Electric Bike Action Podcast

My interview today is with Anton Wass, CEO and Founder of Stark Future. They recently announced their electric motocross bike, one that is as powerful, if not more so, than a 450 gas bike, with a range to match. The bike is called the Stark Varg, which is Swedish for “Strong Wolf”. Stark is planning on making other types of motorcycles, but they dove head-first into motocross, because it's the most demanding in terms of engineering and handling. Stark is one of the frontrunners in the space right now. Zero had a motocross-ish bike at their beginning, Alta motors tried and failed, Cake has off-road bikes but they're hardly motocross-ready, Sur-Ron is planning a full-size e-moto, and KTM is the only one of the established motocross brands that has an electric motocross bike on the market with the Freeride EX-C. Other major brands are working on it, we've seen some amazing prototypes out there, but they aren't in production. Stark is just starting production on the Varg, it will start delivering later in 2022. We can't wait to try one, and I think there's some serious interest at our sister magazines, Motocross Action and Dirt Bike. I'm excited to talk with Anton about the high points of the Varg, so without further adieu, here's my conversation with Anton.

In this episode, I talk with Sushil Reddy and Luis fourzan. These two are riding together on a monumental e-bike trek around the U.S. to raise awareness of the sustainability of e-bikes and solar energy. Their incredible journey started in North Carolina, went north to New York, cut straight across the northern states to where they are now, nearly three months in, in Oregon. They will then travel down the coast to San Diego, California, then head east to Texas. You can follow their journey on their website, thesunpedalride.com and on instagram. Sushil has been promoting solar power using electric bikes since 2016, when he set a world record by traveling over 7000 kilometers across north-west india. He's done similar in France, Iceland and the U.S. as well. The two met when Luis, a Mexican lawyer, outdoor enthusiast and sustainable energy fanatic was studying for his master's degree in sustainable energy in Iceland, and joined the Sun Pedal Ride Iceland Edition team in 2018. Along the way, they are stopping at universities and bike shops to talk about e-bikes and sustainability. Sushil's bike is powered by a motor from Grin Technologies. https://ebikes.ca Sushil's instagram is @sushilr25 and Luis' is @luisfour. Sushil's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sushil-reddy-b6a84817/ Luis' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luis-foor/

In this episode, I talk with Leo Raudys, President and CEO of Call2Recycle. Call2Recycle is a company that's been recycling batteries since 1994, and they now have a partnership with People For Bikes that will soon launch an e-bike recycling program for bike shops, so bike owners can turn in their  old batteries that will then be recycled into new ones. They can pull most of the materials out of batteries, which cuts down on the need to mine new materials, which also means that batteries made from recycled materials has a much lower carbon footprint. Leo has a long background in environmental and sustainability practices, formerly he was the Environmental Director, Cloud Operations and Innovation for Microsoft, and he also served as Senior Director Environmental Sustainability for Best Buy and Deputy Commissioner at Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, where he was responsible for many of the environmental policies and programs for the state. He's even taught taught corporate environmental management at the University of Minnesota. The conversation is great and fairly short. Don't forget to subscribe so you'll get every episode of the podcast, your support is very much appreciated. Leo is also author of The Cheap Guide to Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility, available on Amazon or wherever you buy books. Call2Recycle's website is call2recycle.org. People For Bikes' website is peopleforbikes.org Electric Bike Action Magazine's website is electricbikeaction.com

My guest today is Nico Nagel of Pave Motors. He and his brother co-founded the company, and they're a few months away from having this bike ready to ship. It looks a bit like a mini-bike, sans the lawnmower motor in the mid frame. It's sleek and modern, and has some amazing safety and anti-theft features, as well as truly long range. You can see the bike at pavemotors.com. Please support us by hitting the subscribe button and write us a review. We want to keep bringing you these interviews.

Welcome to our first show in just a little while, sorry for the delay, we've had so many bikes coming to us that we kind of don't know what to do with them, which is a big advantage for us. Compared to our sister magazines, mountain bike action and road bike action, they have almost no bikes to test. This is a lot to do with the current situation that we have, which is supply chain issues. So there are a lot of bikes that are like 90% built but can't even ship because they're missing one or two parts. So we get into that a little bit in today's intro, today's interview rather. my interview today is with Somnath Ray, he is the CEO and co founder of clip. They have a website, which is clip.bike. It's a pretty interesting like easily attachable external motor for your bicycle. It'll fit a lot of different size bikes. They sent us information about it, we have yet to have a test unit. But it looks really, really interesting. And so without further ado, let's get right into it with Som.

