping the bike straight and avoiding any sudden movements which would send me into unrecoverable speed wobbles. Speed at the trials is measured as a timed mile, not a top speed. The rider has a two-mile run-up before entering the mile-long speed trap. Upon entry into the trap, the timer is tripped and upon exit of the trap the timer is stopped. We actually were able to achieve higher "Top Speeds", but only for short durations since the control board could only handle 60 Amps for 3-5 seconds at a time. . Another fun fact... While we were at the Speed trials the Land Speed Record for an Electric Motorcycle was set. The electric motorcycle equipped with 700 pounds of batteries reached only 71 mph and is the current world record holder! Q: I think it's hilarious that you came within spitting distance of the electric motorcycle record at the same time you were beating the electric bicycle record! After all, the only theoretical difference between a motorized bicycle and a motorcycle is a set of pedals. Nothing says a motorcycle has to weigh a ton. Obviously, the guys building electric motorcycles are not as hip to electric vehicle practice as us bicycle guys. I guess they're so used to having big V-twin industrial powerplants to haul their things around, that they just assume that motorcycles are supposed to be big and heavy, even if they're powered by electric motors. . I hope you plan to do that Bonneville thing again; because even a nimrod like me can see that with some techno upgrades you could go a lot faster with your same basic vehicle. Lithium Ion batteries are even more efficient than NiMh for energy density. The new Schwinn Campus, an Electric Comfort Cruiser uses LiPolymer batteries, and its battery pack is so compact that you'd have to look very hard to see it in the carrier rack over the rear wheel. I don't even know where they stuck the motor, because it's pretty much invisible too. So, you could probably do the same run with less than five pounds of LiPoly cells. . And obviously, the ESC (Electronic Speed Control) you used is in serious need of an upgrade. Or maybe it's just a matter of more efficient cooling of the one you have. I've got a Novak 828-HV High-Voltage MegaFET ESC that's got a rated current of 500 Amps, with a peak rating of 1,200 Amps (For 2 milliseconds!). And that thing's from the '90s. It was designed for use in large R/C model drag cars, electric boats, truck pull machines, electric airplanes, and monster trucks. They even have a watertight liquid-cooling jacket for use in boats to really suck the heat off the transistors. It wouldn't take much of a radiator or a lot of coolant liquid for your setup, either. . At first I was kind of surprised that you'd used a pair of 500-Watt motors, rather than one big-ass motor, like the Briggs&Stratton Etek (8-15 HP, 22#), but that was before you told me the vehicle weight. Maybe once you get into the big-ass motors you're back into the 700-pound battery pack club. Surely not, though. |
A: I went to the legendary Bonneville Salt Flats back in September with my good friend Marcus Hayes, CEO of ZVO bikes, to make a land speed record attempt on an electric bike. ZVO, as many of your readers may know, is an electric bicycle company with well established roots in the industry ( www.zvobikes.com ). Marcus had the crazy idea of wanting to build a land speed bike and make a record attempt at Bonneville one month before the speed trials began. He and Dan Hannebrink, legendary suspension fork builder and ZVO's head engineer, designed and engineered the bike in less than a month. I was lucky enough to tag along and even luckier when he asked me to be the pilot for the record setting run. 58.6 mph! We had a Discovery Channel film crew, Filmer's of "The world's most deadliest catch", join us for the trip and film our history in the making. It was great. Probably one of the most memorable experiences in my life. . Q: Man! Some people have all the fun. Was this pretty much based on that sturdy-looking ZVO E-bike they show on the website, or was the vehicle designed and built specifically for the Bonneville task? |
Now that you remind me, I was on the phone with Ky Michaelson, the rocket guy, a while back. He'd just finished a bike with Briggs Vanguard power, so he took his cordless phone out to the shop and fired it up for me. It sure sounded muscular to me. Loud, too, of course. His bike was way too detailed, also. I loved it, naturally. A: Ky is the king! The finished Rocket Bike rules. . Q: I agree. And that Vanguard machine of yours is looking very sweet, so far; seems like serious progress to me. What else has been keeping you so busy? |
