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Motorcycle Safety and Awareness
Welcome to think bike, the podcast about all things motorcycle and the voice of motorcycle safety and awareness in Alberta. Your host is Liane Langlois.
Liane:Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of think bike. I know we teased this one last year when we talked with our good friend of the pod, Patrick Lamby about, the electric craze and we never did get to it last year, but we are this year as we talked earlier this season. Patrick, welcome back to the podcast.
Patrick:Thank you.
Liane:Such a wealth you're a wealth of information for us. I love it. So just a reminder, Patrick is the managing editor of Inside Motorcycles Magazine, which insidemotorcycles.com is where you're gonna find all this fun stuff. Right? That's the right website, That
Patrick:was perfect. Yes. Thank you.
Liane:If anybody wants to email you any specific questions, what email do you use?
Patrick:Just editor@insidemotorcycles.com.
Liane:Perfect. Because who knows how many questions you'll get off of the electric craze. Let's just jump right into this. Electric motorcycles, who was the first person to put one out there?
Patrick:Well, now it depends if you want to talk like modern day. There was, if you look back, you know, if you go online and Google, you know, the first electric motorcycle, depending upon who you're reading, they could have even been before 1900. There was all types of electric motors and everything, really kind of the first, what we'll call mass produced modern day one really was Zero, which is a company out of California. Shortly after February is when they came on the scene and by about 02/2008, '2 thousand and '9 is when they were starting to really become available, including up here in Canada. So they were kind of the first pioneer, if you will, to move into, you know, modern day electric motorcycles.
Liane:And they're still, obviously they're still around.
Patrick:They are, yes.
Liane:And then all of a sudden, all the other brands decided, hey, we should maybe do this?
Patrick:They tried with varying success. There was a company called Brammo, B R A M M O that came out, because when Zero came out, and I did test ride one of their very early ones, and, you know, the first thing that catches you is just the absolute power that electric delivers, because it's a % of the motors torque at one RPM. Like they literally have to build in a power curve, otherwise you'd be upside down just leaving a traffic light kind of thing. But you know, so there's so much fun but you know, on the original Zero models, it was more like someone, the focus was on the motor and the electric, the battery and it wasn't what one would call a good motorcycle, you know, it was definitely, you know, the chassis, frame, the brakes, it was not good. And then Bramble came along and they built an amazing motorcycle, you know, it was all like a tally, like Brembo brakes and you know, perfect, it was wonderful and it Victory actually bought up Brahmo and then when Victory got shut down, Brahmo went away.
Patrick:So it was kind of the, those were kind of the two front runners and I tested both, Brahmo definitely was a motorcycle, like there was no doubt they put the time into it, they were kind of weird because it actually did have a transmission, like we'll call it a six speed transmission as opposed to all the other ones for the most part are just a continual variable transmission where you're not shifting, but yeah, so that was kind of, zero was the first and they've definitely over whatever it might be, almost fifteen years, they've definitely upped their game, there's a company here in Calgary who brings Zero bikes out to the racetrack and so have had opportunity to ride some of their newer ones and yeah, they're a great bike and you know, they make off road ones too.
Liane:How does that handle on the track compared to like a regular track bike?
Patrick:Well, I mean, the big thing is obviously the torque because you know, you can coming out of a corner, there is just such power kind of thing, other than that, you know, all of them are built, all the modern day electric bikes regenerate to the battery under braking, so there is energy expanded when you are braking, so they actually regenerate that, so the track is a unique environment because you're forever accelerating and decelerating, and so all that deceleration actually is an opportunity to put power back into the battery. But no, they're, I mean, they're good, solid brakes, they handle well.
Liane:What other brands, I know Harley came up with one and that's only because Charlie and Ewen did a whole they came out That venture on one.
Patrick:They came out with the LiveWire, I can't remember the exact year, I know I went and tested it, it was a beautiful motorcycle and it actually brought forth a lot of the technology that you now see in Harley's main lineup, you know, their whole RDSS, whatever their rider assist, all those, you know, it was the first Harley to have really, you know, traction control and everything. So it gave Harley the chance to develop a lot of these technologies. I looked earlier, because I knew we were gonna have this discussion, the LiveWire is not even on the Harley website anymore. Unless I missed it, now I do know that Harley did a financial transaction, I think it was in '23 where they spun LiveWire out into a separate company to focus, and Harley's still obviously one of the main shareholders, but to develop electric technology, but they've been very low key about where they're at with it. You know, the problem with the LiveWire, I remember testing it and at that point, a LiveWire was I think $37,000 which there was only, the only bikes that cost more at that point in time in the Harley lineup were their CVO models.
