John McGuinness rides the electric future

Jump onboard with John McGuinness as he heads from the start line on his Shinden Ni / Mugen electric motorcycle in the TT Zero race. One wonders whether Honda would have announced that it is actually a Honda if McGuinness had taken the win. There's certainly plenty of Honda money behind the bike.

The way I see it, the people behind electric motorcycles started shouting about them way too early, when they had the equivalent of a 486sx PC with 64MB of RAM and a 500MB hard drive. The capability of electric motorcycles has developed with the same ferocious pace as PCs and now some electric motorcycles are offering petrol-rivalling performance. We're not quite there yet but this video onboard with McGuinness proves to me that one day soon, you'll know someone who 'goes electric' and still manages to have as much fun as his petrol-powered mates on a Sunday ride.

It is eerily quiet though. What do you think?

By Ben Cope