Q: So, Aaron, how's the Pacific Cycle gig working out for you, so far? . A: Things at Pacific are great. The people who work here are all awesome and the diversity of my projects are a dream come true. The company's distribution and reach was the true attraction for me. Through my years in the industry I've come to learn that you can have the most wonderfully designed product offered at the right price, but if your distribution channel is broken people won't be able to appreciate it. On top of that, few companies in the bike industry have any vision and when they see something new from a competitor, their instinct is to copy it. If you happen to be the small guy with something unique but lack distribution, you're screwed! The bigger guy will get it in front of consumers before you; and they'll take all the credit . . Q: Sounds like the voice of experience speaking... I guess you really couldn't call Nirve a "boutique" outfit, but the difference between it and Pacific Cycle's muscle must be pretty vast. . This is the second go 'round for you with the same company, in a way. When we had our first interview, you were in charge of design for the GT/Dyno division of what was then Schwinn, and I recall you had some gripes about the corporate culture. Since then, Schwinn has been bought by Pacific, for which you're now in charge of design for the whole company, I gather. I presume that there have been some major improvements in corporate culture? . A: Yeah, kind of a second go around I suppose. The culture that exists in Pacific is completely different than the old GT. Less the familiar faces, not much remains the same. So much in fact that Pacific (a company many times larger than the old GT) has found a way to take the corporate out of the culture. In a nutshell, the problematic people from the old days have been replaced by educated hard working ones! . Q: Wow, how often does that happen? You certainly sound like you're having more fun than the last time you were there. . The New Stingray Chopper was a big ripple for a while there, then it kind of sank like a stone, taking all the "me toos" along with it. As the designer of the arguably-more-successful Nirve Choppers, maybe you could give us your take on where Schwinn went wrong with their take on the same theme? A: I'm not sure you can say Schwinn or Pacific really did anything wrong with the Stingray chopper. The guy who designed it, Greg Blake, is a super sharp guy who recognized an emerging market and delivered the perfect product at the perfect time. Seldomly do the stars align like that! What no one could have expected was that the fad would fade so quickly. Pacific, as well as its distributors continued ordering the Stingrays based on prior sales history. When sell through at retail fell rapidly it was too late to stop incoming shipments. Virtually over night there was a glut of product which wasn't selling. The reaction at the retail level was to slash the prices to get it off the floor which had a ripple effect through the entire industry. If you could buy a Schwinn Stingray chopper for $70-$80 through a mass market retailer, why would anyone want to spend $450 at a specialty retailer?? Suddenly, everyone's perception at retail was that chopper bikes don't sell, so everyone decided to stop ordering them. . The reality is that the market still exists. Everyone I know who has one gets positive comments constantly when they ride it. Something your readers are all too familiar with, I'm sure. Unfortunately, its become one of the slowest moving categories in the industry. .. Q: That's the big difference between then and now. Trends come and go so quickly now that it's almost impossible to have the slow buildup that the original Stingrays and Krates rode. That trend, by the time everyone else in the industry got on board, lasted maybe ten years. In today's terms, or dog years, that's almost a century. The adult-scale "Spoiler" model looked pretty interesting- both stylistically and technically. Do you think that if they'd brought it out earlier, things might have gone differently for the whole line? When I was a kid, I was pretty influenced by what the "young adults" were doing. .A: It's really hard to say the success the Spoiler may have had if it had come to market sooner. I truly believe the success of the Stingray chopper was because of Pacific's distribution in the mass market channel. If it had been distributed only through the IBD channel things would have been significantly different and most likely had a longer-lasting life span, like the original had. WalMart has become the world's largest company in the history of the world. They sell $36 million dollars of product every hour, of every day, of every week, of every month in the year. Their reach to consumers is unmatched. Prior to WalMart, a new product launch was much slower because a company had to work harder to sell the product into numerous retailers. Not the case with Walmart. Virtually overnight the product is on the shelves