Cloak and Dagger...MotoE final round Portimao..

The final Portimao round of the MotoE chamionship was so close to the last round (Round 4) at Pembrey I hardly had time to draw breath let alone write up the Pembrey race..Luckily for us it was a fairly uneventful if enjoyable race meeting.. We continued to be confused by the huge difference in performance of the two equally specc'd Zonshen bikes and as such finished only where we could given the performance of the other bikes on the grid; 4th and 4th..

We'd decided between us, The Boss and I that it was more likely for us to be able to make the final round at Portimao if we pooled our limited remaining resources and drove down to the Algarve circuit..this would have been a good idea if we'd had a couple more days either side to do it. As it stood though we both had working commitments and had to drive down in one hit as well as return in one long non-stop run too...We've made better decisions.. 29hrs straight in each direction is a long long way to drive...I feel like the car has become part of me...As road trips go that was one of the longest I've done!

We arrived in time for lunch on the Friday test day and took the opportunity to get a few exploratory laps in..Portimao is my new favourite circuit; The gradients, blind brows and long opening radius curves are a complete racer's joy and there's so many lines to choose from it makes for great racing... The lack of performance on our was still evident and taking us through into Saturday qualifying and the afternoon sprint race (5th place) we were starting to come up with a few ideas. I'd picked up a second time improvement with a couple of suspension setting changes, and another couple fitting a brand new set of sumptuous Conti medium slicks, the last front was 8 races old but still not finished with!.. We were still a few seconds adrift which just wasn't right, we were gaining ground in the heavy breaking and long corners but loosing out on the gradients and straights which make up most of the circuit..

We spent the evening scratching our chins and working out what we could do..We decided that as we were paying to ride this satellite bike and Zonshen had done all they could to address the difference that it was time to take matters into our own hands. We downloaded the control software for the controllers on this DC powered bike and investigated the controller settings..sure enough we spotted a few obvious settings that would immediately coax a little more torque from the little Agni Saietta motors without sacrificing any reliability.. we also noticed that the commutators in both motors (the round copper bit that runs on the carbon brushes) were rough and dirty and needed cleaning up, the long straights and regular gradient changes were taking their toll on the hardware...This coupled with a gearing change based on optimal motor speeds would theoretically redress the the deficit...

I slept badly running through all the possible combinations of the following day. I was in second place in the championship The Zongshen rider Chun Kay Kwok was fit enough to ride following his shoulder injury and was riding well.. in order to maintain second place I needed to beat him in both the remaining races which seemed a tall order given the performance of the bike in the Saturday race..We'd made these changes and were confident it would improve the performance but had no idea if it would cause the motors to get hot or 'over current' burning the brushes which we've seen from both the other Zongshen bikes this season when they turned them up too far...We squeezed out in an early warm up to quickly check if what we'd done had worked but were only allowed one flying lap..performance was definitely up as I took over 4 seconds off my previous best lap time (equalling Chun Kay Kwok's best time) but we still didn't know if the changes would be reliable; Motor, battery and controller temp's were all below what we'd been seeing all weekend so it looked encouraging at least! :)

In the first race of Sunday it was immediately obvious that the changes were spot on and we all got away together and I stayed with both the other Zongshen bikes as usual but after the second lap instead of watching them both pull away from me I began to gap them... I kept the pace up for another lap and glanced back a few times to check they were still tripping each other up...for the final lap, as I had no hope of catching the other faster bikes, I decided to knock the pace off a bit and protect the motors and remaining available voltage, I kept an eye on Chunn Kay Kwok as he began to reel me in and in the last few corners upped my pace back up...I hadn't banked on him knocking a further second off his best laptime and we crossed the line through the chequered flag in a photo finish! Take a look at this! Slow mo' of photo finish.

So mission accomplished for race one..just.

