Watch rider attempt to tow 7-ton truck with her electric motorcycle
The popular motorcycle YouTuber Priyanka Kochhar, better known by her handle BikeWithGirl, recently took a stab at a major towing attempt on an electric motorcycle.
We’re no stranger to torquey tow-off competitions here at Electrek. In fact, electric vehicles are all but built for them. The massive torque of electric motors makes them perfect for peak stump-pulling tow performance.
We just don’t normally see that applied in the world of motorcycles. At least not until now.
As Priyanka explained, she was in Bengaluru, India, “to conduct a very interesting experiment with one of the torquiest electric motorcycles there is in our country.”
She’s talking about the Ultraviolette F77, a sleek an electric motorbike from an Indian startup that is pushing the local market well into the performance realm. There are plenty of electric scooter companies in India, but high performance electric motorcycles haven’t received quite the same attention.
When it comes to towing trucks, though, that’s not something you’d want to attempt with just an electric scooter.
For the first test, Priyanka warmed up the Ultraviolette F77 by towing a small car, which proved to be quite easy for the bike’s 100 Nm of torque.
Next, she stepped it up to a 6,000 kg (13,200 pound) box truck, which resulted in a slower start and a few wobbles as the rider learned how to handle the extra load, but still proved to be a success.
Those attempts led up to the ultimate goal of pulling a 7,500 kg (16,500 pound) bus. Once strapped in, Priyanka gave the bike some throttle and gingerly pulled away, the massive bus coming along with her.
With the point proven, Priyanka decided not to stop there. For the final towing experiment, she connected the 7,500 kg bus behind the 6,000 kg box truck, for a total of over 13,500 kg (29,700 pounds).
Even with that massive weight, the bike still slowly pulled off the line until reaching enough speed that Priyanka could lift her feet up and ride off, two massive vehicles in tow behind one small electric sportbike.
“Because the F77 is an EV, that 100 Nm of torque comes through immediately,” she explained after the demonstration. “And that’s what made this unbelievable stunt doable today!”
Check out her video below to see the impressive feat in action.
via: Rideapart
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Paris’ bike-share system, Vélib has long been considered one of the shining success stories of urban micromobility. With a massive fleet of over 20,000 pedal and electric-assist bicycles around Paris, the service has helped millions of residents and tourists get around the City of Light without needing a car or scooter. But lately, a growing problem is threatening to knock the wheels off this urban mobility marvel: theft and joyriding.
According to city officials and the service operator, more than 600 Vélib bikes are now going missing every single week. That’s over 30 bikes a day simply vanishing from the system – some stolen outright, others taken on “joy rides” and never returned.
“At the moment we’re missing 3,000 bikes,” explained Sylvain Raifaud, head of the Agemob company that currently operates the Velib system. That’s nearly 15% of over 20,000 Vélib bikes across Paris.
The sticky-fingered culprits aren’t necessarily professional thieves or organized crime rings. Instead, they’re often regular users who treat the shared bikes like disposable toys.
The city estimates that many people have figured out how to pry the bikes out of the system’s parking docks, unlocking one for a casual cruise and then ditching it somewhere far from a docking station.
Once pried free, the bikes are technically usable for the next 24 hours until their automatic locking feature kicks in. At that point, the bikes are often simply abandoned. Some end up in alleyways. Others get tossed in rivers. A few just disappear completely.
And since the bikes are intended to be parked at their many docking stations around the city, they don’t have GPS chips, further complicating recovery of “liberated” bikes.
The issue started small but has grown into more than an inconvenience – it’s beginning to undermine the entire purpose of the service. With bikes going missing at such a high rate, many Vélib docking stations are left empty, especially during rush hours.
Riders looking for a quick commute or a convenient hop across town are increasingly finding themselves without available bikes, or having to walk long distances to find a functioning one.
That kind of unreliability chips away at user confidence and threatens to drive potential riders back into cars, cabs, or other less sustainable forms of transport at a time when Paris has already made great strides to dramatically reduce car usage in the city.
The losses are financially painful, too. Replacing stolen or vandalized bikes isn’t cheap, and the resources spent on tracking down missing equipment or reinforcing anti-theft measures are stretching thin. Vélib has faced theft and vandalism issues before, especially during its early years, but this latest surge has officials sounding the alarm with renewed urgency.
Officials acknowledge that there’s no easy fix. Paris, like many cities with bike-share systems, walks a fine line between accessibility and accountability. Part of what makes Vélib so successful is its ease of use and widespread availability. But those same features make it vulnerable to misuse – especially when enforcement is limited and the consequences for abuse are minimal.
The timing of the problem is especially unfortunate. In recent years, Paris has seen impressive results in reducing car traffic, expanding bike lanes, and promoting cycling as a key part of its sustainable transport strategy. Vélib is a cornerstone of that plan. But if the system becomes too unreliable, it risks losing the very people it was designed to serve.
Meanwhile, as Parisians increasingly find themselves staring at empty docks, the challenge for the city and Vélib will be to restore confidence in the system without making it harder to use. That means striking the right balance between freedom and responsibility, between open access and protection against abuse.
In a city where cycling is supposed to be the future of mobility, losing thousands of bikes to joyriders and sticky fingers isn’t just frustrating; it’s unsustainable.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike