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Car and Motorcycle Companies Now Making Electric Bikes

By General Posts

Lee Iacocca with his electric bike in 1998. It had a lead-acid battery with a 15-mile range and a top speed of 15 miles an hour.

by Roy Furchgott from https://www.nytimes.com

They see branding opportunities as the pandemic and a desire by cities to curb traffic propel e-bike sales to new heights.

The transportation industry has seen the future, and the future is 1895.

That was the year Ogden Bolton Jr. of Canton, Ohio, was awarded U.S. Patent 552,271 for an “electrical bicycle.” A century and change later, electric bikes have gained new currency as car and motorcycle companies like Ducati, Harley-Davidson, Jeep, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and Yamaha have horned into the market with their own designs.

While the pandemic has accelerated bike sales, the overriding attraction is that cities worldwide are beginning to restrict motor traffic. These companies are betting that e-bikes are the urban vehicles of tomorrow — or at least vehicles for good publicity today.

“In the past 12 to 18 months, you have seen a lot of new brands come into the market,” said Andrew Engelmann, an e-bike sales and marketing manager at Yamaha, which has been in the electric bike business since 1993 and claims sales of two million worldwide. “We in the U.S. have not seen this new energy toward cycling since Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France.”

Credit the coronavirus pandemic, which has ignited bike sales of all stripes, but none so much as e-bikes. While retail unit sales of bicycles from January to October last year were up 46 percent from a year earlier, electric bikes were up 140 percent. Measured in dollars, regular bikes were up 67 percent and e-bikes 158 percent — so don’t expect a discount. Those numbers, from the market researchers at NPD, do not include online-only retailers such as Rad Power Bikes, so sales may actually be higher still.

Ogden Bolton aside, there is a historical connection between bicycles and motorcycles. Many early motorcycles came from bicycle makers that simply clapped a motor on a bike, often retaining the pedals in the style of a moped.

The automotive industry’s bicycle connection is more recent, with the likes of Malcolm Bricklin and Lee Iacocca introducing electric bikes in the ’90s. Both flopped. Mr. Iacocca’s design, typical for the time, was hampered by a lead-acid battery with a 15-mile range and a top speed of 15 miles an hour. Many car companies, including Ford, Audi, Maserati and BMW, have gotten into and out of e-bikes since.

“No car company has had any success selling an electric bicycle,” said Don DiCostanzo, chief executive of Pedego Electric Bikes, who in 2014 licensed a bike design to Ford. “It’s fool’s gold. It can never replace the profit on a car.”

Yet car and motorcycle makers are being drawn in. “I think they are seeing a lot of the same opportunity we see,” said Ian Kenny, who leads the e-bike effort at the bicycle company Specialized. “But I think there is a very big difference between demonstrating you can do something and doing something very well at scale.”

However, changes in the way people get about, especially in Europe and Asia, are enticing motor vehicle companies that operate internationally. Overseas, in cities that manage pollution and overcrowded streets by restricting motor traffic, e-bikes often fill a gap.

“In Europe, the e-bike is more of a fundamental transportation tool,” said Dirk Sorenson, an analyst for NPD. London, Madrid, Oslo and Paris are among the growing number of cities restricting downtown traffic.

The pandemic has American cities testing similar restrictions. Boston, Minneapolis and a number of California cities have instituted Slow Streets programs, restricting motor traffic on side streets in favor of cycling and walking. It even has UPS, Amazon and DHL trying out e-cargo bikes in New York.

“There is a huge opportunity for e-bikes in the U.S., which is a huge untapped market,” said Rasheq Zarif, a mobility technology expert for the consulting firm Deloitte.

Some companies are preparing now for the possibility that “micromobility,” as the buzzword has it, will catch on here.

“Let’s imagine Harley-Davison is not a motorcycle company but a mobility company,” said Aaron Frank, brand director for Serial 1, which builds an e-bike in partnership with Harley. “There is a strong argument we can do for urban commuters what Harley-Davison did for motorcycles.”

