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Motorcycle racing fans among you will certainly be familiar with the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme, or FIM. The governing body of all things motorcycle racing – MotoGP, WorldSBK – you name it – has a new trick up its sleeve. It’s called the EBK World Cup, and interestingly, it involves electric bicycles.
That’s right, the FIM is launching a new international racing series solely featuring electric bicycles – but not just ordinary e-bikes. The bikes to be featured in the EBK World Cup will be able to reach speeds of up to 90 kilometers per hour, or 55.9 miles per hour – much faster than any production electric bicycle in the market. To come up with these unique machines, EBK has joined forces with BMC. The Swiss bicycle brand has decades of experience producing some of the most capable bikes in the world, both electric and otherwise. It’ll surely be interesting to see what BMC cooks up for the EBK World Cup.
As for the racing, the series is expected to involve six to ten teams, with an equal number of male and female riders. The field will consist of anywhere between 30 to 50 racers, and will be held on closed public roads. As for track distance, racing action will cover anywhere from 2.5 to five kilometers, or 1.6 to 3.1 miles. Courses will include steep inclines which EBK calls “Power Zones,” wherein the electric bicycles’ power can really shine through.
On top of all that, EBK has announced ED Clancy OBE as its series ambassador. Clancy is one of the most successful road cyclists of the modern generation, having won gold in three successive Olympics. On top of that, he was recently appointed as South Yorkshire’s Active Travel Commissioner, and is a strong advocate for safe, clean, and sustainable mobility in the U.K. In a press statement by the EBK, Ed Clancy said: “I have built a sporting career on the racing purity of cycling under my own power, but the advent of E-Bikes has been so rapid and they are now deserving of their own place in the future of elite cycling.”
Given the important role the electric bicycles play in the racing series, it’s interesting that the FIM is serving as the governing body of the EBK World Cup, and not the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). Indeed, given the high speeds achieved by these custom made electric bicycles, it could be safe to say that the EBK World Cup could usher in a whole new level of bicycle racing. The initial launch of the EBK World Cup is set to take place in London, in the summer of 2023. An international calendar of races is set for 2024, so stay tuned for more details about that in the coming months.