2012 KTM Freeride E: Electric Bike

The following is from Cycle News Digital Edition...

Twist and Fly. We Take KTM's Electric Motocrosser for a Spin.

Trust KTM to make saving the planet fun, as well as virtuous. While other manufacturers of electric motorcycles focus on E-biking's environmental benefits in providing personal transportation, KTM had a different agenda. For when the Austrian dirt bike kings started work in 2008 on developing the Freeride E, their in would be fun to sample.

KTM’s electric off-roader – the Freeride E

"It's getting more and more difficult to ride motorcycles off-road, especially in Europe and the USA," says Harald Ploeckinger, Chief Operating Officer of KTM and the man with the overall responsibility for making things hum at KTM. For 15 years a key Rotax executive, amongst Harald's many tasks is overall responsibility for engine development and series production for KTM's sport motorcycle division. Thus the Freeride E electric bike project is his baby.

"One of the major issues is noise," he said. "We felt that by developing a product which doesn't emit any noise or noxious gasses, this might allow us to bring motorcycling closer to urban areas, to attract those people to off-road riding who'd hesitate to load a bike into a truck or trailer, and then drive for hours to find somewhere they can use it."
To the point that municipalities could establish off-road motorcycle parks in city confines, just like artificial ski slopes, or rock climbing faces?

"Yes, on the outskirts of a city that's convenient to reach," says Ploeckinger. "Somewhere that could allow people to sample our sport who didn't yet have the chance to get familiar with it because of the distances to be covered to do so. I think it's a way to demonstrate to people that off-road riding is so much fun - Austria is a great country to ski in, so why can't we use the same areas to have fun on two wheels? With the Freeride E we have no emissions, and almost no noise except for the chain - in fact, the sound of skis cutting through packed snow is probably louder."

I had the chance to put the pre-production prototype Freeride E to the test the same week it made its public debut at the EICMA show in Milan, by riding it around KTM's specially built E-bike test track constructed outside its satellite engine factory and WP suspension plant less than two miles from its Mattighofen headquarters. In doing so it answered the question of how well KTM's R&D e-team (headed by ex-Toyota Formula 1 engineer Hannes Proschek) has succeeded in meeting that objective. But first, what were KTM's dynamic objectives in developing the bike?