Other companies see e-bikes as a gateway to sell their primary products. Though best known for its motorcycles, Ducati North America wants e-bikes to “potentially turn people on to Ducati,” its chief executive, Jason Chinnock, said. “And we’ve seen that with people at some events and with the media reaching out.”

E-bikes may be more expensive than bicycles, but are cheaper than cars or motorcycles. And improved motor and battery technology is bringing prices down. Low-priced e-bikes with a motor in the wheel hub — similar to that 1895 design — can be had for about $1,000. Prices for versions with more complex, geared motors at the pedals can reach more than $10,000.

“Spending $1,000 on a bike seems out there,” Mr. Kenny said, “but when you don’t look at it as a toy — when it becomes transportation — it becomes a very different conversation.”

Price isn’t the only hurdle. E-bikes confront a crippling hodgepodge of laws. Although the Consumer Product Safety Commission deemed “low speed” e-bikes (with a motor equivalent to 1 horsepower or less) a bicycle, states still decide where that bike can be ridden.

“It’s up to 50 states to define the use, and that’s been a big problem in the past,” said Claudia Wasko, general manager of Bosch eBike, a prominent manufacturer of drive systems.

The PeopleForBikes coalition drafted model state legislation to allow most e-bikes in bike lanes and parks. It suggests three classes of e-bike, with a top speed between 20 and 28 m.p.h. Twenty-eight states have adopted some version of the legislation.

Some companies may be less concerned with the future of mobility and more interested in getting some attention now.

“I think it’s a halo thing,” said Mr. DiCostanzo, whose company has produced e-bikes for Tommy Bahama, Ford and others. Halo vehicles represent a brand’s aspirations, like concept cars.

“I think that’s what it is for Ford,” he added. “They wanted it for window dressing, and that’s what they got. I think they sold 500 in the five years it ran.”

Mercedes, which is taking orders for its top-of-the-line Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team V11 e-bike at $12,000, said it was a chance to showcase its ability with high-tech materials from carbon fiber to paint.

“High-performance road bikes and e-bikes provide a great way to showcase such technologies into a range of consumer products,” said Damian Cook, a spokesman.

For some in the bicycle industry this all smacks of déjà vu. In the 1970s, a bike boom was thought to presage a new future for transportation in which cycling was central. But it failed. Though there were many contributing factors, roads weren’t made more bicycle-friendly and people didn’t want to arrive at work sweaty.

With the combination of Slow Streets programs, which address the first problem, electric bikes, which address the second, and a pandemic that has given people a chance to adjust to both, experts like Mr. Zarif find hope.

“When you give people a chance to try something, it reduces resistance to change,” he said. “As a society, the reality is we go forward — we don’t go backward.”

Six Vintage Motorcycles to Buy Based on Your Favorite Car

By General Posts

You can store a dozen in the space of a single Cadillac

You hang around folks who love vintage cars enough and you’ll inevitably meet vintage motorcycle guy or gal. They mean well, love all things with oil pumps (and some without) but will take every opportunity to espouse the virtues of the under-appreciated vintage motorcycle world.

“You can store a dozen in the space of a single Cadillac!” he or she will exclaim before shifting to extolling the virtues of the fun-per-dollar that few four-wheel contraptions can rival. Allow them to ramble. Contemplate their points. Come to your own conclusions. You now want to buy a motorcycle. I thought so. Good for you. Now what do you buy?

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Motorcycles With Car Engines: A Brief History of Two-Wheeled Absurdity

By General Posts

In their own way, each of them is outrageous. But some are more so than others.

To make this list, the resulting car-hearted bike needs to have been a streetable production model, although some were series production and some were conversions or customs built in bulk. There are plenty of one-offs out there with even wilder engines than these, but we’re using this criteria to pare things down.

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Ford Mustang driven by Steve McQueen in ‘Bullitt’ sells for $3.4 million

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This was the highest price a Ford Mustang ever fetched in any auction.

The 1968 Ford Mustang GT that Steve McQueen drove in the classic car chase from the movie “Bullitt, one of the most famed cars from American cinema, sold for $3.4 million (£2.60 million) at auction in Florida on Friday, Mecum Auctions said.

