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Mugen Will Compete in the 2012 Isle of Man TT Zero

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As of today, famed Honda tuning house Mugen will be tackling a new kind of project: the 2012 TT Zero. Announcing and confirming their entry into the Isle of Man TT’s electric motorcycle race, Mugen will be showcasing not only the company’s lesser-known motorcycle tuning chops, but also its hand at prepping electric vehicles for racing duty. Found in 1973 by Hirotoshi Honda (son to Honda founder Soichiro Honda), Mugen has previously made its name mostly on the automotive side of things, though the company offers a bevy of prepared Honda motorcycles as well.

Said to be campaigning an all-new original electric motorcycle, if we had to take a stab at what Mugen could be bringing to the Isle of Man TT, we doubt we’d have to dive too deep into our imagination. While it may not be quite as big of news as Honda itself racing in the TT Zero, we can expect Mugen to bring a very competent and polished machine to the Isle of Man, and we can also officially begin the speculation between Mugen’s entry and its connection to a certain Japanese motorcycle manufacturer.

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News

Zero MX Frame Failure In Switzerland

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Last weekend Tommy Heimburg, owner of ERIDE Motorcycles crashed his Zero MX at Motocross Wohlen track in Switzerland. The frame of the Zero MX broke behind the head tube. It seems this failure may have caused the crash. The history of this Zero bike is unknown as it was owned and race by a private party but obviously there is concern that this could happen to other Zero MX motorcycles and may cause a risk to owners.

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News

DERBI GPR EV Geared Up To Shock The Competition

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Last month a video of the DERBI GPR EV showed up on YouTube. It was posted by someone who appeared to be working with Sevcon and it was hard to tell if DERBI was behind the bike. I recently found the blog of Derbi Project Manager Carles Carrera. And guess what, he has a detailed picture of the Derbi GPR EV front and center.

Carles describes the ground up development methodology DERBI and their partners used in designing and building the bike over the course of 3 months. He cites flaws in Brammo, Zero, Quantya, Vectrix mentioning thier “poorly developed mechanical platform” and saying they fail to deliver an electric motorcycle that has all drive components communicating in an orderly fashion.

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News

Epo-Bike First Confirmed FIM ePower Entry

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Christian Amendt, an engineering student out of Germany is the first confirmed entrant of the FIM ePower Electric Motorcycle Race series. Using what might be called a quantified version of Lotus’s “performance through low weight” philosophy, Christian converted a Honda RS125R to electric using a “half the weight, half the power” design.

The 115kg (253.5lbs) electric race bike weighs 187 lbs less than the triple motor MotoCzysz e1pc. The theory is that the light weight will allow the 96 Volt, single motor, 3 kWh Epo-bike to out perform a 2 or 3 motor bike that weighs over 400 lbs with the batteries needed to power them. The Epo-Bike uses a Lemco D135 DC motor, LiFePO4 batteries from an undisclosed manufacturer and an Alltrax AX7425 controller to achieve 74Nm of torque and reach a top speed of about 111 mph. See more pictures and a video of the epo-bike on the track after the break.

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News

Mavizen Introduces Factory Support Service, Training And Insurance for the TTX02

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Late last year Mavizen announced the TTX02 race bike with the intention of eliminating reasons for teams to pass on electric motorcycle racing. The TTX02 is a fully electric race bike based on the KTM RC8 rolling chassis and TTXGP winning Team Agni drive train. Today Mavizen and TTXGP founder Azhar Hussain rolled out supporting services for teams that still might be on the fence.

For aspiring racers with poor social skills or lack of budget for a team, Mavizen offers a factory support service of your race bike including transporting it from race to race. It sounds like all you have to do is put on your leathers and ride. The race plastic is all you really own with this package and you can put whatever sponsor stickers on it you want.

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News

Tork India Teases New Electric Motorcycle Racer

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Tork India, third place Open Class winner at this year’s TTXGP at the Isle of Man, has posted up a teaser on Facebook announcing the imminent arrival of their new electric motorcycle racer. While the photo being displayed on Facebook is really just a GSX-R cover with the Tork logos superimposed onto it, we’re still excited to see our first glimpse of the new Indian racer after the new year.

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Racing

MotoCzysz Weighs in about Electric Racing

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It’s been nearly six months since the inaugural TTXGP race at the Isle of Man, but electric motorcycle racing seems to be a growing subject as of late. As discussion surrounds both the FIM and TTXGP, and their respective series, we’re beginning to see teams make their 2010 racing commitments. We reached out to Michael Czysz of MotoCzysz to see why his company has been suspiciously silent on the issue to date.

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Opinion/Editorial

For The Sake of the Game [Updated]

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UPDATE: You can find Azhar Hussain’s response to this article on Brammofan.

Last week when I wrote my op-ed, I was content to say my piece on the issue of TTXGP/Mavizen conflict of interest, and then move along with other things. But considering the response the piece got, not only by Azhar Hussain himself, but also by others in the industry, as well as the recent announcements of Zero Motorcycles and Mission Motors entering the TTXGP racing series, I thought I’d give the issue another pass. Ignoring the name-calling, accusations of professional misconduct, and general pettiness that followed, I wanted to address and few things that have developed in this space, and why I’m still thankful the FIM split from TTXGP.

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Opinion/Editorial

Why I’m Thankful That the FIM Split from TTXGP

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This extended weekend, we Americans sat down for our Thanksgiving meals, joined by family, friends, and hospitable strangers. There are many things to look back on and be thankful for: good health, good friends, good fortune, just to name a few. I, like many others, am thankful for these things as well, but of course proclaiming as such makes for a very boring motorcycle editorial.

Among other things, in motorcycling I am thankful for the recent announcement by the FIM to breakaway from the TTXGP electric motorcycle racing series. While we may never know the FIM’s true reasoning in its resolve to distance itself from Azhar Hussain’s TTXGP series, I suspect a portion of that thought process stems from the now clear and convincing conflict of interest that is unfolding in electric motorcycle racing, and acts of impropriety that are stemming from those competing interests.

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Bikes

SEMA: Mavizen TTX02 Unveiled – KTM RC8 Sourced Chassis, 130 MPH Top Speed, & Built-in Web Server with WiFi Connection [UPDATED]

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Mavizen has unveiled their TTX02 electric race bike today at SEMA, and as we suspected surrounding the Agni powerplant is a sourced KTM RC8 chassis.

Over-shadowing the 130mph top speed, is the fact that each TTX02 comes with dedicated IP access, on-board web server, and connectivity to a wifi network. A such, each TTX02 can be connected to via a wifi enabled laptop. More on that and videos after the jump.

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News

FIM Introduces Electric Motorcycle Series For 2010

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brammo-ttr-iom-ttxgp-practice-2

After the excitement of the TTXGP we were left wondering… What’s next for ? How can you beat electrics racing around the Isle Of Man in the legendary TT? Our answer comes from FIM (Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme) who in 2010 begins it’s electric motorcycle race series.

The FIM is working with Azhar Hussain, founder of the TTXGP to plan the series which will exist inside Azhar’s Road Racing Grand Prix Commission. Travis Gintz, a consultant to the series informed us there will be multiple laps and all bikes will be required to have hot-swapable batteries similar to what we saw on the MotoCzysz E1PC.

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