Ryvid Inc. is a fresh face in the motorcycling world, and it wants to hit the ground with its wheels turning. The company just announced its first motorcycle, and aims to bring some aviation tech and thoughtful ideas into the space for a surprisingly reasonable price.
You’ll notice that something is different about the Anthem the first moment that you lay your eyes on it. There’s little bodywork; the bike’s frame is exposed. There’s no typical tube frame here. Instead, the Ryvid team designed a structure that utilizes bent aluminum and stainless steel sheets.
Ryvid says that the advantage here is two-fold (pun intended). First, the bones won’t rust. And second, the frame weighs just 12 pounds bare. I’m always a fan of a motorcycle that uses its frame as a visual element, and this delivers. It also doesn’t have a false tank, even if the shape just aft of the handlebars is similar to what you’d expect from a typical motorcycle tank. Everything else is slim and minimal. It looks like it just rolled out of the production lot for a sci-fi film. Let’s get into why I love this motorcycle.
The big box just behind the front wheel is the battery. It’s a 4.3 kWh unit that when paired to the swingarm-mounted motor provides a range of around 75 miles in Eco mode or around 50 miles in Sport mode. What I like here is that the battery weighs 65 pounds and detaches from the motorcycle. You can then use its wheels to get it into your apartment, like a suitcase. Charging takes 3 hours on a 220V outlet or 6 hours on a 110V. And when it’s time to get it back into the motorcycle, it leverages the motorcycle itself to get back into position so you don’t have to lift it.
The other thing that I really love about the Anthem is its seat. It has an electric actuator in it that gives the cushion an adjustment range of four inches. It can be altered on the fly to be as low as 30 inches or as high as 34. That means that someone without a lot of leg like me can ride it comfortably, but so could a tall person. Many motorcycles have a physical seat adjustment, but it’s sometimes not enough. Riders of different sizes are sometimes left having to modify their bike’s suspension or having to buy a custom seat. I’ve even seen some folks get drastic with custom fabrication. While 30 inches is still too high for some people, being able to have four inches of range without having to buy aftermarket parts and without having to physically adjust something is awesome.
And that’s not all of the Ryvid’s tricks. It also has multiple mounting points for its suspension and head tube. In theory, this means that you could have something more cruise-friendly one day, then have a canyon carver the next. That’s complemented with that swingarm-mounted motor. Ryvid doesn’t provide a horsepower rating, but it produces 53 lb-ft torque and delivers it through a belt and a 4.7:1 final drive.
Top speed is around 75 mph. Other features include LED lighting, a keyless starting function, a digital instrument cluster, and a lock for the battery.
You get all of that in a package weighing in at 240 pounds total. Ryvid isn’t trying to have the fastest EV motorcycle on the block, but something that you or me could buy and keep on the road. And to help this become a reality, the company is packed with automotive and aviation engineers. Ryvid announced the price to be $7,800 with deliveries expected next year. There will be a Launch Edition, limited to just 1,000 units. Sales begin August 14th, 2022.
The specs, price, and aesthetic puts it in competition with the Sondors Metacycle. That little bike was advertised as being able to go 80 mph and hit a range of around 80 miles for an initial price of $5,000. Deliveries on the Metacycle were supposed to start more than six months ago, but continued delays mean that riders still don’t have them yet. Hopefully, Ryvid is able to put its design into production because it’s really neat. It may not change the game, but something like this has the opportunity to make riding more accessible to more people, and that’s always great. That said, my old Zero XU is light with a delightfully low seat. I’d love to find a way to shoehorn a higher capacity battery into it. The problem, as has been mentioned before in other publications, is that energy dense battery packs can and will burn or explode if they become defective. So, putting the battery next to your living room couch on an extension cord might not be the best way to do it. Currently, I have a lithium battery pack “generator” in my living room and the thought of it failing in some manner has crossed my mind more than once. I’m not an expert on fire, but the risk I saw is that a phone catching on fire would easily catch clothes, carpet, furniture or other stuff on fire. I would imagine that the fire produced by a chunky battery would be even worse. Growing up, a number of my friends lost everything to house fires. A couple of friends had to start over more than once because of house fires. The thought stuck around and today I do some things that I hope never would have to come into use. Some of my most important items (titles and keys) are in a fire resistant safe within easy reach. It’s near a fire extinguisher, a bucket, and a small cage that I can use to get my cute birds into if I need to. Keeping fire extinguishers around did have a practical benefit when one of my Gambler cars caught fire last year. The fire was able to be put out rather than allowed to spread. I also had one where I was removing a battery for a friend (who was watching), and as I took the battery out of the phone and tossed it to the side for effect and it burst into flames in the air. Was quite impressive. Too many electric motorcycles are small and sleek. Barely more than a large bicycle. But they have to stay on roads, even when it’s rather hazardous… For that, I want something like a Livewire that shows a little bulk, to be more visible in traffic, and more stable in crosswinds and in the wash when a semi passes. But I don’t want to pay anywhere near $30,000 for it. I would not want to commute to work on the highway (no place to charge once there), though for a restaurant run, going to gym, and things like that it can work. My main reason for not looking at Motorcycle is I am the combine trips type. Go to dump, gym, shopping, etc and will pick up quite a few items. I do not hate the concept, it would just have to be dedicated trip or ones that do not require cargo capacity. That is why the Slingshot interests me. Maybe an EV version? That would fit the bill. Also, how much can this tow? If I can’t tow a houseboat (that I don’t and never will own), this won’t do. I calculated a maximum acceleration of 0.55g Given the above parameters a 0-60mph time of just over 5 seconds could be expected. The beauty of an electric motor is that the torque is nearly constant across the RPM range. Wait… Speaking of weight. I like light weight commuters, so this slides in nicely at under 300lbs, so I am intrigued. Also, keep in mind that weight has little to do with highway energy consumption (gas or electrons). At 70mph, your mostly using energy to overcome drag. While a motorcyclist has very little frontal area, their coefficient of drag is abysmal compared to a car. So a car might weigh 20 times more than a motorcycle, but it’s not dealing with 20X the drag at highway speed. 2. This is a problem with many small displacement bikes, sadly. When your bike weighs so little someone can just carry off with it. Some people install brake locks, chains through the wheels, chains through the frame, ground anchors, and other measures. Of course, none of those will stop a determined thief, just slow them down. 3. They do not! And yeah, I’ve ridden a few motorcycles where the previous owner did a shoddy repair or modification and it greatly impacted how the motorcycles rode. 4. Electric motorcycles do beat cars with efficiency, but remember that they have absolutely tiny batteries even compared to a humble Chevy Bolt. But now that you say this, I wonder what a motorcycle could do with a Tesla battery. lol I’m very curious to see this operation in action.
