Michel Riis got in contact from Denmark with these superb photos of the bike at the centre of his ambitious electric speedway project, and video in which a former world speedway champion gives the bike huge praise. Michel is the co-founder of Switch motorcycles and designed the Switch eSCRAMBLER. He is a former speedway rider and now motorcycle designer who used to work at Yamaha motors in Japan. This is what he says about project.
'I have a huge love for speedway and some of my best years were at the track with my late dad. The E-Racing project is a side project I have been dreaming of for several years. I got a lot of feelings invested in this project. Now we have the right team to go all the way.
'Speedway is a dying sport in most of Europe now. Tracks are closing and the sport can't attract new riders. This reason might be the complexity of [the highly tuned] combustion engines and the huge cost of maintaining them. The clubs in Denmark can't even get enough riders to have more than one team. We are on a mission to change that. I think speedway and flat track is the best sport in the world.
'We want to get more kids riding and believe in growing the sport from the bottom and up.
The first step is to have conversion kits and rebuild the existing [bikes]. This way we don't add extra cost and the clubs can have bikes the kids can try before getting their own bikes.
'The next generation don't care about noise or smell. All our test riders had fun and got the e-grin after racing our bikes. We will have bikes [the equivalent of] 85cc to 500cc when done.
'We are using the same parts on several different sizes. This means a rider can hang on to the same parts for a long time despite going up the the next class.
'The youth bikes will compete with the 'normal' bikes here in Denmark. We have a dream about having indoor racing during wintertime also. This will give the riders much more track time and create world champions. We now have funding from the Danish government to go all the way with our software and big bikes.'
'This bike is made for youth riders for a FIM event in Diedenbergen, Germany. This is a three-day training camp and flat track world championship the last day.
'Our driveline can also be fitted on flat track bikes. All our parts are plug and play. This makes it easy to convert your old bike with a broken engine just sitting in the shed.'
Michel says the power and torque specs for this bike is +30 kW (over 40bhp) and about +90 Nm (in excess of 66 ft.lb) with about 5-10 four-lap speedway heats on a charge.
Find out more or contact Michel through E-Speedway facebook
Photos by Frederik Vohnsen