Central Queensland Trials Club set a challenging and technical set of sections for this year's Queensland Championships. The venue at Lowmead featured some excellent granite outcrops which worked out to be very much to my liking, winning the Masters grade from my good friend and rival, Justin Gough riding his very nice 4RT 300 RR. Justin won our battle last year at Stanthorpe Qld. Titles to add to his 14 x Aus. Titles with sidecar Trials.
Achieving this first championship for E-motion was a very proud moment for me as I have put the hours in with my training to learn how to best use this new technology for Trials. I have been riding the same EM 5.7 for 2 x years now, stock- standard with the original battery which should still be good for another 8 x years. I made one important change to the set-up December 2015- I removed the right-foot brake and fitted a left-side handelbar rear brake instead of the ELS clutch. This has made braking control more accurate and also enabled my right foot to always be in the optimum position on the footrest. There are many benefits for going electric, the percieved drawback of battery range has proven no problem, I have started and finished approx 30 x Trials comps without fully discharging the battery, starting every event with a fully charged battery.
I am also happy that Tamborine Moto (formerly Caldera Moto) have delivered 10 x new EM's to customers in Australia and New Zealand this year so far. All have reported they are riding and enjoying their bikes. We have more EM's currently in production at the factory in Castries, France. The new 2016 Trials model comes in 2 specifications- the EM Lite and the 'up-spec' EM Sport. A lightweight battery is now also available, removing 3 kg from the overall 'wet' (haha) weight.
New for 2016 is the EM Escape, more designed for the Free-rider. The EM Escape is based on the EM Lite platform with the addition of a seat, higher gearing and the 'big' 40 Amphour battery. We at Tamborine Moto are excited to be getting our first Escape delivered in September. Please have a look at our website for more info.
The image below is the E-Trek, the first road / trail bike from Electric Motion to be released later this year. Petrol bikes look overly complicated by comparison...