in over 3200 WalMart locations being seen by tens of millions of consumers each day. . To my knowledge the Spoiler was launched only in the IBD channel (I may be wrong, however). If that was the case, only a small fraction of potential consumers saw the product and, in most cases, not necessary the right customer. How many "chopper guys" go into a specialty bike shop?? I don't know for certain but I'd be willing to wager that it's nowhere near the amount that walk into a WalMart! . So the real question should be: . Would things have been different if the Spoiler was launched at the same time as the Stingray into WalMart? Well, I doubt it, but honestly have no flipping idea! . Q: Yes, you're right; the Spoiler was only sold through the IBD channel. Most of those specialty shop merchants aren't exactly chopper guys either, so there may have been some reluctance on their part to even carry the Spoiler. Did you have that sort of problem with your Nirve choppers? . A: Absolutely. The specialty channel was mildly interested in Nirve's chopper, but only because of the success Schwinn was having through the mass channel, not because they understood the demographic or how the bike fit into a certain lifestyle. .A cartoon appeared in the Bicycle Retailer that, I felt, really summed up what Nirve (and other chopper suppliers) faced in the IBD channel. It showed an overweight, bearded, leather- clad "Harley" looking guy asking for help in a specialty bike shop. I don't remember the point of the cartoon, however my take away was ". . .This is how the majority of the specialty channel sees the customer for choppers." Completely and utterly blind to who the real customer actually was. .I suppose the specialty channel would rather talk to the same road bike customer 10x about the material type and the corresponding grams it shaves from the overall weight of a road bike in an effort to make a single road bike sale than to have a guy walk in one time and say "That thing is bad-ass, I'll take it" regarding a chopper. Granted you make more money on the expensive bike, but in reality you can sell more units in a shorter time with the choppers. Seems like gravy sales to me, but I've never worked in a specialty bike shop. Q: Me either. I can hardly bear to even walk into one. They always act like I'm some kind of fool, or considering my age- senile. "What do you want something like that for, Pops" is typical. Thank God for internet-based bike and parts sources. . Not that it would make much of a difference in the big picture, but I thought using the same rear tire size on the Spoiler as on the Stingray was a mistake. Yeah, it's a fat tire, but it's still a 20" one, which is a kiddy size, as far as most of us are concerned. Of course, I still wouldn't mind having one. Do they have a warehouse full of them somewhere? I think they could still sell them, through the right channel. . I've been wondering how that project of yours was coming along, in which you were shoe-horning that Briggs Vanguard V-twin into the Nirve Chopper frame. Did you ever finish that beast? . A: I'm unsure of why the 20" tire was used on the spoiler. I'll have to ask. . The little Briggs project is still in the works. I've been silly-busy lately and haven't been able to work on it for a few months. Here's some pics of where it is currently. I may have to swap the color scheme and rock some Schwinn colors on her now! |
Q: So, Aaron, how's the Pacific Cycle gig working out for you, so far? . A: Things at Pacific are great. The people who work here are all awesome and the diversity of my projects are a dream come true. The company's distribution and reach was the true attraction for me. Through my years in the industry I've come to learn that you can have the most wonderfully designed product offered at the right price, but if your distribution channel is broken people won't be able to appreciate it. On top of that, few companies in the bike industry have any vision and when they see something new from a competitor, their instinct is to copy it. If you happen to be the small guy with something unique but lack distribution, you're screwed! The bigger guy will get it in front of consumers before you; and they'll take all the credit . . Q: Sounds like the voice of experience speaking... I guess you really couldn't call Nirve a "boutique" outfit, but the difference between it and Pacific Cycle's muscle must be pretty vast. . This is the second go 'round for you with the same company, in a way. When we had our first interview, you were in charge of design for the GT/Dyno division of what was then Schwinn, and I recall you had some gripes about the corporate culture. Since then, Schwinn has been bought by Pacific, for which you're now in charge of design for the whole company, I gather. I presume that there have been some major