My guest today is Anthony Cross, the founder and CEO of Zaiser motors. They're working on their first electric motorcycle, the Electrocycle, and I think it is stunning. The online community is torn about the design, but everyone is excited about the claimed 300 mile range. The bike is very different from electric motorcycles like any of the Zeros or the Livewire, in that it uses hub motors instead of an on-chassis motor. Notice that I said motors, plural. There will be a hub motor in both the front and rear wheel, which they promise will deliver better traction control and stability. Color me intrigued. I've ridden dual-motor electric fat bikes, and they can be really good, but the motors have to be precisely controlled. If you want to see what the bike looks like, check out our article on electricbikeaction.com. Zaiser is currently running a crowdfunding campaign with Wefunder, and I'll put a link below in the show notes.  In this interview, Anthony and I discuss how he started, and where he plans to go with this. Without further adieu, here's Anthony. https://wefunder.com/zaiser.motors

My guest today is Michael Johnson, co-founder and COO of Zoomo, a company with a revolutionary business model that may help you, the consumer, get into an e-bike easier. Instead of trying to sell you a bike, you can lease it by the week, for as long as you want. They have plans for commuters, part-time couriers and even full-time couriers that start at $20 per week. They take care of all of the maintenance, security in case of theft, etc. Because of their technology, they have what must be an industry-leading theft recovery rate of over 80%, compared to most bikes that have a recovery rate of about 5%. Customers can buy the bikes if they like, with some of their lease payments going toward the purchase price. The company also makes fleet bikes, for companies that want to buy or lease a large number of bikes. They recently raised $12 million to expand their operation, and are already in Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Toronto so far. It's an interesting concept, and we go for a bit of a deep dive on what Zoomo has been up to for the past 4 years and where they and the industry might go. Www.ridezoomo.com www.electricbikeaction.com

I recently had a chance to test ride the new electric bicycles from Serial 1 Cycle Company, the e-bike company spun off from Harley-Davidson. The bikes are great, you can check out my first impression on our YouTube channel. I also had the chance to have a conversation, which you will hear here, with the President of Serial 1, Jason Huntsman. Jason has a strong background in the EV space, and we talk about why spinning off Serial 1 from Harley-Davidson was a brilliant idea, giving them the agility of a startup, but access to all the engineering knowledge and facilities of Harley. We talk about Serial 1’s new line of bikes, where people can try them, and where the brand is going. Without further adieu, here’s Jason.

My guest today is Forbes Black. He’s a very interesting guy with an eye toward the future. He has a background in a lot of interesting things that he ultimately eschewed to get into bicycle racing and ultimately e-bikes. That took him to engineering school for electric bikes and electric vehicle projects. He’s built his own unique e-bike, which I’m currently writing up for the June issue of the magazine in our feature “Readers and their rides”.  We talk about some of e-bike and EV history he’s been through, and even a little about where it’s going!

My guest in this episode is Robert Leftwich. He’s a great rider that I’ve worked with over the years, he’s an incredible BMX freestyle rider, and was a test rider for me for BMX Plus! Magazine. He’s also been an avid mountain bike rider for a long time. He now lives in Arizona and has gotten really into electric mountain bikes. He started a Facebook group called Therapy Ride Club to help find people near him to ride with, and that took off unexpectedly. It has several subgroups around the Southwest so far, people have reached out to Robert from Texas and Nevada to help them start subgroups to meet people. We talk about how all that works and how it welcomes beginners and veteran riders on different types of rides, teaches skills and etiquette, and more. I’m working on getting him out here to do some test riding for EBA as well as Mountain Bike Action. https://www.facebook.com/therapyrideclub

My guest today is Ryan McFarland. His may not be a household name, but it should be. I can honestly say he may be the greatest thing to happen to the bicycle world since, well, the bicycle. He’s the founder of Strider Sports International, actually, his official title is Founder and Chief Enthusiast at Strider Sports International, Inc. The enthusiast part is important, because he is passionate about getting more people on bikes. In this interview, we talk about how he started Strider to help his son learn to balance on a bike, and with the massive success of the company and because of his passion for getting people on two wheels, he started a non-profit organization to teach kids how to ride bikes and core bike skills as part of their curriculum in Kindergarten, which instills a life-long love of cycling. The ambassadors for that program include cycling legends like Brian Lopes, Dave Clinton, Chad Kagy, Toby Henderson, Troy Lee and so many more. We talk about how to get more kids on bikes and how you can get involved to grow this program. Without further adieu, here’s Ryan. Check out www.allkidsbike.org