For the second 'endurance' race Zongshen usually turn down both bikes to maximise reliability and ensure we have enough volts remaining in the cells so we don't ruin them..On this occasion though we'd decided we wanted to keep the settings we'd used in the first race (cos we liked them!) and manually manage the power usage...We'd asked to do this before but Zongshen had declined to allow it. On this occasion they weren't able to access the bike.. :) The plan was to tail Chun Kay (if I could) using his slipstream to improve my efficiency and also mask the positive changes but also gauge my speed with his..I only needed to beat him..nobody else really mattered... I got away with Chun Kay and as planned stayed in his slipstream, a fly in the ointment was his team mate Ho Chi Fung (Chinese Superbike champion) he always gets away well in the endurance races and is able to make the most of the small lighter single motor'd Moto3 style bike..He stayed with us for a couple of laps, the race was in full wet conditions and we began to pull away from him. It crossed my mind that I could pass Chun Kay quite easily and get a good gap on him but as this was the first time we'd used these settings I had no idea if I'd make the end of the race if I made that kind of jump in power usage.. so I had to stay with him... My plan was to pass him in the last few corners which felt like it would be a fairly simple task..We were piggy backing a track day endurance series with minimal marshalling and in previous races there had been no lap countdown and no last lap flag...and as we embarked on our penultimate lap everything was going to plan, as ann added bonus we started to reel the third placed Brammo pretty quickly to..As we both set our sites on him Daley 'Daisy' Matheson blasted through between all three of us on the Nottingham University missile (21mins 19sec on the video)..

As I was so focused on my task it didn't occur to me that being lapped by Daley knocked a whole lap off the length of the race and as I settled into Chun kay's slip stream for another lap we both breezed past the Brammo and the chequered flag came out ....WHAT? Nooooo! As we passed the chequered flag I was still tucked into the slipstream preparing for another lap..

I'd miscalculated the number of laps and when the flag came out I was sat in 4th place in Chun Kay Kwok's slipstream envisaging a pass somewhere out on the next lap..and with that one of the closest finishes for the remaining podium places so far in the MotoE championships.. I slipped to and finished in third in the championships. Despite having led the championship at one point and with a little grit and cloak and dagger we had a good chance of holding onto second, we ultimately finished third. something we're very proud of and hadn't in our wildest dreams thought was possible at the start of the season.

With all the thanks due to our sponsors there is really only one person who made this happen and with out him we wouldn't have even made it to the first round, team Boss extrodinaire Alex Aitchison...take a bow.. :)

Plans for next year are not yet firm but it'll be Me, Alex and Darvill racing that's for sure.. watch this space for updates.. :)

Tortoise and Hare...MotoE Round 3, Cadwell Park...

Ok, so no camping stories, but I do have a overriding echo of a memory in my crash addled brain where after having set up an awning on the side of my old Mercedes bus in fine dry weather I was woken in the night by strong wind and rain as the awning lifted and whorled off down the Cadwell Park paddock at 3am in the morning replete with my under-pant clad form hanging form the frame..I'm starting to wonder why, after all these years I still enjoy camping. I almost never do it properly.,. :)

The echo of the memory persisted as we woke on Saturday morning before practice , lots of rain and a little wind, Cadwell Park is nothing if not consistent in it's meteorological offerings...We were to be hosted by the newly invigorated Derby Phoenix club which has lost nothing of its friendly welcoming atmosphere but also gained the ruthless efficiency of Dave and Bernadette Stewart who I'm always glad to see at the helm...

The wet conditions got me all excited as although I don't particularly like racing in wet conditions (who does?) I do seem to go well in the wet and wet conditions go a long way to level off any performance discrepancies with the faster bikes..and once you're mounted and on track riding in the wet really isn't so bad and more recently my wet riding confidence has had a massive boost from the remarkable Continental Race Attack tyres that I'm really getting on well with..so much so that I was the only MotoE bike that elected to go out for the morning warm up at 9am... there's nothing quite like having a racetrack to yourself.. :) I had a jolly nice ride round and re-familiarised my self with the Cadwell layout which I know quite well having ridden here so often..

Afternoon qualifying was dry and sunny and went very well, I was several seconds faster than my team mates and I think going out for the tentative wet warm up in the morning enabled me to go out with full confidence in the afternoon dry conditions..Unfortunately for my team mates one of the reasons I was so much faster is that the returning rider Ho Chi Fung took a bit of a risk early on in the session and wiped out his team mate Chun kay Kwok who crashed heavily along with one of the Ducatis we were out with and broke his collarbone putting him out of action for a couple of weeks at least... The bike wasn't too heavily damaged and the Zongshen team swarmed around the bike and it was repaired in no time flat..