improvements in corporate culture? . A: Yeah, kind of a second go around I suppose. The culture that exists in Pacific is completely different than the old GT. Less the familiar faces, not much remains the same. So much in fact that Pacific (a company many times larger than the old GT) has found a way to take the corporate out of the culture. In a nutshell, the problematic people from the old days have been replaced by educated hard working ones! . Q: Wow, how often does that happen? You certainly sound like you're having more fun than the last time you were there. . The New Stingray Chopper was a big ripple for a while there, then it kind of sank like a stone, taking all the "me toos" along with it. As the designer of the arguably-more-successful Nirve Choppers, maybe you could give us your take on where Schwinn went wrong with their take on the same theme? A: I'm not sure you can say Schwinn or Pacific really did anything wrong with the Stingray chopper. The guy who designed it, Greg Blake, is a super sharp guy who recognized an emerging market and delivered the perfect product at the perfect time. Seldomly do the stars align like that! What no one could have expected was that the fad would fade so quickly. Pacific, as well as its distributors continued ordering the Stingrays based on prior sales history. When sell through at retail fell rapidly it was too late to stop incoming shipments. Virtually over night there was a glut of product which wasn't selling. The reaction at the retail level was to slash the prices to get it off the floor which had a ripple effect through the entire industry. If you could buy a Schwinn Stingray chopper for $70-$80 through a mass market retailer, why would anyone want to spend $450 at a specialty retailer?? Suddenly, everyone's perception at retail was that chopper bikes don't sell, so everyone decided to stop ordering them. . The reality is that the market still exists. Everyone I know who has one gets positive comments constantly when they ride it. Something your readers are all too familiar with, I'm sure. Unfortunately, its become one of the slowest moving categories in the industry. .. Q: That's the big difference between then and now. Trends come and go so quickly now that it's almost impossible to have the slow buildup that the original Stingrays and Krates rode. That trend, by the time everyone else in the industry got on board, lasted maybe ten years. In today's terms, or dog years, that's almost a century. The adult-scale "Spoiler" model looked pretty interesting- both stylistically and technically. Do you think that if they'd brought it out earlier, things might have gone differently for the whole line? When I was a kid, I was pretty influenced by what the "young adults" were doing. .A: It's really hard to say the success the Spoiler may have had if it had come to market sooner. I truly believe the success of the Stingray chopper was because of Pacific's distribution in the mass market channel. If it had been distributed only through the IBD channel things would have been significantly different and most likely had a longer-lasting life span, like the original had. WalMart has become the world's largest company in the history of the world. They sell $36 million dollars of product every hour, of every day, of every week, of every month in the year. Their reach to consumers is unmatched. Prior to WalMart, a new product launch was much slower because a company had to work harder to sell the product into numerous retailers. Not the case with Walmart. Virtually overnight the product is on the shelves in over 3200 WalMart locations being seen by tens of millions of consumers each day. . To my knowledge the Spoiler was launched only in the IBD channel (I may be wrong, however). If that was the case, only a small fraction of potential consumers saw the product and, in most cases, not necessary the right customer. How many "chopper guys" go into a specialty bike shop?? I don't know for certain but I'd be willing to wager that it's nowhere near the amount that walk into a WalMart! . So the real question should be: . Would things have been different if the Spoiler was launched at the same time as the Stingray into WalMart? Well, I doubt it, but honestly have no flipping idea! . Q: Yes, you're right; the Spoiler was only sold through the IBD channel. Most of those specialty shop merchants aren't exactly chopper guys either, so there may have been some reluctance on their part to even carry the Spoiler. Did you have that sort of problem with your Nirve choppers? . A: Absolutely. The specialty channel was mildly interested in Nirve's chopper, but only because of the success Schwinn was having through the mass channel, not because they understood the demographic or how the bike fit into a certain lifestyle. .A cartoon appeared in the