Patrick:So it was for a bike that would generously have range described down as about 160 kilometers and probably a lot closer to 100 before needing to be charged, that was a lot of money for what it was. So it seemed to at least from the kind of the mainstream Harley lineup, it died a fairly quick death after two or three model years.
Liane:So how do you have like, I mean, Harley is defined by the very trademarked noise that Harleys make. They have a very distinct noise, motor noise, and then you throw an electric in there. Like, it's just weird.
Patrick:Well, they did some, you know, they thought through, they were trying to make sure that they did appeal to their existing demographic as much as possible. And one of the things they put in was sitting, if you're sitting at a traffic light or whatever, there was supposed to be like, just a throbbing would come out of the motor to kind of, you know, provide that same sensation that you get sitting on a V twin. Again, it was a well executed motorcycle. Yeah. Just from a price point, it just was not it just doesn't make sense.
Patrick:I mean, it would be at best a commuter bike, you know, or someone who's really patient and doesn't mind, you know, ride a hundred kilometers, pull over and charge for, you know, an hour, ride a hundred. So, yeah, that was Harley.
Liane:There is a young gentleman that shows up at our Rumbler motorcycle meetups on a LiveWire. We we always laugh because he can just sneak right up on us because you don't hear him coming. How many brands right now are running electric? Because they're just every year, there just seems to be somebody else that comes out with an electric.
Patrick:You know, the big, the most notable ones right now, Kawasaki has really been moving forward on what we'll call the alternate fuel side of things and what I really like about Kawasaki is they've come out with a hybrid motorcycle and even on the car front of things, manufacturers are realizing that electric just isn't feasible where hybrid really seems to be the future. So now Kawasaki also came out with an all electric, but they've really been pushing for quite a few years, KTM has had their, I believe it's called the Freeride, is their electric dirt bike. The company and the Canadian company that has made the most recent lunge into it is Can Am, where Can Am back in the seventies was, you know, it was the dirt bike to have, you know, it won championships and everything and then Can Am went away from doing bikes, you know, eventually went into the three wheeled world of the spider and everything, so this is their return to manufacturing motorcycles and they've chosen to do it with electric. So they've got two models, they've got one is called the Pulse, which is really targeted at urban type riding and one is called the Origin, which is kind of a dual sport intended model.
Patrick:They'd be the biggest one right now or the newest one.
Liane:They're coming back with like two wheels, you're saying?
Patrick:That's right,
Liane:they're like
Patrick:Two wheels and they're gonna be riding one later this summer. Awesome. So I'll be able to get back to you and tell you how they are, but I'm sure everything from the people who were lucky enough to ride some of the prototypes who I know, they were impressed with the motorcycle itself, know, Can Am put a lot of thought into, you know, again, they didn't want to just take a cheap, you know, roller and throw an electric motor in it, I mean, they did cool things where, you know, the motor is actually in the swing arm kind of thing, so it's very well thought out. Interesting. Looking to trying them.
Liane:Can't wait to see that. You've mentioned a couple times about like the range. So that brings up like how like are they dependable motorcycles? I mean, it would drive me nuts and like, there's a couple things. It would drive me nuts if I had to stop every hundred K to charge my bike.
Liane:How long is that gonna take? That's gonna add time to my trips. The infrastructure isn't quite fully there in Canada. Like, dependable, like, realistically are they?
Patrick:Well, the infrastructure has gotten better because I remember the first time when I tested a Zero, there's a map you can pull up that shows you where all the charging stations are in Canada. And I think when I looked it up at first, there was a couple on Vancouver Island and a few around Toronto and that was it. So any other charging you were gonna do in your garage
Liane:Wait, like correct me if I'm wrong though, Vancouver to Toronto is a little more than a hundred kilometers, right?
Patrick:Exactly, so, but then, you know, I can't remember what bike I did next, it might be when I did the LiveWire and I looked and that map was in filling in. So there has been a lot of, you know, resources dedicated to building that infrastructure. It doesn't change the fact that even, you know, so if Can Am is the newest and, you know, definitely has the newest technology, you know, they're claimed ranges, you know, town are about a hundred miles. On the highway, it can be as low as 70 miles, so 70 converts to just over a hundred kilometers. You know, their recharge time, they always do weird numbers, they do to charge from 20% to 80%.
