DeBolex and Energica Eva - 145hp custom electric motorcycle

So we're here with Callum from Debolex Engineering, one half of Debolex Engineering. Dez isn't a camera guy so he's back at the workshop working on something else. And we're here with the TW Steel and Oil in the Blood Energica EVA. So this project was part of the Oil in the Blood documentary which we enjoyed last Sunday afternoon and it's TW Steel's bike, the commission for this year's tobacco doc show. That's correct, yeah. Now you're looking a little less tired than you were on Sunday because I know it was a real feat to get this done. I came to see you about three, four weeks ago and there was just a motor sitting on a bench and nothing else. It was like that up until the last minute. I don't understand how you got it done but for anyone viewing who hasn't in Energica, we'll chuck some still images up but essentially under here is a great big battery that looks like a carry-on suitcase with a motor at the back and we've got some stats. We'll put all the boring geeky stats at the bottom but it's a 107 kilowatt motor which is the equivalent of 145 horsepower-ish, 200 newton meters of torque and there's the range thing that people talk about is 125 miles. Yeah, I mean that's Energica's spec that they give it. Official stats. And I think they've been very successful with this bike. It's a great bike when it came into us. We were really pleased to work on it as a base and it was perfect for this style. Essentially it was like taking a Ducati or something, a fairly exotic sports bike. It's still a steel trellis frame underneath, mounted around this big battery motor unit and then everything else is you, isn't it? That's it, yeah. I mean there was a fair amount of plastic bodywork on the standard bike so we were quite intrigued, you know, having not worked on an electric bike before, to see what was under the tank and everything. So what's under here? So there's a big power controller under there and really that tank, I mean it's a fairly large tank or tank skin but that is really tight over what's underneath, you know, there is a lot going on under there. So there's that big module that I saw sits here. That's it, yeah, and that just distributes the power from the battery to the motor and there's also some ECUs there that deal with the charging system and also the power delivery and throttle and stuff. So, yeah, there's quite a lot under there. There's also the batteries, the batteries are air-cooled, the power controller is water-cooled so there's a little water pump for that. So the power, the control unit is water-cooled? Yes, yeah, so we've actually got a cooler and that actually started us off with this design but the cooler's in the front there like you'd have a little thing. So just a traditional, you know, thin and foil. When we came in it had a big sort of water pump on the side here so we relocated that and that's now sitting snugly just behind this part here. Right. Actually that and the ABS which sat the other side, they were the two components we had to move and once we'd done that we sort of stood back and we looked and we had the perfect base really. It was, as far as electric bikes go, it was fairly sleek, it sat really nicely. It says sleek, I mean they're a pretty girthy bike yet you've, I don't know, when you got a sec Dan, if you come around here, I mean that is super narrow, that's Ducati narrow, you'd never get an R6 that narrow would you? No, we had to be really quite smart with the lines on this bike to really reduce that width because actually when you take off that lower fairing the battery is really wide and, you know, like a conventional bike it tends to narrow down towards the bottom but on this, you know, it's wide all the way to the bottom and certain areas of design we really worked on, just for example the tank here, just putting this little recess in, it really reduces kind of that width. Yeah because in Royal Rally when I came to see that, that looked massive with no paint on it. It was big, yeah, and that is a trick of the paint as well and yeah and just the way we do certain things. And the shapes here, so your scallops here and the way you've got the bulges on the side here and these ducts there, this is all in your head as you're working or in a sketch beforehand, how do you get to here? So yeah, we do a basic sketch, I mean like I said earlier with the cooler, this is where this design all started really. We knew that we wanted to carry two lines off of the cooler, so one of those is top line that runs straight into the knee hole and the bottom line would carry through right into the tail and that kind of just set that that kind of nice base for us to start. We knew we wanted to split the top and bottom part of the fairing and