‘Electric bikes are too heavy and expensive’
Zero TT winner sparks debate over the future of motorcycling
‘I UNDERSTAND PETROL ENGINES BUT ELECTRIC IS LIKE MAGIC’
People ask if electric bikes are the future. They aren’t, not for a while anyway. I’d love to say yes with my Mugen hat on, but with my heart it’s a big no because we just don’t want them. It’s interesting and I love the technology, although I have no idea how it works.
I can’t understand how a motorbike can go that fast off a battery. Electric to me is like magic. How the f**k does that make a quarter of a tonne machine go like that? I understand petrol going in, fire, combustion, but electric bikes baffle me.
I would love everybody to experience what I’ve experienced on the Mugen, because it’s been amazing. It breaks my heart that I couldn’t ride it this year. I can ride the Norton, a Blade, whatever, whenever I want, but I might never get the chance to ride something like that again.
It’s a lovely thing to ride, painless. It absolutely feels like a motorbike. When I’m riding it at the TT I am completely on-point, concentrating really hard to squeeze everything I can out of it. Nobody ever sees it because they’re in the pub. I don’t think anybody realises just how good those bikes are.
It will filter down to road bikes and be a good thing eventually. Maybe we have to go to hybrid first so we can still have an engine. We live in a crazy world at the minute and we’re probably not too far off the government clamping down on bikes, they don’t want motorbikes do they? The first telephone was a joke but you can fly to the moon on an iPhone, so eventually I think electric bikes will get there. At the minute they are too heavy and expensive.