My guest in this episode is a true badass on two wheels. She’s in the BMX Hall of Fame, the Mountain Biking Hall Of Fame, and the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame. She’s a 9-time U.S. NORBA National Champion. She has a lot more amazing awards, attesting to her drive, determination and hard work. To try to outline all that she’s accomplished would take a truly long time. I’m talking about the one and only Leigh Donovan. She’s now retired from competition, and is now an ambassador for mountain biking. She teaches mountain bike skills and trail etiquette through clinics and private instruction. She balances that all out with home and family life. We get into much of that in this episode, and how she’s now using e-bikes in her training and her own rides. Without further adieu, Here’s Leigh! Youtube videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGbEETmEC6PmelBr1YvULsA •    Mastering your Shimano Steps system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiVUFjkyS5Y&t=66s •    Pre-ride bike check: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcKXgvMlsMc&t=22s Website about Leigh: https://ichoosebikes.com/leadership/

My guest today is Steve Christini. As an avid mountain biker, he sometimes wasn’t able to climb hills he wanted to climb because his rear wheel would slip. As an engineer and evil genius, he came up with a solution no one else could have, an all-wheel drive system for mountain bikes, eventually motorcycles and then e-bikes. I just got one of his e-fat bikes, and the ride is remarkable on any surface. Listen to him tell the story of where the idea came from and how this launched a career making these bikes. Www.christinibicycles.com

My guest today is Toby Ricco of Bimotal. Bimotal is a startup company with a bolt-on e-bike conversion that I had a chance to try out recently, and I was impressed. It’s unlike any other conversion kit I’ve ridden, which is part of why it’s so remarkable. The main guy behind it is a former Tesla engineer, who walked away from his dream job to start the company. His team is made up of engineers from the likes of Tesla and SpaceX, many of whom are avid cyclists. The reason he started the company was that he had an injury that made it hard for him to ride his mountain bike, and he didn’t like his options for conversion kits or full e-bikes. We’ll get a bit into the weeds on that. www.bimotal.com www.ElectricBikeAction.com

My guest today is someone not from the e-bike industry, but a huge fan of e-bikes. Maria Emmerich is a wellness expert in nutrition and exercise physiology. She is the author of several cookbooks and three nutritional guidebooks, including the bestseller “Keto: The Complete Guide to Success on The Ketogenic Diet” https://amzn.to/3n7FrBa Maria and her husband Craig adopted two boys (Micah and Kai) from Ethiopia. They live part of the year in Wisconsin and part in Maui, and they all now have e-bikes. In this episode, I chat with Maria about how she got interested in e-bikes and the many ways she and her family use theirs. Maria’s Instagram is @mariaemmerich And her website is mariamindbodyhealth.com

Hello everyone and welcome to another Electric Bike Action podcast interview. Today’s episode is a talk with Chris Rothe. Chris is a former expert BMX freestyle rider from the Bay area, who started getting into mountain bikes years ago and pushing limits, then started playing with electric motors for go-karts and eventually adapting one of those motors to a mountain bike. He fell in love with e-bikes, especially high-powered ones, and he now runs EcoBike Adventures and an 1800 acre ranch near Lake Tahoe. You’ll hear in this interview how Chris may be the reason behind Santa Cruz jumping on the e-bike bandwagon. Check out https://ecobikeadv.com It’s a great place to get away safely, and they’re taking small family groups now. Post-COVID, they’ll be back to taking large groups, corporate events, etc.

Hello everyone. This episode comes on the tail of Tesla’s incredible new battery technology that will change the way lithium ion batteries are made. The new cells, called 4680, because they’re 46mm wide and 80mm tall, feature a great number of design and material changes that will cut out cobalt, an expensive material in terms of cost of mining, the danger involved, and the carbon footprint of shipping it around the world to produce batteries. The materials can be sourced locally, instead of globally, and the batteries provide greater range and power, as well as dropping the overall production cost of a car battery by 56%. Yes, more than half the price less. This will definitely trickle down to bikes and other modes of transportation. For this episode, we are talking to Ravi Kempaiah, world record holder for longest distance traveled on an e-bike, as well as two more pending for most distance traveled in 12 and 24 hours on an e-bike. He’s working on his PhD in energy storage materials at the University of Illinois at Chicago. That is, he’s a proper expert in the field of batteries. We get into the weeds on this exciting new technology that will change the game for electric vehicles. #tesla #4680 #battery

My guest today is Alex Boyce, a friend I met in Europe at a bike launch. He’s an interesting and very knowledgeable guy, he’s EBA’s official European correspondent. He’s a British guy who lives in Italy and writes about e-bikes for Italian and German bike magazines. He gets access to bikes we don’t here in the U.S., which gives us great coverage of bikes worldwide. He also has a good perspective on the market in Europe, which we talk about extensively. We did have an issue in the later part of the interview, when a storm took out Alex’s internet, so he switched to his phone to complete the interview.