It was the highest price ever paid for a Ford Mustang at auction, according to David Morton, marketing manager for the auction house in Kissimmee, near Orlando. The buyer has not been publicly identified.

“The hammer dropped at $3.4 million, but with buyers’ fees, the total cost is $3.74 million,” he said, adding it shattered the auction house’s previous record set last year of $2.2 million.

The unrestored muscle car, its “highland green” paint looking rusty and black upholstery splitting apart, starred in a 10-minute sequence in the 1968 film, getting airborne a few times as it sped through the hilly streets of San Francisco.

The car was auctioned without a reserve, or minimum sale price, a risky decision that could have forced the owners to sell low.

McQueen filmed with the window down so viewers could see he was behind the wheel. Although credited as the driver, McQueen actually shared the wheel with Hollywood stunt driver Bud Ekins, according to the movie database IMDB.

Many movie buffs view the chase as ground-breaking for its duration and white-knuckle drama. The sequence forgoes a score in favour of roaring engines and screeching tires. McQueen, playing the no-nonsense police Lieutenant Frank Bullitt, was chasing bad guys who drove a black 1968 Dodge Charger.

After filming, the Mustang was sold to a Warner Brothers employee, and later to a New Jersey police detective. He in turn sold it for $6,000 in 1974 to Robert Kiernan of Madison, New Jersey, who held onto the car until he died in 2014.

Kiernan rejected multiple offers for the car, including one from McQueen himself, according to the New York Times. He left it to his son, Sean.

“I would like to appeal to you to get back my ’68 Mustang,” McQueen wrote to Kiernan in 1977, according to the Times. “I would like very much to keep it in the family, in its original condition as it was used in the film, rather than have it restored; which is simply personal with me.”

McQueen died in 1980 at age 50. Robert Kiernan never responded to McQueen’s letter, which Sean Kiernan still has, the Times said.

Sean Kiernan told Mecum in a promotional video that his mother drove the car until the clutch failed in 1980. It went nearly 40 years without being driven until recently, with 65,000 miles on the odometer, Kiernan said.

Why A Car Tire On A Motorcycle Is A Bad Idea

By General Posts

by Justin Hughes from https://www.rideapart.com/

They call it the “dark side” for a reason.

A while back, Kate discussed the perils and pitfalls of using a car tire on the back of your motorcycle, a practice known as “the dark side.” A video just came across a Facebook group I’m on demonstrating, clear as day (the daylight you actually see under the tread), why this isn’t good.

Where The Rubber Meets The Road:

What it comes down to is simple. Bikes lean. Cars don’t. OK, yes, cars do lean a little due to weight transfer and suspension loading and unloading. I autocrossed for years—I get it. In the car world, though, we fight against this lean as much as we can with stiffer springs and sway bars. We’ll even dial some negative camber into the alignment so that when the car goes around a corner at full tilt, the tire is straight up and down for maximum grip. A car tire has its maximum grip when its full tread width is in contact with the road.

Motorcycles, on the other hand, need to lean in order to turn at any speed faster than walking. It’s the fundamental way that bikes work. Motorcycle tires are made to lean. Their profile is round, not square like a car tire. In most cases, you’re either going to drag hard parts while leaning hard or chicken out before you lean hard enough to get onto the tire’s sidewall.

Here, though, we have a perfect view of a car tire on the back of a Honda Valkyrie. On the surface this may seem like a good idea for such a big, heavy bike, especially if it does a lot of highway travel where it doesn’t lean much. Here, though, it’s on the Tail of the Dragon, a stretch of US 129 on the border of North Carolina and Tennessee with 318 curves in just 11 miles. It’s a twisty paradise for motorcyclists and sports car drivers, but the worst-case scenario for a car tire on a motorcycle.

I encourage you to watch the video, but even the thumbnail says it all. When the bike is leaned over, that car tire is on its edge, with only about one-third of the tread contacting the road. This is the exact situation that autocrossers strive to avoid. Even worse, the harder you turn, the more you lean, and the less tread contacts the road precisely when you need grip the most. In particularly hard turns, the car tire rolls up onto the sidewall, which is never intended to contact the road. I’ve had road debris puncture tires on my cars without much difficulty. You don’t want to vastly increase the chance of this happening by placing the sidewalls directly on the road.

