Whereas some are skeptical about the way forward for electrical bikes, others, like Adam Kay, are much more enthusiastic. So enthusiastic, in truth, that he’s simply named his newest undertaking ‘Loss of life to Petrol.’
It’s all very tongue in cheek in fact. Because the founding father of Untitled Bikes in London, Adam has a lot of petrol-powered customs beneath his belt—and he plans to construct extra. However he’s additionally pragmatic in regards to the future, and curious in regards to the potential of electrical drivetrains as a platform for personalisation.
“Can the fundamental guidelines for designing a bike be ripped up?” he asks. “Do you’ll want to maintain the bike along with your legs? The place and the way ought to the rider sit? Tank or no tank? Foot peg place? Highway presence? Velocity versus noise?”
It’s this prepare of thought that led Adam to design ‘DTP.’ Pieced collectively from a customized body, a prototype motor and a handful of off-the-shelf elements, it’s an excellent case examine in how a compact electrical city bike may look and experience.
“Inspiration got here from a big diameter framed mountain bike I rode over 20 years in the past,” he tells us. “I needed one thing related and fun-looking for this design. Nobody makes giant diameter bike frames for petrol bikes, so I believed an electrical bike will be something you need it to be.”
Not solely did Adam desire a tubular chassis—he additionally needed to overtly present the bits that make the bike operate. “No panels hiding something right here,” he says. “The motor, battery and controller can all be seen.”
The 1st step was to pen a primary line sketch of the electrical supermoto idea. Subsequent, Adam despatched his sketch to Jack Lennie—a product designer identified for creating ‘Tinker,’ a no-weld bike package that may be downloaded, CNC-cut and bolted up. Adam and Jack refined the design till that they had absolutely fleshed-out CAD drawings to work from.
These information then went over to Mike at Survivor Customs to construct the body. Mike tacked it along with 50 mm tubing, together with a customized swingarm that makes use of a braced mono-shock design. The design is as barebones because it will get; the one actual piece of ‘bodywork’ is a boxed part up prime that holds the seat.
The forks, yokes and rear shock all come from a KTM 390 Duke. The 17” wheels are SM Professional elements, wrapped in Dunlop Mutant rubber and stopped by ISR brakes hooked as much as Venhill traces. Since there’s no clutch, each of the brakes are triggered by way of ISR controls on the handlebars—similar to on a mountain bike.
For the motor, Adam turned to the electrical bike producer Sur-Ron. “I rode a Sur-Ron Mild Bee off-road, which was nice enjoyable,” he says. “So I contacted them immediately, and purchased an experimental motor from them.”
Adam mounted up the Sur-Ron motor with a brand new battery and controller. Energy is distributed to the again wheel by way of a series drive, with the motor hooked up to a base plate that permits it to be moved backwards and forwards to regulate the chain pressure.
With the whole lot in place, Adam roped in Paul Taplin to carry his creation to life. Paul was invaluable to the undertaking, wiring all of it up in lower than a day. However that is simply part one—the fellows plan to redo the whole lot with a slimmer wiring loom, constructed round a Motogadget controller.
Up prime are a set of Renthal bars, fitted with Biltwell Inc. grips and customized swap housings that double up as brake lever clamps. Out entrance is a twin LED headlight from Durite, with a pair of LED taillights from Alchemy elements embedded behind the body. Tiny Motogadget LED flip alerts are mounted discreetly to tabs on the body.
Glenn Moger added a success of leather-based on the supermoto-style seat, whereas Aurum Ending dealt with the powder-coating.
DTP hits the mark visually, eschewing conventional bike design for one thing that’s each quirky and aggressive. As for efficiency and vary, Adam makes no bones about the truth that that is designed as a brief vary weapon.
“The highest pace is restricted to 50 mph,” he says, “however it’s all about acceleration for a metropolis bike. The vary depends in your model of using—DTP is about city enjoyable relatively than lengthy countryside rides.”
The numbers aren’t closing but both, as a result of DTP is technically a prototype. Adam’s planning a small manufacturing run of those as soon as he’s completed extra testing and tweaking, with a goal curb weight of beneath 155 lbs.
We’d actually be tempted… how about you?
Untitled Bikes | Adam Kay Instagram | Pictures by Michael Jersovs