Yamaha Bicycles has just announced 3 remarkable new e-bikes, including a 28mph drop bar road bike and two full-suspension mountain bikes with a truly unique frame design. TYou can check them out on our website, electricbikeaction.com but also look at Yamaha’s page at https://www.yamahabicycles.com/future-ebikes/ to see them and have a chance to win your choice of one! My guest today is a friend and someone I've had on the show not too long ago. It's Drew engelmann from Yamaha bicycles. They've announced three brand new bikes since I last interviewed him, including a class 328 mile per hour drop bar bike called the savanti. And their first ever full suspension electric mountain bikes. The y dx Morrow and y dx Morrow pro The ladder to feature a patent pending frame design with a split top tube and split down to that they call a dual twin frame, allowing some big advantages in the design. This shows that ebikes offer bike designers a chance to make something entirely different than a traditional bicycle. and think outside the diamond as it were. Let's jump right in and talk about it with Drew. How you been? Good good, man. Yeah, we haven't. We haven't. It hasn't been that long since we talked. But there's a lot of exciting stuff that's come out since then. There really is, isn't there? Yeah. First and foremost, rad on 4k. Holy cow, man. Have you seen it? I haven't seen it yet. I'm just so pumped that it's coming. It's July. Yeah. Yeah, we actually produce some of the special features for it. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. So when did it launch officially? It was it was in June. I can't remember when it was in June. Okay, I've it's funny. I'm like seeing all these trailers. it and then I actually literally like right before we got on the phone together just look to see if it launched yet and it says July and the other trailers that I'm looking at. So if it's out already I'm, I'm even more excited for today. That's awesome. Yeah, actually you can get it video on demand, you cannot any longer get the special edition with the special features on it. They sold out of 12,000 copies really fast. Yeah, I can imagine holy. I mean, what, what other movie can a generation that is as vast as it is? kind of tie everything back to what happened in that movie as an inspiration. You know, it's like, I think everybody has a rad story. Absolutely. I run into fans of that film all the time. And the funny thing is it has the biggest disparity on Rotten Tomatoes between the critics which gave it to zero. And the fans give it 100% Welcome to the cycling industry. We don't care what anybody else thinks we're just doing what we like, there you go. That's right, actually the way it should be done. I think so i think so. Yeah. Absolutely. So yeah, you've been a really busy guy though. I'm following you on social obviously and we catch up on there but man I tell you you've had a very busy summer haven't you? Oh, just a little bit and I've been playing around with some electric motorcycles Yeah, I saw that too. I'm sorry you had to give that back. Yeah, well when's Yamaha coming out with one goodness gracious if I knew I'd be a pretty happy camper myself Yeah, yeah we're we're smart power vehicle division in our group you know so we handle the power says bicycles and power assist wheelchairs and outside of that I am in the dark on so many things as much as any other consumer would be. Oh, I'm sure I'm sure. Yeah, so Well, let's let's talk Why do you x Morrow and the the commuter bike. Yeah, absolutely. This Avante and the white x Morrow and what x mauripro. Let's, let's have a chat. I'm super excited to finally get to talk about this stuff with you. Yeah. Tell me about the Tell me about the y dx Morrow and the y dx model. And how did that name come about? I mean, it's a, obviously similar to the y dx torque but surely in the nomenclature. Yeah, so the y dx is our prefix for the Yamaha dirt experience. So, you know, if we were to kind of look back at th

In this episode, I interview the CEO of Superstrata, a company that is 3D printing custom, unibody carbon fiber composite bike frames, forks and wheels, and selling them as complete bikes. They’re more than fully funded on their crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo.com https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/superstrata-bike/x/10396890#/?i=hmhc We talk about how he got started in this, how legendary bike designer Bill Stephens was brought in to design the frame, how they custom fit every bike to one rider, the scalability of it all, and how you can get one. #ebikes #crowdfunding #3dprinting