If the only riding you do is long stretches of highway with no turning at all, I suppose a car tire could work. They do last much longer than motorcycle tires, though if you’re leaning hard through the turns the edges of the tread will wear extremely quickly. Ask this former autocrosser how I know. Personally, I find the turns to be the most fun and challenging part of riding. If I’m going to attack the twisties, I want a back tire that’s designed for the job, and that won’t give up its grip right when I need it most.

 

‘Bullitt’ Mustang auction-bound next January at Kissimmee sale

By General Posts

The Highland Green 1968 Mustang fastback that starred alongside Steve McQueen in Bullitt is, quite possibly, the most-recognized Ford Mustang on the planet, despite spending decades in the shadows. After returning to the spotlight in 2018, the car has made appearances at auto shows, museums, concours d’elegance events, and even on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The Bullitt Mustang has been in the Kiernan family since 1974, but next January may well become the most expensive Mustang ever sold at auction when it crosses the stage during Mecum’s Kissimmee, Florida, sale.

In January 1968, Warner Brothers purchased a pair of S-code Highland Green Mustang fastbacks, with sequential vehicle identification numbers, for use in the filming of the movie. Chassis 8R02S125558 was modified for use as the stunt car, while its twin, chassis 8R02S125559, was selected as the hero car, used primarily for close-ups. Both received chassis reinforcements, heavy-duty front springs, Koni shocks and a thicker anti-roll bar, and their already-potent 390 V-8s gained machined heads, larger four-barrel carburetors and a hotter ignition for added performance.

From there, the paths of the two cars diverged. Chassis 558 received a roll bar that doubled as a camera mount, and a small generator (needed to power cameras and lights) was installed in its trunk. Once production of the movie wrapped, only one of the cars – chassis 559 – remained in salable condition, while the badly damaged stunt car, chassis 558, was sold for scrap. Long considered lost to history, chassis 558 surfaced early last year, rescued from a Mexican junkyard in 2016.

Chassis 559 was purchased by Warner Brothers employee Robert Ross, who kept the car for nearly two years before advertising it for sale in Hemmings Motor News in 1970. Its next owner, fittingly, was New Jersey police detective Frank Marranca, who reportedly paid Ross $6,000 for the screen-used Mustang. Marranca kept the car until 1974, when it sold to Robert Kiernan for the same $6,000 the detective had paid for it in 1970.

In 1977, Steve McQueen contacted the Kiernans looking to reacquire the Bullitt Mustang, which was then in use as a daily driver. An equivalent Mustang was offered in exchange (plus, presumably, some unspecified amount of cash), but the New Jersey couple opted to keep the Bullitt Mustang instead. In 1979, Robert’s wife Robbie purchased “Bulitt” vanity plates for the couple’s anniversary, and nearly 40 years later, these remain on the car.

In 1989, the Kiernans – now with nine-year-old son Sean – relocated to Kentucky, and then six years later, to Tennessee. Numerous Mustang collectors (and print publications) contacted the family over the years, inquiring about the Bullitt Mustang, but the answer was always the same; the car wasn’t for sale, and they weren’t interested in having the car featured in a magazine. Circa 2001, Robert and Sean began a restoration of the car, but the project didn’t progress at the originally intended speed and was soon set aside.

Robert Kiernan died in 2014, passing the Mustang along to Sean. A year later, Sean let slip to his boss, Casey Wallace, that he was the owner of the car, prompting Wallace to enlist the help of friend and filmmaker Ken Horstmann to document the car’s history. One minor detail delayed the start of the video’s production: In 2015, the Bullitt Mustang was in pieces, the restoration begun in 2001 never completed.