that's what this is. The little intakes here help with cooling but they also again help reduce the width, so you can just about see the edge of the battery there sticking through, but you know the width of this fairing could be this wide but just by putting this opening in it reduces that width, actually gives a nice interesting sort of shape there. And it helps reduce that bulge at the bottom. Exactly, yeah and that line really carries through from the top of the fairing right through this and underneath there. And you go straight into the aluminium work don't you, from your design that you've got on your head, you and Des just get big sheets of alley and nail them and then start beating them around. Pretty much, yeah, I mean we probably spend two, three, three or four days maybe design, you know, and this is 2D design, you know, we do a fair amount of sketches, we might move that on to Illustrator or something. Do you do cut out card and bend that? Bits and pieces, we do do some of that, but sometimes we just, once we really discuss it a lot, once we really know, we just kind of jump in and get into the alley. So really what we like to get is a top tank skin, so just this main top piece pulled through. So that starts giving us the lines of the bike and then it's kind of just a filling in the holes, you know, once you've got this top piece in, you know, we work on the front area and then we added these sort of recesses into the tank and then it was on to the knee holes, but we were always very conscious of where this line was starting from the cooler and making sure that everything was following itself through. Yeah. Yeah and the end result, you know, all these lines run perfectly through and we had to make some adjustments to the rear subframe to make sure that we could get, one, the seat height how we wanted it, but two, again, those lines running through and I think that's what makes a really well balanced bike really. And the thing that loads of people pointed out at the weekend is that if you hadn't had your logo on there and the TWC and Oil in the Blood logos went on there and you said, oh, this is Energic's latest, you know, Moto E-bike, people would have probably believed it. For people who haven't worked with Alley before and haven't built bikes before, how hard is it to get all of these lines perfect and get all of the mounting of the bodywork as good as you get it? Is that just hours and hours of pain? Yeah, I mean, I guess early days it might have been a bit of pain. We don't, we've kind of, we've got some real good techniques for it now, some good ways that we like to mount things and how to get to that mounting point sort of thing, but there's no way around it, it's lots and lots of time, you know, it does take, to get the perfect gap, it's people who have worked on cars and things before and they know what it's like with the door gap or wing gap or something like that, it really does take a lot of time to get that, so, but yeah, I mean, just starting with a flat sheet is sort of, you have to be quite creative and forward-thinking to get to this design really. I mean, you probably can't see on camera, but you know, even just feeling, there's no difference side to side there, the gaps are exactly the same, there's no overhang one side to the other, it's as close to perfect as I think you can get with a handmade product. Yeah, we really want to get that right, you know, it's, yeah, to me, those details really make the difference and it's all rubber mounted as well, so we're going to get no fracturing or anything like that. And have you got your signature pop-off seat? I do, yeah, little quick release catches just in here. Oh, I think I tucked the wire out of the way. Sorry, it's all right. So, this is where you plug your charger in? Yeah. And what was that, sort of three hours or something, two and a half hours, yeah, I think about three hours for 100%, yeah. Okay, and then what have we got under here? So, nothing really up under the tail, but this is a fan here that blows air over the charging system, we've also got an air outlet in the back of the tail. So, that vents out the back there to keep the charger? That's it, yeah. Cool. And that was interesting as well, because obviously with us, we try and clean these bikes up as much as we can and we don't normally have a big charging unit to deal with in the tail and coming back to that slimming, those slimming techniques we worked on, you know, that's where we've sort of split the colours and we've got this little overhang on the tail here and then again, that little recess like the top of the tank we have here, which helps reduce that bulkiness of the lower charger cover. Yeah, it's all those little things I think we've managed to sort of, actually quite