Patrick:I think I read it's about an hour, if you're at what they call like, you know, a level two, so like one of these big commercial charging things like you see at various shopping malls and stuff. I think if you wanna go, if you were, you know, at zero, the equivalent of running on fumes and wanting to get to a %, you're pushing well over an hour, which, and I agree, like, I think they'd be great commuter bikes, I really do, like if you lived in a big urban city, you know, Toronto, honestly even Calgary or Edmonton, where you're just looking for something to get you from home to the office back and forth. Yeah, that'd be great. I think especially in The US where you can ride year round because, you know, the big challenge remains the price point. You know, Can Am is the newest one to market and you know, their price point is over $18,000 for a bike and when you look at what else you can get in a motorcycle for $18,000 that opens up a lot of options, like that's a big price point in the world of motorcycles.
Patrick:So I love the idea of electric, I really do, I love the power, like the adrenaline, I mean, you know, it is simple electric will accelerate as hard literally as like Ducati V4. Like it's just, you know, it will obviously not keep up forever, but you know, just the pure adrenaline is fantastic and I love the technology, it's just somewhere there has to be a solution for the batteries and, you know, part of the problem is cars can carry a lot more weight, so they can carry more batteries and more capacity, you know, a bike, you know, if you wanna stick, I think the K and M's are both around 400 pounds for the bike itself, so if you want to stick to, you know, a reasonable weight for a bike, you're limited what you can have on there for batteries. So hopefully the technology will improve over time.
Liane:The motorcycles are like obviously smaller than vehicles. That's part of our problem with safety. Their batteries then would be smaller. Like are they more conducive to being able to just plug into like a normal outlet or do you still kind of need the full big infrastructure? No,
Patrick:you can definitely have, you know, an adapter and you can, you know, that's why I think from a commuter point of view, you you can come home and plug into your regular outlet and yes, it can take a lot longer to charge but if it's charging overnight, do you really care kind of thing? Yeah. It's just, you know, if you're going, you know, using a Calgary kind of analogy, you know, if you're gonna go riding out towards Kananaskis, I don't even know where you would charge. I mean, I think Kananaskis Village, some of the hotels may have a charger, but I don't know if you can get that far, I'd have to check the mileage. So I think it's a great idea just the technology is not there to make it anything more than a kind of a trophy thing, like some unniche kind of thing right now.
Liane:Yeah, and I mean, it's not like you can, like I have battery packs to charge my cell phone that I carry with me and it's really not that simple.
Patrick:No. Not at all.
Liane:I mean, wouldn't that be fun if he could just plug it into a little black box? There's always the argument of Vlad Pipe saves lives. And of course, these are the quietest things around. I know at Pikes Peak, I think if you're running an electric up Pikes Peak, they make you put beeping sounds on electric. I believe so.
Liane:I think they made a car do that just so because if it's in an actual, like the timed for Pikes Peak, the race, and there's bystanders, if they don't hear you coming, they might be walking across the road. So I think for safety reasons, they required that. Is there anything like that on the motorcycles themselves? Like the electric buses that run through Edmonton beep when they're slowing and beep when they're signaling. There's not that I'm aware of, and
Patrick:I do know just from experience, one of the challenges with an electric bike is that they're always on. So like if you were to, you know, if your Triumph is sitting there on this kickstand, and if it's running, you know it's running, where I have had firsthand experience where, you know, you walk over to move the bike and you'll just pick it up how you normally would, but because you think it's off, you're not really paying attention to the throttle and suddenly this bike goes sailing in the air kind of thing. So, you know, it's a challenge and it's, you know, I think we all sometimes get in the habit when you pull up to a traffic light and you just kind of blip the throttle while you're waiting. Again, it's fine if you're in neutral or have the clutch pulled in, but if you're not paying, you know, on a regular bike, but these ones, if you're not paying attention, you can find yourself, that little blip can send you sailing into the intersection, so it's a different style of riding, no doubt.
Liane:For sure. Now, going back to Ewan and Charlie's adventure, long way up, there were a couple really cold spots in that, what is too cold for an electric motorcycle?
Patrick:There's no such thing as too cold, but it does definitely start to bring down the battery capacity and the pace at which it is drawing. Zero Motorcycles actually sent us a bike early on in there, so it would have been early after 2010 and we took it to the Numbum race, just north of and it was a year where they unfortunately had had a fatality the year before, so they weren't running the twenty four hours, they were just running four hours, so we took one of their kind of dirt bike models up there, and everybody was so excited because we were the green team, and, you know, the nice thing on the Zeros and on most electric bikes is you can just pull the battery out depending on the design, so we went up with several extra batteries and even though we were the green team, I think we had three or four generators running out back charging batteries, but they wanted, the goal was to have this bike run-in the cold and see how it would do and the batteries definitely did not last as long, but again, you know, we weren't riding like you're commuting, it was a race and I don't know if you've ever seen it, but they plow about an 11 kilometer long track on the lake.
Liane:It's like a flat track on ice.
Patrick:Well, this is like a road course on ice.