Bicycle Retailer that, I felt, really summed up what Nirve (and other chopper suppliers) faced in the IBD channel. It showed an overweight, bearded, leather- clad "Harley" looking guy asking for help in a specialty bike shop. I don't remember the point of the cartoon, however my take away was ". . .This is how the majority of the specialty channel sees the customer for choppers." Completely and utterly blind to who the real customer actually was. .I suppose the specialty channel would rather talk to the same road bike customer 10x about the material type and the corresponding grams it shaves from the overall weight of a road bike in an effort to make a single road bike sale than to have a guy walk in one time and say "That thing is bad-ass, I'll take it" regarding a chopper. Granted you make more money on the expensive bike, but in reality you can sell more units in a shorter time with the choppers. Seems like gravy sales to me, but I've never worked in a specialty bike shop. Q: Me either. I can hardly bear to even walk into one. They always act like I'm some kind of fool, or considering my age- senile. "What do you want something like that for, Pops" is typical. Thank God for internet-based bike and parts sources. . Not that it would make much of a difference in the big picture, but I thought using the same rear tire size on the Spoiler as on the Stingray was a mistake. Yeah, it's a fat tire, but it's still a 20" one, which is a kiddy size, as far as most of us are concerned. Of course, I still wouldn't mind having one. Do they have a warehouse full of them somewhere? I think they could still sell them, through the right channel. . I've been wondering how that project of yours was coming along, in which you were shoe-horning that Briggs Vanguard V-twin into the Nirve Chopper frame. Did you ever finish that beast? . A: I'm unsure of why the 20" tire was used on the spoiler. I'll have to ask. . The little Briggs project is still in the works. I've been silly-busy lately and haven't been able to work on it for a few months. Here's some pics of where it is currently. I may have to swap the color scheme and rock some Schwinn colors on her now! |
Q: Wow! That's what I consider progress. It's a lot closer than the last time I saw it, what with all those nice little important mechanical details you've added. The pipe configuration's pretty cool-looking too; how does it sound? . A: Thanks, Jim. I was a little worried that I went a little overboard with some detailed areas. Actually, I haven't fired it yet! I've heard the same engine run before and it's scarily similar to a Harley V-Twin. |
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Q: Dude! This is BR&K. Our motto is "Too much detail ain't enough". . |
Now that you remind me, I was on the phone with Ky Michaelson, the rocket guy, a while back. He'd just finished a bike with Briggs Vanguard power, so he took his cordless phone out to the shop and fired it up for me. It sure sounded muscular to me. Loud, too, of course. His bike was way too detailed, also. I loved it, naturally. A: Ky is the king! The finished Rocket Bike rules. . Q: I agree. And that Vanguard machine of yours is looking very sweet, so far; seems like serious progress to me. What else has been keeping you so busy? |
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A: I went to the legendary Bonneville Salt Flats back in September with my good friend Marcus Hayes, CEO of ZVO bikes, to make a land speed record attempt on an electric bike. ZVO, as many of your readers may know, is an electric bicycle company with well established roots in the industry ( www.zvobikes.com ). Marcus had the crazy idea of wanting to build a land speed bike and make a record attempt at Bonneville one month before the speed trials began. He and Dan Hannebrink, legendary suspension fork builder and ZVO's head engineer, designed and engineered the bike in less than a month. I was lucky enough to tag along and even luckier when he asked me to be the pilot for the record setting run. 58.6 mph! We had a Discovery Channel film crew, Filmer's of "The world's most deadliest catch", join us for the trip and film our history in the making. It was great. Probably one of the most memorable experiences in my life. . Q: Man! Some people have all the fun. Was this pretty much based on that sturdy-looking ZVO E-bike they show on the website, or was the vehicle designed and built specifically for the Bonneville task? |
Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah USA |