For the first 'sprint' race for which conditions were perfect I was instructed to occupy grid position 4 despite qualifying in 2nd the previous day..which was slightly confusing.. however with only 5 bikes on the grid and my bike being by far the slowest away it didn't really matter where I started from the end result would be the same.. I would be the last into the first corner..I set about making up what I could in the corners.. I shadowed the Brammo for the first lap and narrowly missed running into Max Simmons as he accidentally 'chinned' the emergency stop and then looked ahead to see if I could gain any time on Ho Chi Fung as he rode the second factory Zonngshen that had recently been vacated by Chun Kay Kwok...that didn't look like it was likely as although I was running with the little satellite Zonngshen 'turned up' a little bit it still wasn't a match for the factory bike who was pulling a mighty lead early on...that didn't last long though, as I entered Coppice I saw the tell-tale scrape lines from the gel-coat fairing that indicated Ho Chi Fung had slid off as he tipped in for Charlie's 'in'. I accepted the place with good grace and got my head down to try and catch the Agni bike which was performing very well.. as the race developed and the gaps between us began to grow I noticed the Nottingham bike with Daley Matheson on board stationary at the side of the track on Park Straight. This elevated me to second place and the Agni which was now beyond reach to first place I started to gain on the Agni as he reduced his pace to improve his chances of finishing..a smart move from a very accomplished young rider who increased his pace again as he saw me gaining ground...

The second longer 'endurance' race was less eventful, we lost Daley with a bike issue on the warm up lap and Ho Chi Fung stayed mounted this time to chase down and pass the Agni bike for the well deserved win. I had to watch again as both the Agni and Zongshen factory bike gained over half a lap on me to battle for the lead leaving me to mop up the final place for third,.

With all the various crashes and machine issues this weekend my consistency and the reliability of the lower performance Zongshen remarkably sees me leave Cadwell this weekend leading the championship by 10 points.. an unexpected treat for sure but you do have to be 'in it to win it' as they say and without the commitment of Darvill Racing's Alex Aitchison and Insight 2 Value as sponsors we wouldn't be able to capitalise on these small victories..


I'm looking forward to Pembrey and to seeing if there is any explanation to why my bike has such a performance deficit...

MotoE: Round 2, Anglesey circuit.

I watched bemused from the banking as rain was forced down the back of of my navy cagoule by a bracing wind... So this is, 'camping'...My Mum was sitting where the orange and floral blue frame tent used to be with blood pouring from and open wound on her finger and Dad was hanging in the air from the corner of the same frame tent as it whipped and thrashed him about in the wind like terrier with a rabbit...It sounded different when they explained it to me when the family holiday was explained. Before we set off in our Cortina Estate with the hot black vinyl seats Anglesey sounded to me, the seven year old me at least, like a paradise of sand and sea, rubber dingies and barnstormer kites....

Anglesey hasn't changed very much...not as much as I 'd expected it to in 35 years but its closer to that paradise now..Because now it has a race track...perched on a hill in that bracing wind watching the sea as it taunts it from the beaches below...It's not the wind blown desolation you'd expect in that location either, it nice, really nice ...a smooth tarmac paddock, pit garages, club and national layout's, 'facilities' and camping...but this time, anchored to that Welsh rock with sandbags and water weights, this time, its a ''team name adorned' race awning...not a '70s frame tent.. :)

It's time to go racing again;

Alex, 'the Boss' of Darvill racing had arrived during the day on Friday and set the team awning up next to our partners for this MotoE series, 'Zongshen racing' from China. We're using their 'number three' satellite bike and as such enjoy their extremely efficient services in prepping and making changes to the bike. (if not the performance of the factory bikes)...The weather was perfect and the North Glos' club welcomed us into their midst with enthusiasm...The format for this weekend was more familiar than the Nurburgring set-up; A morning warm-up had me as fastest Chinese bike followed by an afternoon qualifying session. which ended with me as second fastest Chinese bike, 4th overall as the Number 1 bike of Chun Kay Kwok (real name!) found 4 seconds after morning warm up to take 3rd spot, Chris Purdie on the Siaetta Agni with the inimitable Daley 'Daisy' Matheson taking top honours, as he would all weekend on the University of Nottingham's high powered monster.