Liane:It's not an oval, it's Oh,
Patrick:no, it goes 11 kilometers, it's like, it's fun because you can't see anything because it's snow and ice, so, know, it's not unusual to miss a corner or two. But anyways, the bike did well, the batteries did not obviously last as long as they would on the street, but you know, we were able to get in, you know, usually at least three, if not four laps out of a battery and at no point did we find ourselves stranded out on the track. So they do, is there too cold? I mean, I'm older, there's a point where it's just too cold to ride a motorcycle, period. You know, when I was younger, I'd ride whatever, but now I'm more like, no, it's gotta be warm.
Patrick:But yeah, they'll run-in any temperature, it just comes down to how long and what the impact on the power supply will be.
Liane:So it was like in an F1 race, they pull in for a pit stop swap tires, so you guys just swap batteries.
Patrick:That's right, they would just pull them out and slide them in.
Liane:Get going again.
Patrick:Yeah, it was a very, it was a neat experience, but again, that was, you know, that was early on in, you know, kind of the world of electric bikes and I know just having read a lot about the K and M's and anticipating of testing them, but also curious about their technology, you know, they've worked a lot on their cooling systems and everything to maintain both the motor and the battery at kind of that optimal temperature to, you know, maintain and draw as much power as you can. Unfortunately, it's still dealing with ranges that are not practical beyond being a commuter bike.
Liane:Yeah, yeah, exactly. So we're fans of the technology, just not fans of the range?
Patrick:Well, I'm not fans of, you know, electric cars as an example, you know, California, the government keeps begging them to stop. I mean, they don't have enough power infrastructure to supply air conditioning, but yet you've got at certain points in their history, depending on who's in power, mandates that everyone's going to be driving electric power and California's going, that's impossible. We can't supply the power grid that we have now. And it's not just California, even in Canada. I mean, if everybody were to suddenly, like if you think of the street you live on and picture everybody all of a sudden now charging a car, it's gonna be a huge drain on electricity and that's where, you know, the hybrid technology seems to be where a lot of manufacturers are headed to now.
Patrick:So it's, like I said, it's interesting to see Kawasaki head in that way, that they're getting on, you know, everyone's understanding that electric by itself isn't necessarily as easy as people would like or hope.
Liane:Yeah, exactly. And I mean, touching back on the political side of that, I remember during the winter, just how cold it got and I don't ever remember this really happening before, like when I was younger and there wasn't a lot of electric out there and all of a sudden it's like, we're gonna have to have rolling blackouts just so people's furnaces can run-in. It's like, how are we all of a sudden out of power and we're borrowing power from Saskatchewan or we're lending power to Saskatchewan. And it's like our government, our federal government has a mandate in for all or no more gas powered vehicles by whatever year it is. And, but right now there's no end date kind of set for motorcycle gas, like gas powered motorcycles, correct?
Liane:That you know of?
Patrick:No, not that I'm aware of, no. Motorcyclists are purists kind of thing, never give up on their internal combustion motor.
Liane:We'll be the next convoy. Just kidding, just kidding, just kidding, kidding. We're not coming to Ottawa. No, we're we're nice peaceful people. We just like to ride motorcycles preferably with gas.
Liane:Yeah. So we can get places. Patrick, thank you again so much for your time. And so happy we got to talk about electric. Good luck on the Can Am.
Liane:Thank you. I'm looking forward to hearing about that. I'll watch for a post and maybe get that shared onto our page as well for an update on till I see you again or next year we come up with another topic to talk about. We'll figure
Patrick:it Thank you so much.
Liane:Thank you, Patrick. Now everybody else just hang tight for the mixed bag. Mike and Cochrane came to us with a question that we have had every once in a while and this one wasn't visited for a couple of years now and that is how many motorcycles can leave a stop sign at what time? Alberta Traffic Safety Act states that two vehicles cannot occupy the same lane at the same time. This means that coming to a stop sign, technically two motorcycles cannot be side by side.
Liane:However, if the second bike is right at the back tire of the first bike staggered, are legally within three meters or 10 feet of the stop sign and considered stopped and therefore can leave the stop sign at the same time. Anything more than that, you're going to have to individually stop. And that's our show for today. To make sure that you don't miss out on any of our upcoming podcasts or listen to previous ones, make sure you click on subscribe or follow wherever you get yours. If there's a topic you'd like us to cover or a guest you think would be great on the show or even a question for the mailbag, let us know.
Liane:You can connect with us on all the socials. Email us at info@ab-amss.org or reach out through the website at a b dash amss dot org. Thanks for listening to Think Bike. From us, always remember to ride smart, ride safe, and think bike. See you out on the road.