A: It was designed and built specifically for Bonneville. The bike on their website was a collaboration between Nirve and ZVO (that's how I orginally met Marcus). Nirve had teamed up with ZVO to develop their electric bike and part of the agreement was that Nirve would help ZVO commercialize their bike. The bike pictured on the ZVO site is the 4th electric bike I designed in my career. The production bike features the drive-train technology ZVO developed which is unique to anything on the market. It supplies the electric power through the existing drive-train of the bike (a Shimano Auto-D 8-spd) which fully optimizes the efficiency of the motor. Anyone who has ever ridden an electric bike knows that you typically have two separate drive trains (human power and electric power) and the electric power drive train usually leaves a lot to be desired with speed. With ZVO's system, you have 8 spds of electric and human power. It's AWESOME! . For Bonneville, it used a similar type system, but had (2) 500W Heisman motors which drove through a 14-spd. Roholoff hub. Unfortunately, our speed controller couldn't hang with the amps at speeds of over 60 mph, which was only 8th gear! If we could have got to the 14th gear we would have done a minimum of 80mph. Here's the fun statistic. . . .An F-4 Phantom cruises at Mach 1.8 at 55,000 ft (16,765 m). The aircraft' turbojet engines produce 11,560 lb (51,430 N) of thrust at its cruise speed of 1,742 ft/s (531 m/s). This combination of force and speed equates to a power of 36,620 hp (27,310 kW). The F-4 weighs 30,000 lbs (empty) 62,000 lb. take off maximum weight. Speed = 1500 mph. Using the 30,000 lb. number, the F-4 Phantom has a 20:1 weight to speed ratio. . By comparison, our MachineX "Bonneville" model weighs 65 pounds (fully loaded) and has a maximum speed of 65 mph (a 1:1 weight to speed ratio). This equates to a 19x factor of greater speed to weight than an F-4 Phantom! . Q: 65 pounds? Man, that's damn light for an electric bike with two motors and maybe twenty miles worth of battery capacity! It looks pretty small in the photos, though, so I can believe it. Tell me, Aaron, what did it feel like going that fast on a dinky little machine like that? . A: We used a 48V NiMh battery pack which weighed twenty pounds, our 65 pound vehicle ran for two hours on 1/2 charge (meaning we could have run the event with only 5 pounds of batteries thus netting more speed). Our total energy consumption cost per run was $0.10, with a total electricity cost during the duration of the event of $1.00 +/- (not counting the gas usage for the rental van to and from Bonneville ). . Honestly, it didn't seem fast enough! It was a twitchy little bike so I was more concentrated on keeping the bike straight and avoiding any sudden movements which would send me into unrecoverable speed wobbles. Speed at the trials is measured as a timed mile, not a top speed. The rider has a two-mile run-up before entering the mile-long speed trap. Upon entry into the trap, the timer is tripped and upon exit of the trap the timer is stopped. We actually were able to achieve higher "Top Speeds", but only for short durations since the control board could only handle 60 Amps for 3-5 seconds at a time. . Another fun fact... While we were at the Speed trials the Land Speed Record for an Electric Motorcycle was set. The electric motorcycle equipped with 700 pounds of batteries reached only 71 mph and is the current world record holder! Q: I think it's hilarious that you came within spitting distance of the electric motorcycle record at the same time you were beating the electric bicycle record! After all, the only theoretical difference between a motorized bicycle and a motorcycle is a set of pedals. Nothing says a motorcycle has to weigh a ton. Obviously, the guys building electric motorcycles are not as hip to electric vehicle practice as us bicycle guys. I guess they're so used to having big V-twin industrial powerplants to haul their things around, that they just assume that motorcycles are supposed to be big and heavy, even if they're powered by electric motors. . I hope you plan to do that Bonneville thing again; because even a nimrod like me can see that with some techno upgrades you could go a lot faster with your same basic vehicle. Lithium Ion batteries are even more efficient than NiMh for energy density. The new Schwinn Campus, an Electric Comfort Cruiser uses LiPolymer batteries, and its battery pack is so compact that you'd have to look very hard to see it in the carrier rack over the rear wheel. I don't even know where they stuck the motor, because it's pretty much invisible too. So, you could probably do the same run with less than five pounds of LiPoly cells. . And obviously, the ESC (Electronic Speed Control) you used is in serious need of an upgrade. Or maybe it's just a matter of more efficient cooling of the one you have. I've got a Novak 828-HV High-Voltage MegaFET ESC that's got a rated current of 500 Amps, with a peak rating of 1,200 Amps (For 2 milliseconds!). And that thing's from the '90s. It was designed for use in large R/C model drag cars, electric boats, truck pull machines, electric airplanes, and monster trucks. They even have a watertight liquid-cooling jacket for use in boats to really suck the heat off the transistors. It wouldn't take much of a radiator or a lot of coolant liquid for your setup, either. . At first I was kind of surprised that you'd used a pair of 500-Watt motors, rather than one big-ass motor, like the Briggs&Stratton Etek (8-15 HP, 22#), but that was before you told me the vehicle weight. Maybe once you get into the big-ass motors you're back into the 700-pound battery pack club. Surely not, though. |