I'd asked for changes before qualifying that improved my lap times, they were pretty conservative so for the first race on Sunday I asked for even lower gearing and another click of rebound damping to clam the slightly wallowy feel in the middle of the long corners. I didn't want to overdo the suspension changes as the soft rear Continental slick was starting to wear out and it may have been covering an issue I couldn't feel as the grip reduced..I had to make it last the weekend...Which unfortunately means we're at a disadvantage to those on an 'unlimited' tyre contract from Michelin. High corner speeds and worn out tyres can be a recipe for disaster but I was getting massive confidence from these tyres...the warnings were gradual and progressive giving me plenty of time to rescue any slides...

Race 1, the morning 'sprint race' was superb...Zongshen had made the changes I'd asked for and the bike felt good...Despite the gearing changes it was still a slow get away for me and I got balked behind the fast starting Graeme Smith on the Brammo street bike...with a six speed gearbox and sit-up handlebars it's a pretty wide old bus to get around and Graeme was holding the fast line, It wasn't until the fast back straight that I managed to slipstream Graeme and squeeze past into the up hill hairpin. A lap of extremely 'spirited riding' had me find the limit of the wearing Conti's and I hooked onto the back of a 3 bike battle for third, me and the other two Zongshen bikes..We diced heavily for 3 laps, I knocked nearly 4 seconds off my qualifying time, but as my lack of power began to over come the gains made by the magic adrenaline kick, the tyres joined in and although I was able to stay in front of the the number 6 Zongshen piloted by Nelson Choi I had to watch as Chun Kay Kwok seemed to find his groove and chase down the second place bike ridden by Chris Purdie..

                

I was over the moon that I was able to mix it with the other guys for a few laps if a little frustrated that I didn't have the performance to join the scrap for second...

Race 2, the second longer race was my chance to manage my available power and perhaps use the more frugal set-up to enable my race-long pace to be higher and perhaps out-fox the others if they got distracted in another battle...It's usual to turn the performance down for the longer race to prevent over-keen riders forgetting the need to conserve power for a longer race but I asked Zongsen to leave the performance the same and let me try to manage the output for the long game...This request was either ignored or lost in translation as it was immediately clear as we left the line that my performance was much reduced from race one. not only that but in an effort to ensure the Agni bike was pushed off the podium the performance of the tiny number 6 bike with half the weight and only one motor (to the other's two) was turned right up which had the unwanted effect of burning the motor out, gifting me a position but preventing me from fighting for that 2nd or 3rd podium spot..Frustrating to say the least!

The next race is Cadwell, familiar territory for me but no camping stories :) ... lets see if I can 'influence' some changes in my favour, a podium is possible with the right motor management but with the return from injury of last year's championship winner, Ho Chi Fung I'm not sure where I might stand in the overall Zongshen plan...Hopefully I'll have my boy Bobby with me again he's very motivating to have around and I always feel better when he's with me..

Huge thanks again to our friends at I2V and our sponsors every little helps...

Darvill Racing, Round one of the MotoE Championships at the Nurburgring.

The 'out of scope' excursion the Southern 100 last month was welcome prelude to the impending MotoE championships..Its been a long wait but it had finally arrived...

With the sad demise of Hotrax some of the MotoE championship rounds lost a host and the series promoter faced a massive task at the eleventh hour to replace the rounds that were originally to be run with with them. The first round originally scheduled to be run at Schleiz with the IDM championships was also lost due to issues again with the host. Happily the MotoE promoter was able to reschedule a round at the Nurburgring, split over the weekend with a GT car race on the historic Nordschleife and the Dortmunder Motorsport club using the GP circuit.. complicated but guess what? We still get to race motorbikes! :)

More than ever we have to manage an excruciatingly tight budget this year but with Insight 2 Value stepping up with a round by round package as our headline sponsor for the series we could just about manage a drive down to Germany with 2 team members (me and the indomitable Liz 'Half Pint' Warden) unfortunately leaving the the very twitchy boss Alex Aitchison back at home like a pacing, expectant father.. When we arrived at the historic Nurburgring it was clear that wasn't going to be anywhere we could pitch a tent so the contents of the car were squeezed over and that became the accomodation.. :)

Factory accommodation!

This year we're riding the Zongshen DC motor prototype (satellite bike) with support from Zongshen themselves..Unfortunately it's not the fire-breathing AC motor bike as that is staying in China this year on demo duty being the world championship winning machine from last year.