enjoyed, I really like this design now. Originally I thought the charger was quite a difficult thing to work around, but I think it really adds to the design, you know, and I think that's what we kind of... Yeah, because you could have ended up with either a really bulbous tail or one that was a bit too street fighter and pointy. Yeah, exactly, yeah. Again, the same with the seat, Dez has worked his magic on this again, yeah, and our normal seat pan system with all the rubbers and... I need some of those, where did you get those from? S3M they are. Are they? Yeah. Fancy. Yeah, so they're, yeah, that's come out really nice, but all ProBolt fixings again as we normally do. And viewers, those two are to go back in, they're not missing on purpose. We did finish this on a real tight deadline, so it was... Yeah, we must add that, you know, on Sunday when we went to the premiere of Gareth's film, All in the Blood, and then this bike was unveiled later on, Callum and his dad and Dez and also Gemma had been working until six o'clock in the morning, Callum's mum was ferrying food back and forth to the workshop, so it was a whole week of that, wasn't it? Yeah, I had to rein in just every bit of help I possibly could because there was no way around it, we had to be there with this bike. And it was seven weeks from delivery to delivering the finished bike. Exactly that, yeah, and on the Monday we were literally, there's some pictures on my Instagram actually, but we had Tom from Autohurst down and we were finishing off all these edges on the frame, on the fairing here, so the end of Monday this was still a complete bike in Bear Alley, and then Tuesday, I think it was Tuesday morning or maybe Monday night, that we did the full strip down and just went. So from Tuesday to Sunday you had to paint it? Paint, powder coat, Cerakote, chain, brakes, brake lines, bleed brakes, you know, all the things that you'd have to do on a full, you know, building it back up, so that was pretty full-on. The last night, that Sunday, my dad was there in the corner polishing the panel. He was showing me pictures, yeah, and you all looked pretty broken on Sunday. Yeah, I felt pretty broken, yeah, I'm just about recovering from that now, so. And the parts that you did bolt on, run us through those, the brake, the front brake, because it feels weird, I had to sit on the bike early, and you go for the clutches, obviously, there's obviously nothing there, so the braking system is standard Brembo's that are on the Energy Guru stock, but the master cylinder and lever is? That's Magura, yeah, that's their HC3, so that's their top of the range master cylinder, that's, it's a really, really nice unit that we're fitting to quite a lot of our bikes now. And it's adjustable ratio as well as reach, isn't it? Exactly, yeah, yeah, really lightweight, just, it just feels really nice, I like the Magura stuff, so, and they've just started doing this in black, so, and that actually saves you the anodising job, doesn't it? Exactly, yeah, it really, it suited this build perfectly. And the throttle is, it's an electric bike, so obviously it's just going to be a switch, but, yeah, it's really nice. I wish normal throttles felt that positive and snappy, and that's a domino one, isn't it? That's it, yeah, yeah, and that's part of an Energy Guru sort of standard, standard setup. And what the, the clocks, that's a standard, yeah, TFT display? Yeah, how do we get that on? We'll just switch that on, we've got the ignition down here, it's a colour display, which is really nice. So these clip-ons look like Renthals, but they're not, are they? They're that, that brand that we can't pronounce, Giles, Giles, Giles, G-I-L-E-L-E-S. Whatever they are, they're really nice, lightweight, yeah, yeah, nice, nice design clip-on, so, yeah, we fit those, and, and then, yeah, you're just going to point out the top yoke there, that's Danny from Fast Tech, he always does a really nice job of that. Did you adjust the geometry at all, or is it just stock? Exactly, it's stock, and you have to be careful with the clearance between the front wing and the battery, so. Does a nice job, doesn't he? Really nice, yes, it looks nice and lightweight, that, and hidden bolts and everything. That's it, yeah. So then we've got forged wheels from Dymag. Yeah, the UP7X model, I think they call that, really lightweight, yeah, really nice finish, yeah, we've used those a few times on our builds now, we, yeah, really like those. Pirelli Supercorsas. Yeah, nice sticky tyres, yeah, give us that nice track look and feel. And that, that doesn't look like a stock sprocket to me. That's a Talon sprocket, yeah, Dymag sort of like to supply that for us. So that comes with the wheel set. Yeah, yeah, you're just giving me a sprocket size. Stock