Damn, now you've got me wanting to start building one of the damn things! I don't have an Etek, but I do have a matched pair of 500-Watt brushless motors. So, just out of curiosity, Aaron, what sort of rubber are you running on that puppy, and how does the power get into the bike power-train: freewheeling crankset, or something more exotic? I have a NOS Shimano Integer freewheeling crankset unit for a Schwinn Suburban I have reserved for some deal like that. . A: The motors were located in front of the BB and attached to the cranks using a freewheeling crankset, then a second chain went from the crankset to the rear wheel. . The way I look at it Jim, I'd LOVE to see as many people as possible out on the salt this year. I encourage anyone who is remotely interested to make a go of it. I can say with 100% certainty that it was the most memorable moment in my life. I couldn't possibly explain the emotion which overwhelms you as you sit on the "zero line" staring down the infamous 5-mile black stripe and thinking "Son of a Bitch, I'm sitting in the same spot as Mickey Thompson, Burt Monroe and every other land speed record setting person in history. I'm so not worthy of sitting here". . If you're interested. . . act on your instinct and come on out. All the info can be found at: . Q: I've wanted to do that almost as long as I can remember, at least as far back as when Mickey Thompson made the run in that incredibly-cool streamliner of his with the four V-8s under the shell. I think they were Pontiacs. What a guy! . The cool thing about your Bonneville run, is that it doesn't sound like a particularly big bucks operation. Even with the electrical power aspects and such, it's still basically a bicycle with some fairly pricey parts mounted on a handmade frame. Sounds like about a quarter of the bikes in our gallery, put in those terms. And most of mine already sport composite fairings just for style. Man, we could party like it's 1959! . I realize that it's probably already occurred to you that your new employer is already in the E-bike business, and that you could probably get almost anything you need off the warehouse shelf, especially those cool Lithium batteries? Man, you could do for Pacific Cycle what Burt Munro did for Indian Motorcycles! We need to continue this discussion, Dude. . Well, Aaron, I can see that you've had a pretty interesting time since our last chat. I know it's early on, and that anyone in the bike biz has to be security-smart, but is there anything in particular you could share about your plans for Pacific Cycles' products? For instance, now that you're once again involved with Dyno, will we be seeing new and startling stuff in the Kustom Kruiser line? A: I'm still trying to grow my Pacific legs and learn where our priorities lie. I've already pitched a project that would include a trip to Bonneville, nonetheless! .. I can say that the (Dyno) Kustom Kruisers have been a topic of discussion. Currently we have an all-new alloy platform for which a lot of tooling has been opened. That being said, dramatic changes may be an unwise decision until the existing tooling is fully amortized. I'd love to hear some feedback from your readers, as to what they think would be cool to see. Maybe someone could start a string on the Kustom Cruisers message board or something. .Q: Well, the Dyno machines you already designed are still considered pretty cool hipster rides, so I imagine that tooling's still got legs in the marketplace. I'm sure that when our readers see that you're interested in message board member input, though, they'll start posting their brainstorms, pronto. Also, as I recall, you still had a lot of stuff in your sketchbooks that hadn't made it into the pipeline yet. One could do worse than dust those off. . As usual, Aaron, it's been a ball. In my opinion, Discovery Channel could do a lot worse, programming-wise, than to just follow you around with a video crew. Until then, we'll just keep on checking in with you to see what you're getting up to. Thanks again. . A: Thanks, Jim. It's an honor to be in your consideration as an interview subject for BR&K. It was great speaking to you; and hopefully I'll see you on the Salt this year! |
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