Victory Motorcycles Surprises With New Electric Bike For TT Zero Race

Last we heard – in a reply Tweet from its PR account last month – the Minnesota-based company was limiting its battery-powered racing to Pikes Peak this year.

Christened the Victory RR, this new bike is the best kind of surprise. Developed and built by its strategic partner Brammo, the bike moves away from the extruded aluminum, twin-spar chassis of previous designs in favor of a steel trellis set up. Inside that cage sits a freshly designed battery pack that takes advantage of the latest lithium cells to hold more energy than previous boxes. The exact number of kilowatt-hours (kWhs) is, of course, a closely-guarded secret.

As with previous machines, Brammo turned to Parker Hannifin for its power source. Just eight inches in diameter and five inches long, the AC motor is said to be good for 170 horsepower and 177 pound-feet of torque, while boasting a peak efficiency in excess of 97 percent. Yowsa!

With the whole package lovingly wrapped in a matte black carbon-fiber cloak, it's a dark horse that on paper makes it a serious contender for the top step of the TT Zero podium. Last year, in its first appearance, Victory played spoiler to Sarolea taking third and forth place behind the twin Mugen machines. For 2016, it will put all its eggs in one Victory RR package, while it sends a single 2015 Empulse RR to Colorado to chase the 10:00.694 electric motorcycle record set by Lightning Motorcycles in 2013.

Given that this bike has been in development for at least a year, and that the motorcycle manufacturer had so recently denied participation in the 2016 TT Zero, we see this announcement as evidence of a further commitment from Victory to work with Brammo on new product, and to promote those efforts on an international stage. Victory currently offers the Empulse TT, a revised version of the Brammo Empulse, for retail sale, but we expect to see more models in the future that take advantage of the collaboration between the two firms.