swingarm? Stock swingarm, but that's had some nice preparation and Cerakote by Flying Tiger coatings. Right, okay, and that's that super, super thin ceramic coating that you can put on a nut and a bolt and they'll still wind together. That's the one, yeah, really nice finish. And did they do any other coating on the bike? They did the front calipers as well. Cerakote calipers. That's it, yeah, with a nice white inlay, they do that finish on there, so, yeah, it's got a nice look. This rear set looks all lonely on its own without a gift, doesn't it? That's Rizoma. Yeah, that's Rizoma. Yeah, it was perfect for us, so we just adapted the mounting on there and, yeah, Rizoma did the rear sets, the bar ends, brake reservoir pot. And the forks are Marzocchi. Yeah. Standard left them alone? We left those alone, yeah, mainly because of time actually, but, but they, you know, they're perfectly set up for this bike and, yeah, they look great in the gold analyse finish, so. So if you did another one, would you maybe speak to the Maxton guys and get a fork for it? Yeah, we were going to do fork internals and recolour the tubes actually, but, yeah, again, time doesn't always give you that, but. But you did a Maxton shock. Yeah, yeah. That's a beefy looking unit, isn't it? It is, yeah, it's a really nice unit. I think they call that the RT10. Is that their top of the line? Yeah, and that's, it's just, you know, Maxton do, they do a really nice job of building a bespoke unit, you know, they really understand what you're doing with the bike and, yeah, so they build that for us and, yeah, it suits the bike perfectly. So ordinarily, we'd have a chat about the bike, then we'd go outside and start it up and see what it sounds like, but not only is it electric and there isn't much noise to come out of it, but it's not running just yet? Not just yet, no, as I said, you know, we've finished, finished it such last minute, we've just got to do all the final little pieces and, yeah, before we sort of take it out for the first test ride, so that'll be coming up in the next few days and. Yeah, well, we were just chatting together, I thought that might be a March time Brands Hatchery sort of thing and we know that one of these in stock trim about two, probably three years, two, three years ago, did the TT, did a full lap of the TT in stock trim, just the lights taken out in a couple of days, log wide, 74 mile an hour average, which doesn't sound loads compared to what the guys on turnabout combustion engines are doing, but I think if we could get someone who can pedal one of those around that course to come down to Brands Hatchery and give this a whirl, absolutely, yeah, that'd be quite a good thing, wouldn't it? We'd love to see this, you know, really be put through its paces, you know, it's certainly got the performance there to back it up, so yeah, it'd be good to see that. So now you're sold on electric bikes, are you going to be doing some more? Yeah, I mean, I actually, I loved building this, it was really, really interesting project to do something different, I love both, you know, I'd like to do more electric and do more of what we normally do as well, so it's, but certainly the Energica as a base was, you know, it was really nice to work on, so yeah. And you've been to the factory, haven't you, and you've met the guys out there in Italy? Lovely factory, really nice clean space and, you know, they're doing a really nice job, so it's... Whereabouts are they? Just down the road from Ducati, yeah, they're not far, forget, what's the area model, is that one? With Bologna, so maybe take this round Mugello? Ah, it'd be amazing, wouldn't it, yeah, I mean, I'd like to do that, but yeah, maybe get someone decent to ride it. Well, I don't know, wait. Yeah, yeah, it'd be brilliant, we're certainly, it's going to be, it's going to be leaving us very soon and doing a bit of a tour around America with the All In The Blood film, right, then it'll be back through Europe, we'll probably visit Energica, so we'll see what we can line up while we're down there. That looks great, and when it's back, will I be able to get a go on it? You'll have to ask TW Steel and For the first time that I got on a motorbike, just had this incredible sense that I could go anywhere, do anything, and you just want to ride and ride and ride. A custom motorbike really is a piece of mechanical art. I don't know, we live and breathe this, this is like all we want to do. Why do we customise anything? We like to show off. Engineering and art, whatever the two are, they're always there, but that friction is necessary. But lifestyle and style and motorbikes have always gone together, that's not a new thing. There aren't many ways to express who you are, but a bike is saying this is who I am.