Zongshen satellite bike

After Sticker-ing up the bike with our own sponsor's decals we were ready to roll for the guided sighting laps. These were guided (marshal car in front and behind) as there had been GT cars racing all day on the circuit and it was very dirty and the circuit weren't comfortable letting us out at full speed without it being swept first so we had guided sighting laps due to the amount of time it takes to sweep the full circuit. the fact that the circuit we were using was only half of the circuit we'd be racing on tomorrow didn't seem to compute with the organisers but we were at least able to shake-down and test the bikes...Which just happened to be full speed for me.. ;)

Sunday's race day was a hot day and we were sharing the venue with The Dortmunder Motorsport Club who were running a 'tag' endurance race and a few lightweight club races..Which gave us plenty of time to recharge the bikes between the first 'sprint' race and the second longer race.

Qualifying sheet

Qualifying in the morning on the full 5.2km GP circuit was a short session and I put the little Zongshen number three bike on the front row in third place, fastest of the three Zongshen bikes racing this weekend..A suprise to me... (and the rest of the team I think..) I noticed that the pick-up of the motor was slow but had good 'top-end' speed so I asked for shorter gearing and 'Eddie' (not his real name I think) the Chinese team's crew chief suspected a 'reluctant' controller so he changed it for one from the spare bike. And I was confident of a good result in the first race.

I fluffed the start but managed to get away right on the tail of the other two Zongshen bikes. The University of Nottingham 'ground up' prototype shot off like a stabbed rat, piloted by Daley 'Daisy' Matheson, a newcomer to MotoE and probable legend-in-the-making..Followed closely by Mark Miller on the Vercarmoto Yamaha R6 based prototype..It was apparent immediately that the changes we made didn't have a positive effect and I watched helplessly as all the other bikes pulled away from me..Unfortunately the incredibly engineered prototypes from Vercarmoto and University of Nottingham had mechanical issues on the first lap and had to retire leaving the three Zongshen bikes to duke it out for he podium slots..I took some ridiculous risks to reel in the other two which worked initially and helped massively by the soft sticky Continental slicks but the performance of the number three bike was clearly 'going off' and I had to settle for the bottom step as I watched the battle for the lead develop and leave me behind..The race sheets from race one showed my lap times a rather chunky 4 seconds off my qualifying times but the number one Zongshen bike 4 seconds faster than it's qualifying time...curiouser and curiouser.. ;)

Sticky-icky Ooohwee!

I fed back the information on wattage and temperature for each motor during the race and suggested a few changes to mitigate for the apparent deficit...Eddie took the decision to check the carbon brushes on the right hand motor (from my feedback) and change some of them for new ones...Ready for race two! 

There was a vast improvement in the performance and I got away slightly ahead of the other two Zongshens but frustratingly watched as they both out accelerated me into the first turn.. The improved performance meant that I could stay with the other two Zongshen bikes as the much faster Nottingham prototype disappeared into the distance..We diced hard for the P2 for two laps with proper multi-line attacks from all three riders using as much of the fabulous Nururgring GP curves and inclines as we could and a little more...later I checked my times and those early laps were on a par with my qualifying times..however as the race developed my right hannd motor began to heat up and loose wattage and the upper battery pack began to overheat...I had to slow slightly to manage the temperature differential and hope that the longer race would give me chance to reel in the the others if they overdid their energy use... Unfortunately (for me!) both riders professionally managed the dice and energy consumption and were able to maintain their podium positions..

I'm spectacularly happy with how the bike handles (based on a GP 250) and only a little frustrated with my management of the challenges of electric racing but we did get on the podium and we did get to taste the champagne! And I'm head over heals in love with the Nurburgring... Bring on round 2 in Anglesey! (15th and 16th Aug 2015)

Gallery of the Nurburgring weekend...

Darvill Racing at the 2015 Southern 100

This is another one of those Blogs that start in an all too familiar way that seems so fashionable amongst my contemporary's at the moment: 'It's been quite some time since I last raced a motorbike'....

Well, it has...It's been over 9 months since I rode a motorbike at all in fact. If you don't count the 20 or so laps I did on the Agni bike in the final rounds of the MotoE last year then it;s more like a year...So there you go Racer's Excuse No1 out of the way early doors.. :)

Part of the reason for this late start to the season is that sponsorship is getting trickier to find and the attitude of the old guard is still reticent when it comes to including electric racing in a full race day programme, however we kept at  it and as well as our usual supporting partners (Darvill Racing partners and sponsors) Insight 2 Value (I2V)  came up with an enhanced package which allowed us to commit to the 2015 MotoE championship and squeeze in one of the major road events on the Isle of Man; The Southen 100. I wasn't supposed to be taking up any racing duties for Darvill until MotoE 2015 starts in the first weekend of August so I was very surprised when the The Boss, Alex, called me to say that one of our riders had had to cancell his Southern 100 entry at the last minute..(2 days prior) and, 'would you be able t.....'

