...oh, hi there!

Wow, would you look at the dust that's collected on this place! Well, on the one blog post, anyway (the place is rather small, I'll admit). What in the world happened?

If you'll recall, the world in August of 2008 was one of cautious optimism. Some banks were merely leery of what was happening in the land of lending, and we hadn't really seen just how bad things could get. Until the next month, when everyone put their hands up in the air and shouted "We're all gonna die!" while financial institutions and insurance giants crumbled around them.

So what does this have to do with my electric motorcycle? It means that I'd really, really like to not add to my credit load at the moment, especially on something that doesn't hold equity should I find myself in a position where I cannot pay the loan back. The backup plan was for me to start paying for the electric motorcycle parts out of my own savings, but seeing as finding a roommate to help pay the mortgage on my house has become a landmine of craigslist scam artists and no-call-back-whackjobs, I am thinking my savings had better stay put at the moment. Especially since 1 of 10 Americans is without a job, and while it's nice to be in the 9, there's no guarantee I'm staying there.

Like so many other people and things, I'm pulling the Economy card on this one. I just cannot afford to begin the project right now, and until things settle I don't think I'm going to move an inch on electric power. Which is a pity, because I've got the bike in the shed still, and I've measured out the batteries I wanted and know they'll fit - I just can't begin. Sorry.

Oh, and that guy who sold me the bike moved up to Michigan and took the fairings for the bike with him, the jerk. So if anyone knows someone who's looking to offload some 1990 Yamaha FZR fairings, do let me know.

Gentleme, start my motor

Several months ago in my regular email updates from (the wonderful) www.instructables.com I saw this post about how to build a 72-volt electric motorcycle. It was well-written, the product was flashy, it looked simple enough, and it gave the electrical engineering portion of my brain a big tickle.

About one month prior to this I finally paid off my car, got the title, and was fancying the idea of trading it in for a new and efficient car. But since I was just getting used to not paying car payments I wasn't terribly excited to chop away another hundred bucks or so from every paycheck again. Thinking about the motorcycle I wondered how much it would cost to make one myself and would it offset the cost of a more efficient vehicle.

Answer? Building a bike for $3500 or so? And not pay anything at the pump? Oh yeah it offsets the cost. So I started doing more research. I've been to the usual haunts: EVAlbum, Electric Cars Are for Girls, Uve's EV Calculator, and so on. They were all very helpful, and soon I was ready to find a donor bike.

My coworker Drew is a big motorcycle geek and was kind enough to make a call to Kissimmee Motorsports and find a good, cheap frame for me. Enter Aaron, who's in school for motorcycle engineering (or something). He had an old 1990 Yamaha FZR from his cousin in Minnesota that had a bad clutch (which he, unfortunately, broke himself). In parting it out he offered the frame (and wheels and electrical system, basically everything but the internal combustible engine parts) to me for $400. It wasn't in too bad of shape (some scratches, a bent mirror, but mostly cosmetic issues), and was exactly what I wanted.



I knew I wanted a sport bike because of a couple reasons: 1) it's aerodynamic, and usually light; 2) it's got fairings, which will protect the electric parts from weather; 3) it's flashy, and, if you're going to build an electric motorcycle you might as well make it a sight. The bike from Aaron fit the bill, and just today I got back from picking it up from his place and bringing it home.

So now I'm ready to begin. I promise most posts will not be this long, and I will try to be concise about the engineering decisions I've made. But for now I'll leave it with this: I plan for it to be 72V, go 70 mph, and go 20 miles at 65 mph. And cost around $3500 start to finish.

Let's see how close I come.

Here are more pictures.