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[jpmurph]

Do you think this would open up the amount of trails previous unavailable to eternal combustion dirt bikes.

[skadamo]

Hi jpmurph, I am a little concerned about how electric motorcycles will affect trail availability to 2 wheelers. Obviously the quiet nature of the electrics will allow people to go undetected where they once could not. This could be great for us. I will open up new riding areas closer to our homes and even indoors.

However, if we start riding and tearing up trails instead of "treading lightly" it could easily do the opposite. The quiet green image of electrics would quickly turn into stealthy erosion causing monsters. Equestrians and hikers could fight against us and possibly even mountain bikers if their reputation is hurt too. I personally believe the toughest battle will be when technology becomes compact enough to allow for electric powered mountain bikes. The line between motorcycle and bicycle will get blurry and I speculate trail use will be a hot issue.

I hope larger mfr's like Zero and Quantya find the time to work with Blue Ribbon Coalition or other groups to educate people. I'm sure we can do our part here too.

As tempting as it might be, people shouldn't let their quiet motorcycle tempt them to "ride 18 holes" at the local golf course on a Saturday night.

Would love to hear others thoughts on this.

[Bogan]

a good point, but an elecrtric bike wont be any fun unless its able to tear up the place a bit, get some good ruts going on the track etc, and if its able itll happen whereever they can be ridden. The elctic removes the noise constraint for riding places, but it should still only be riddent where people dont care if it gets rutted, i the case of hiking trails, its a bad idea to ride them anyway, narrow twist, not a lot of visibility, and with a quite bike and can imagine a lot of hikers will get ploughed into.

My thoughs, keep em to bike tracks and trails, but make a few of these close to/in cities.

[skadamo]

My thoughs, keep em to bike tracks and trails, but make a few of these close to/in cities.

Yeah, that is probably the best bet. Close to cities make the most sense. There is a fair amount of money availaible for creation of trails in Illinois where I live. Quantyaparx has a good idea and I could see this taking off in the states.

[gasorelectric]

I hope larger mfr's like Zero and Quantya find the time to work with Blue Ribbon Coalition or other groups to educate people. I'm sure we can do our part here too.

Larger mfr's like Zero and Quantya...c'mon - Quantya is made of up a dozen people and Zero has around 40 people and produced less then 300 bikes in the past two years! Make no mistake, these are very small company's with very small budgets. They are not going to fight with the BRC in terms of time, resources and definitely not money. Ask BRC if any of them have donated anything more than public speak. If you want to save the trails looking toward electric is the wrong way to go, donate to BRC and fight the greenies who want all the trails - that's where electric is in a hard place, are they part of the green movement or motorcycle blood?

[skadamo]

Supporting BRC can be as simple as a link to their site. True they probably won't have time, I felt I eluded to that in my post.

You also bring up a good point about "green". I have been thinking about this a lot. Electric mfr's play the green card and it is true in the dirt extreme green folks will be against electrics on trails just like ICE bikes. They have emissions and sound in check but erosion will be the battle call.

Keep in mind everyone here is discussing issues and bikes that are not mainstream yet. I personally like to try to anticipate where the market will go. It's fun for me.