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Edited Date/Time
5/6/2021 3:06pm
Hey, We KNOW that 99% of us here dont like eDirt bikes and DONT WANT to see them racing and bla bla bla
- everybody knows, ok? This is just for the conversation, ok?
But in how many years do you expect to see the first wave of "manufacturers demanding eDirt bikes" or Feld/Youthstream (us/europe) starting the conversation about it for the coming years?
TBH I thought they would be around already. I thought ALTA would have the permission to run in the 250cc class in SX after those RB's Straight Rhythm events. It looked Alta had the range to race a SX event. (20 minutesISH)
I know its complicated to have a big battery in a dirt bike and Im honestly not seeing much developement being done when compared to cars.
But I'd guess SX will have eBikes in 4 or 5 years... and MXGP after that.
Again...We KNOW YOU DONT WANT eDirt Bikes in SX and MXGP. Its just a conversation.
- everybody knows, ok? This is just for the conversation, ok?
But in how many years do you expect to see the first wave of "manufacturers demanding eDirt bikes" or Feld/Youthstream (us/europe) starting the conversation about it for the coming years?
TBH I thought they would be around already. I thought ALTA would have the permission to run in the 250cc class in SX after those RB's Straight Rhythm events. It looked Alta had the range to race a SX event. (20 minutesISH)
I know its complicated to have a big battery in a dirt bike and Im honestly not seeing much developement being done when compared to cars.
But I'd guess SX will have eBikes in 4 or 5 years... and MXGP after that.
Again...We KNOW YOU DONT WANT eDirt Bikes in SX and MXGP. Its just a conversation.
When there are a couple manufacturers in the game, they'll get cracking on some rules.
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Zero had dirt bikes that could race motocross for 24 hours with battery swaps in 2009.
Alta Redshift prototype was 2011
Alta Redshifts were sold to the public in 2016- 5 years ago!
At the local level, how do you do it? Not every track will put in a charging station, and a trickle charger attached to a truck alternator would be too slow.
The KTM FreeRide takes 135 minutes and draws 13 amps in Fast charge mode. Everyone would have to carry a larger generator with them and have two hours to kill between races.
I don't see it happening until the batteries get better or can be swapped out as easily as my 18V Milwaukee drill...
Feld will fight it tooth and nail. It will be tough to pack a stadium full of people to watch a race where the only thing you can hear is chain slap.
First there need to be a product available to sell. None of the main manufacturers have that.
When they have that product i still don't see the manufacturers pushing this product before the market is ready.
And i see quite some hurdles before the marekt is ready:
* The negative reaction within the existing mx community. I feel 80% of the sales will have to come from new customers, not existing mx riders based on the reactions i see on e-bikes by current mx riders.
* The costs. I would expect this bike to be in the high end price
* The lack of infrastructure for charging your bike at the track. I rode 70 minutes last saturday, i would expect that you would need to charge an e-bike at least once in between to ride for an hour. There were at least 75 riders at the track where i was last saturday, and that track for sure doesnt have the infrastructure to charge 75 batteries right now.
Secondly, I think the series that had the fire still exists.
But, you're right about Feld. RedBull doing the 2-stroke straight rhythm and the views it got on its CR500 video demonstrates the grips internal combustion engines have on us all. Rightly so, they generate two key aspects that make life worth living - sound and smell. We can't underestimate how important these are otherwise we're denying biological reality.
I am not sure how electric bikes can overcome the deficit. From a purely competitor point of view they may scrape a market and work, but filling out stadiums and that kind of thing? They tried to revive Paris-Bercy in 2011 with electric karts. It didn't happen in 2012...
Pit Row
Even if I have done full engine rebuilds, it's not what I enjoy, I rather be like Jett and Hunter, just race and not mess with oil and engines.
I know many MTB folks who would love moto, but they will never take the plunge as long as it involves oil and engine rebuilds/maintenance.
The sport is high heartrate and adrenalin, not about greasy fingers.
(will soon do a full rebuild again
The save the world gang will be pushing for this soon. Manufacturer's will jump to please them.
However, I bought an SX-E5 for my 4 year old and it is amazing! I was skeptical when KTM released the electric mini-bike but my dealer convinced me, and honestly you could not give me a gas 50 now. The electric bike is soooo easy to ride and to learn on. We can ride in the back yard, have ridden side walks, and ride at school play grounds. No hot parts to burn little fingers and legs. Doesn't make a "scary" noise, and is confidence inspiring for little kids to ride. Kids have no bias gas vs electric, they just want to ride, and electric fits the bill nicely.
I think we will see a progression of E bikes starting with small bike and transitioning to full size. 50-65's in the next several years, 80's and supermini in 5-7 years, and full size MX bikes in 10+ years.
Um, denying biological reality doesn't seem to be much of a hinderance to modern culture. So don't hang your hat on that one!
My prediction....in 2 to 3 years we will see a bunch of new e-drive offroad models available to the public. However, it's really difficult to predict when/if AMA Pro racing will convert to e-drive or stay strictly ICE. It will depend on what the OEMs want to do. I tend to think that based on the success that Alta was able to demonstrate with the competiveness of their e-bikes (with their relatively limited resources compared to the other OEMs), the other OEMs will not have a major issue getting the e-bikes up to the same performance levels as IDE counterparts. There will likely be a lot of politics involved in how this all plays out.
My guess here is 5-10 years they'll try it, it'll be interesting to see how it's handled though. "CC's" isn't a thing at that point, so you have to just mod the SW and gearing to behave like a 450/250...which is a weird thing to govern.
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