The Racer-X is the craziest motorcycle you’ve probably never seen!
What would a motorcycle look like if you threw the rulebook out of the window?
ELECTRIC motorcycle design has, predictably, followed quite closely that of conventional petrol-powered motorcycles.
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For the most part, electric motorcycles bear a very similar silhouette to petrol-powered bikes, they still have fuel tanks for instance, many have the motor mounted in the conventional place and the drive systems are all variations on the tried and tested theme.
But what if you didn’t follow the herd, what if you wanted to design and build an electric motorcycle without limits? We guess it’d look something like this, the Racer-X electric motorcycle built by Mark Atkinson.
The bike is an aluminium framed, carbon bodied, hub-less wheeled wonder, and it’s powered by a drive system from a land speed record racer. The bike came about after Atkinson got chatting to the engineers from a now-closed electric bike company. He saw the opportunity to build an electric motorcycle that could shun all the conventional trappings of a modern electric bike.
Speaking to BikeExif, Atkinson explains the funky machine’s innovative steering mechanism.
“This pivots the front two arms of the X that actuate the front wheel. The steering box is then mounted to two linear bearings on the rear solid section, and a shock allows the whole bike to be suspended without affecting the steering.
“There’s a tiny joystick control mounted in the left side handgrip. “It works okay but I will modify the program to be a little more progressive.”
While it may not be the most conventional or comfortable motorcycle on the planet, you can’t deny the machine is ultimately triumphant in its quest of looking genuinely like nothing else on two-wheels.
The big question is, would you ride it?
Simon (AKA Toad) has been working within the motorcycle industry for more than twelve years, and a member of the motorcyclist family since birth. Growing up around British-built single and twins, it was inevitable that a life on two wheels was on the cards, from a very early age!