"YES! Err, that is, yes of course, I'll see what I can can do" :)

So, in time-honoured tradition I juggled work and family commitments and handed over a chest full of doubloons to the Seam Pirates...

Good news: Going road (real) racing again! First closed roads race since 2009, that's 6 years!
Bad news: It's absolutely hammering down.

Strong winds and heavy rain mean that the Southern 100 club had a pretty challenging few days ahead trying to fit in a full schedule including, newcomers, and this is all the more challenging these days given the very limited road closure orders they're awarded, due to local pressures.

As a newcomer, (yes you read right, a newcomer) to the circuit I was scheduled to have two sighting laps behind travelling marshals followed by a practice sessions on day one (of four) followed by further newcomer sighting laps on day two prior to a qualifying session.. The conditions obliterated this schedule which meant I had the two rather sedate sighting laps in wet conditions then no other sessions until qualifying the next day. Even as a newcomer, qualifying cut-off was at 120% of the leading time, which  was already a big ask for us with a 30bhp deficit to the leading machines but with no practice and heavy rain I was a bit unsure if this was going to be a short meeting for me...and as if it wasn't a tall enough order we didn't have any wet tyres... Continental don't make a wet tyre in the MinTwin sizes so I was out on the Race Attack 2 a dry weather race tyre...


With nerves jangling I took my place on the dummy grid noticing that that the Supertwins and other (supposed) MiniTwins were all wearing full wet tyres...so that didn't help my nerves much! We were waved away (Video:Wet Qualifying front facing) As you can see the conditions were awful but I was pretty confident in the Continental race Attack 2s and got stuck in learning the circuit. I was pretty relieved to get round in one piece but felt a bit more confident in which way the track went and actually really enjoyed it...I cant say enough about how good those dry tyres are in the wet..they absolutely brilliant!

To my surprise we qualified! I think the wet conditions worked to our advantage in the end but according to some of the spectators Ivan Lintin and James Cowton's times weren't an awful lot slower than their dry times! With that in mind we looked forward to the next day's race..which was forecast to be dry and warm.... :)

Video:First race front facing As you'll see we were fighting an uphill battle against the more powerful Supertwins which was as we expected but we also seemed to be giving away quite a bit of speed to the other 'MiniTwins' too, which we weren't...I did manage to have a nice little battle on the last lap with another MiniTwin newcomer which was immense fun and dialled me back in to some proper racing...

Video:Second race front facing. Unfortunately at the end of the first lap the rose-joint on the gear linkage started to jam. As I rolled down towards pit lane ready to retire I gave the linkage a firm kick and it loosened again allowing me to rejoin..(post race investigation shows the joint has worn and was over rotating causing it to jam.) Unfortunately this meant I was out on my own with no-one to race with but at least that meant I could concentrate on lines and learning the course. I started to go faster into the turns and carry more speed through them as my braking points and turn in points improve.. another small issue we had to work round due to standing in for another rider we were working with a different set-up. My great pal Keef  McKay had been riding and setting the bike up around this course but he is 95kilos of Scottish cow pie and I'm a scrawny 72kilo drink of water..The bike was a little over sprung for me so I was finding it a bit of a bone shaker through the more bumpy sections...I was expecting to have much better lap times in this race particularly on the last lap after the leader passed me as it gave an (albeit brief) marker to chase...I was hoping to get clsoer to the 90mph lap on the MiniTwin which I would have been really happy with... However despite feeling faster my speeds were actually down on the first race's times...It's possible that the continuing issues with the linkage throughout the race may have contributed but we also noticed when cleaning the bike after racing that there was a weep from the base gasket so it's also possible that we may have been even a little bit more down on power than we thought...

All-in a really enjoyable few days racing and a welcome surprise to the start of my season..I'm really looking forward to the start of the MotoE season next month where we'll be campaigning one of the Zongshen DC motor'd bikes... :)