Electric motorbike racing

[JAZZCNC]

Can anyone spot the bits I made ;)

Would that be for hanging onto.?

Don't they have a Minimum weight classification for Electric bike racing.? They do for the smelly versions.!

[Skipsoaring]

Brilliant work Jonathan and team!

From an ex superbike smelly racer!

[Jonathan]

I've had a mad last two weeks or so - but we did it! The bike survived the TT ... we blew up plenty of bits between races in testing and had problems with the bike cutting out (10 times!) during the race, but were still the fastest university.



Must remember to buy more cooling hoses for next time, or hire the same van

Would that be for hanging onto.?

Yep, I also made the water cooling block below by borrowing my friend's CNC router. We were nowhere near finishing so we took my mini lathe in the van. Almost everyone who passed our box said 'look, they have a lathe!'... you'd think they'd never seen one before. The lathe proved just as useful to other teams as us - I think I helped out 5 different teams with it, including skimming a shaft from a sidecar.



Next we're racing in a series called 'Moto-E' in the UK and Europe.

[Fred]

Great work. I watched it on ITV4 last night. I thought the commentary about the general state of the zero class was a bit harsh.

[magicniner]

Great work. I watched it on ITV4 last night. I thought the commentary about the general state of the zero class was a bit harsh.

The TT haven't embraced electric at all, they shunned the chance to be a part of a worldwide electric bike race series in order to invent their own "Brand" simply to make more money, which I assume they haven't.
Greedy stupid wakners, as per usual!

[Jonathan]

Thank you for the comments - I didn't see that coming! It was so tense standing near the finish line waiting for our bike, seeing the Mugen and Victory bikes go past and realizing that if Daley brought it home we would be third. As it happens, Daley didn't spot that Mc Guinness had broken down, so he was still going flat out, clipping the curbstones and letting the bike jump, until he was directed to the winners enclosure.

It was a shame we didn't get the second bike working for Peter Hickman to ride. We tried really hard as the new bike has a higher battery capacity that the Victory bikes and a better motor, which I'm confident will make it a challenger for Mugen. The motor drive was our own design. I did the current sensing and mechanical design, whilst Marco did the rest. I think we were having issues with static electricity damaging parts, as as soon as we got part of it working the rest would fail until eventually we ran out of spares and time just a few hours before the race.

Still, for Daley to get 3rd place on the old bike bodes well for next year. We messed up somewhere with how much power we gave him for the race, as the top speed was 10mph less than in qualifying, so only 121mph - yet somehow he still got an averegae of 99.9mph. Crazy...

I was going to post a few pictures of parts I made just before I left but didn't get time, so I'll post them now along with a few photos taken during the races. Except for the bearing mount, these are all parts I machined in the 1 week leading up to the TT:

Bearing mount (supporting front sprocket):

Rider's newborn baby - Daisy:


Various sprockets, water cooling manifold, front axles and chain guard:



Not every day you blow a 500 amp fuse:


How many engineers does it take to start a van?


I was disappointed by the coverage Sarolea got. We asked the team afterwards what happened and got a different answer from each person. They didn't go out in any of the practice sessions or qualifying and the riders looked like they expected not to start. One didn't even sit on the bike ready to go.

[Jonathan]

We're racing again in Moto-E, a championship just for electric bikes. We had various issues getting the second bike to work, but it's going quite well now:


[Photo @ Assen]

I've not had many parts to machine recently, it's mainly been a case of fault finding and improving the electrical system, e.g. improving the current sensor board:



We got some interesting new pistons in the suspension - made from carbon fiber with a ceramic coating. It saves 1.6kg in unsprung weight! CeraCarbon have done it for us to test:





Daley was OK after that crash - fingers crossed he doesn't do it again! The next races are on 17-18th of September, in Pembrey (Wales).

[CharlieRam]

When are you at Donnington park next, I'd like to pop down and watch. Looking good though :)