Instead of hastily restoring the irreplaceable Mustang, Sean instead opted to reassemble the car, which remains largely original throughout (its rebuilt and repainted 390 V-8 a notable exception). This task was completed in 2016, and on July 4, Sean fired the 390 V-8 for the first time in 15-plus years. In 2017, the Mustang was reunited with a member of the McQueen family – Molly McQueen, Steve’s granddaughter – who met with Sean at a Ford design studio in Dearborn, Michigan.

Its reemergence came in January 2018, at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan. Three months later, thanks to its place on the National Historic Vehicle Register, it was displayed on the National Mall, part of an Historic Vehicle Association exhibit that included the first Chrysler minivan (a 1984 Plymouth Voyager LE) and the Ferrari-replica Modena Spyder that appeared in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. In July 2018, the Bullitt Mustang appeared at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where it was driven up the hill in pursuit of a black ’68 Dodge Charger said to be used in the filming of the movie.

The decision to sell a car that’s been a part of his family for 45 years could not have been an easy one for Sean, but it’s worth remembering that the Bullitt Mustang is no ordinary collector car. The demands of ownership include constant appearance requests, the liabilities of shipping (in some cases, internationally), and, ironically, the inability to simply enjoy the car for the occasional drive without interruption or serious financial risk. Though some will view this as cashing in on the car’s history, it’s almost surely about returning to a normal life, albeit one with a comfortable reserve in the bank.

Dana Mecum announced the Bullitt Mustang’s upcoming sale, alongside Sean Kiernan, at the firm’s Monterey auction. No pre-auction estimate has been announced, though it’s a safe bet that the sale will set a record for a Ford Mustang sold at auction.

Mecum’s Kissimmee Auction takes place January 2-12, 2020, at the Osceola Heritage Park in Kissimmee, Florida. For further details, visit Mecum.com.

News from https://www.hemmings.com

Electric cars: New vehicles to emit noise to aid safety

By General Posts

New electric vehicles will have to feature a noise-emitting device, under an EU rule coming into force on Monday.

It follows concerns that low-emission cars and vans are too quiet, putting pedestrians at risk because they cannot be heard as they approach.

All new types of four-wheel electric vehicle must be fitted with the device, which sounds like a traditional engine.

A car’s acoustic vehicle alert system (Avas) must sound when reversing or travelling below 12mph (19km/h).

The EU says the cars are most likely to be near pedestrians when they are backing up or driving slowly, although drivers will have the power to deactivate the devices if they think it is necessary.

The charity Guide Dogs – which had complained it was difficult to hear low-emission cars approaching – welcomed the change, but said electric vehicles should make a sound at all speeds.

Roads minister Michael Ellis said the government wanted “the benefits of green transport to be felt by everyone” and understood the concerns of the visually impaired.

“This new requirement will give pedestrians added confidence when crossing the road,” he added.

From 2021 all new electric cars must have an Avas, not just new models.

The government has announced plans to ban new petrol and diesel cars and vans being sold by 2040.

Alternatively-fuelled vehicles made up 6.6% of the new car market in May, compared with 5.6% during the same month in 2018.

Does this throw a major wrench into loud bike laws. Remember “Loud Pipes Saves Lives” and the auto industry proved it.–Bandit

Threesome Report: Make Some Room, Trike Riders Don’t Ride Alone

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TRIKE NEWS Adventures on a Ural, Autocycle madness, 2019 Freewheeler, Deals, Offers, Discounts.

Tracy Getty, a World War 2 historian shares the chair, lighting up sparks of love with a Ural sidecar motorcycle. Tracy and her ride named “Wildcat” bring joy to people who never knew what three-wheels and a smile could do.

We bring you a basic background on the craziness of Autocycles and how it is affecting motorcycle industry, riders, insurance and legislation. While there are companies that want a motorcycle classification to avoid car crash testing expenses, there are others who want true innovation and a new understanding of where Autocycles stand in State and Federal law – and it is all really unsteady despite having more than two-wheels.

Harley-Davidson Freewheeler has a 2019 model that rocks. You can own a Ural or a Slinghsot for incredible deals on 2018 models. If you are an actual Trike lover with custom trike business or a custom trike, you would want to know what the financial and legal implications (pronounced as complications) are going to be.

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