bpw
Well-known member
Ben, go out to Stockton and see if you can keep up with Max or Brandon on their 50cc bikes. You wont be able to do it on a 250, let alone on an E-MTB. Little kids they days are way faster than your words would imply.
If you are talking about dirt bikes, putting an E-MTB on the same trail as an E-moto you are just asking for BIG TROUBLE. The disparity guarantees serious catastrophic crashes. They can be in the same park, but they have to have their own trails.
By law e-bicycles are limited to 20-25mph. There are some getting around the legislation maneuvers, and of course aftermarket mods. But these aren't fast vehicles. They are mostly adaptations to a bicycle that allow lazy people to feel like they are doing something healthy. And for some "environmentally responsible." But that's only because they can't do the math.
Batteries are still very crude technologies. Even the MEGA factory is floundering. Battery powered vehicles are simply a stop gap until fuel cells come into maturity. Batteries are not going to develop the way you have illustrated. Even ten years from now they will not have solved the issues plaguing them today.
H2 fuel cells are the only current technology that can provide the necessary requirements for an electric vehicle--and currently there are only two of these available (both automobiles) on the consumer market today. Suzuki as far as I know is the only moto company even doing research on an H2 fuel cell bike. It's unlikely that these will be available anytime soon either. While Stanford has gotten nickel based fuel cells to work they still aren't at a consumer production level with that technology--and they need to get there to make them cost effective.
I am sure plenty of kids are faster than me, but I have also shared trails with plenty of kids (and adults) putting along slowly without crashing into them. It's just normal at any OHV and seems to work. That some kids are super fast isn't any more relevant in this context than arguing I could never do a track day since I am so much slower than a professional racer.
An xr50 in stock form is only good for ~35 mph if you have long way to get it there, and no law restricts top speed of an e-bike used off road. A quick google shows that Specialized makes an electric assist mountain bike good for 28mph in stock form, and it has better suspension, brakes, and weighs less than an xr50. I suspect on single track the mountain bike could give even a full size dirt-bike a run for it's money.
And, if you are right an hardly anyone buys electric motos it won't be much of a problem since the motos will be so rare out on the track.