A new movie came out only a couple of weeks ago about the TT Zero electric motorcycle race. It's called "Charge" and features narration by Ewan MacGregor. It tells the story of the first two years of the electric race, and we've watched the DVD at least three times now. Click here for the trailer:
http://chargemovie.com/
More bike work this morning in Allan's garage. Lennon worked on the tail lights as required by the rules.
Randall cranked away on software.
I worked on swapping out brake lines. The rules have a specification which disallows the original brake lines on the bike. So we had to swap them out with custom lines. Derek at Boston Moto helped a ton on getting those lines in.
Radu worked away on the upper fairing. Not a bad paint shop, is it?
Lots of sanding.
And a bit of fun with rattle cans.
Lennon working on the lights.
Lunch break, watching more of "Charge". Randall is seeing it for the first time, so we're fitting it in where we can.
Back at the garage, Allan made some adjustments to the fairing on his gas bike. He was going so fast that the rear tire expanded and scraped away the back part of his fairing.
I made some progress on stickers. Mark from TurnOneGraphics.com was a huge help on that one.
Our race number is still covered up, but the stickers look great so far.
We had to make an adjustment to one of the parts on the bike, so I got to do a bit of milling at Allan's workplace.
Lennon got the taillights finished (and flashing)... not bad, eh? And visible from 10m away, just as the rules state.
With more of the bike finished, we put it in Allan's van to take down and talk to the scrutineers.
Allan gave us a tour of the east side of the island as we rode down to Douglas and the start/finish line.
The view on the way down was pretty idyllic.
Pushing the bike through the crowd, our bike got a fair bit of attention.
The chief scrutineer for the electric race looked things over, and was happy with what he saw.
We got a bit of interest while we were there, and even heard one person comment that "the electrics are looking better every year."
Heading back out of town, we passed by the Isle of Man Electric Tramway station. Who knows... maybe we can work out some sort of publicity thing to get the electric bike transported by the electric railway to the start of the race. :-)
Scrutineering makes a student hungry, so guess what we stopped for fish and chips.
Finally back from scrutineering, it was time to give Allan a chance to take eSuperbike out for a ride. We went back out to the same testing spot from yesterday. We hadn't realized it before, but you can see part of the TT mountain course from there. Allan even said he could see a bike running up the road.
Lennon rode the bike out to the testing spot, then handed it over to Allan.
Allan, meet eSuperbike. eSuperbike, meet Allan. Now play nice, boys.
This was my attempt to snap a photo of Allan as he rode past (he was just going too darn fast). Maybe with a couple more passes I would have gotten the timing right.
No, we don't look like hoodlums, do we?
I'm working on posting videos, but we'll see how they turn out. Allan came back with a smile on his face, and said he really enjoyed the bike. He's looking forward to the race, and we're all looking forward to getting him there.
- Mark
I think you guys may have thought of it but the MER has close links with Dennis, Allans Father who passed away in 03, they may be able to help set up a PR ride from Ramsey say, on a one of the trolley carraiges.
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