In this episode, I interview Drew Englemann of Yamaha Power Assist Bicycles. Drew is an industry veteran, from working in the tranches to now being one of the main people at Yamaha.Yamaha has a bunch of interesting stuff coming up, and we talk about it. The link Drew mentions is: https://www.yamahabicycles.com/future-ebikes

Damon electric motorcycles exploded on to the scene with their debut this year at CES. The Hypersport is one of the fastest, longest range electric bikes on the market, with a range of over 200 highway miles and a 200mph top speed, and unmatched collision avoidance and safety features. On this episode of the podcast, I’m talking to Jay Giraud, co-founder and CEO of Damon Motorcycles. We thought things were getting incrementally better in the electric motorcycle world, then we learned about Damon. Their bikes aren’t officially shipping yet, but they boast the most insane specs you’ve ever heard. It’s a sport bike with a top speed of 200 mph, it puts out 200 horsepower, and it has a 200+ mile range on the highway. You’d think this bike would be unobtainably expensive, but it really isn’t. Jay himself is a passionate motorcyclist, and Damon is his third automotive startup company, and before his entrepreneurial ventures he was a professional snowboarder. Through his travels and adventures, he learned that motorcycles are the number one form of transportation worldwide. This gave him the thought that if we’re going to get the world off of using oil, we need to get motorcycles off oil. But he also knows that a bigger concern for motorcyclists is safety, as motorcycling is a significantly higher risk than driving a car. To mitigate risk, Damon bikes come with their Copilot system, which offers 360-degree collision warning system that utilizes radars and cameras on the front and back of the bike. It’s really impressive that it can track up to 64 objects at once and warn the rider. After the interview, take a look at www.Damon.com to check out the bikes and the technology. I have to mention that the sound quality is a little different on this episode. We recorded it directly with Callcast, whereas I normally use Skype for higher sound quality and less delay between us talking. Damon is located in Vancouver, Canada, and we couldn’t make Skype work. I’d rather have phone call quality than no interview at all, as this company is shaking things up in the motorcycle world. Jay talks to us about performance, safety, and the cash advantage of selling direct. Subscribe to us on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJMEWYf2HOunWGda3hAdNMg/featured Subscribe https://hi-torque.com/product/electric-bike-action-digital/ Visit us on ElectricBikeAction.com https://electricbikeaction.com Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/electricbikeaction/ Follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ElectricBikeAction/

In this episode, I interview Drew Englemann of Yamaha Power Assist Bicycles. Drew is an industry veteran, from working in the tranches to now being one of the main people at Yamaha.Yamaha has a bunch of interesting stuff coming up, and we talk about it. The link Drew mentions is: https://www.yamahabicycles.com/future-ebikes

We interview Larry Pizzi this time, and talk about his work in the Bicycle industry, his work as an advocate for better electric bicycle laws, he is one of the people responsible for the three class rule that 26 states have so far adopted, And what the future holds for e-bikes

In this episode, we talk to Richard Thorpe of GoCycle about his background in cycling and as an engineer at MacLaren, how the company began, the future of e-bikes and the future of transportation. Check their bikes out at www.gocycle.com.

In this interview, we talk to former Motocross champion Stefy Bau about her love of e-bikes and her new company initsports.com where she connects brands and athletes in Supercross, Motocross, MotoGP and e-sports.

We talk to Hong Quan about Karmic, and his newest, most affordable and most beautiful bike yet, the OSLO. He talks about how he started the company, why he crowdfunds the bikes, and what he sees as the future of electric mobility. Karmic.cc https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/karmic/oslo

We talk to Ravi about his two recent Guinness World Records for distance traveled in 12 and 24 hours, and what he is working on to improve lithium-ion battery technologies, to make them cheaper and more energy dense.

We had a chance to sit down and discuss the future of battery technology with one of the creators of lithium ion batteries and technology, Professor Jeff Dahn Of Dalhousie University.

I sat down to talk to Chad from HPC about the industry and how he sees it from being in the trenches and working for a custom electric bike manufacturer. This was the first time I have recorded a live interview for the show. Apologies for how "live" the room was.

Eddy King was in a serious accident a few years ago. He has fought hard to regain his ability to walk, and is now mountain biking again.

In this episode, we talk to Andrew Juskaitis from Giant Bicycle About electric bicycles and the future.

Host and Editor of Electric Bike Action welcomes you to the show and talks about what it's all about.