Despite only three electric motorcycle entries this year (Zero alone fielded six production bikes last year) of 65 total, and seven automobiles in production and modified categories of 70 total entrants, upsets ensued on both two wheels and four at the 2014 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. The three electric motorcycles all finished and did well. The Brutus V2 is not the most powerful electric motorcycle to ever make it up the Peak. Chip Yates’ 2011 ride had a 258-horsepower UQM motor and was probably more brutal than Brutus. But this year’s results, even with far less power, show that weight, balance and handling probably count in the mix, too. Yates managed a motorcycle record of 12.50 minutes in 2011, causing an inrush of competitive electric machines in the 2012 running. Fumio Nutahara, driving a Toyota EV P002, made a run of 10 minutes, 15 seconds with two 350 hp. axial flux motors providing the impetus. 2013 saw Lightning take …
Pikes Peak Bikers Are No Pikers
100-percent paved for the first time in the 91 year history of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb last weekend, maybe the road’s lack of flying gravel contributed to the extremely quick times. Chip Yates, who had set a world record for his electric motorcycle assault on the course, did not race this year, probably involved with his Flight of the Century program. This year, Carlin Dunne performed the honor of riding the fastest on an electric motorcycle – a Lightning with an IPM liquid cooled, 125kw+, 10,000 rpm motor, as used, according to Lightning’s CEO, in the Chevrolet Tahoe. Telling Motorcycle.com, “If it can push a 6,000-plus pound truck, think of its performance in a 500-pound motorcycle.” CEO Hatfield says the motor units have been certified to last 900,000 miles. Maybe those specs made it the fastest of all motorcycles, even beating the Ducatis on which Dunne has set previous hill climb records This year, the fastest Ducati came …