The Silver Dwarf project

The project with an electrical motorcycle had been around for some times in the head of Glenn. Then we saw the truly amazing film "The World's Fastest Indian" and the thought went into action. We read about the NEDRA organization and the World record holders within EVs (Electrical Vehicles). This was winter '07/08.

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Our first idea was to build something as light as possible and try to beat the 24 V record (MT/J) class under the NEDRA organization, the current record at the time was 13,3 sec on 1/8-mile. The Silver Dwarf bike was born.

This was going to be a low/no-budget thing. We took wheels, front fork, breaks and other parts from old scooters and the electrical motor came of an old 1966 Mercedes (starter motor from a diesel engine). A chassis of 3 mm aluminium plate acting as both frame and battery holder was made as well as the home made controller. The first batteries and a lot of other stuff came from the local metal scrap yard, Bagsvaerd Jernhandel.

The first tests of the Silver Dwarf in spring 2008 gave us times in the range of 14-15 seconds, so we knew we had to do something to get faster.
First we changed the gearing a lot around to find the optimum ratio as well as data logging all runs to keep track on all parameters (speed, volts and amps). It was clearly we couldn't beat the record alone by this setup, so we aimed for some better and lighter batteries at Enersys/Danbat who became our first real sponsor - also the companies Varup Teknik and ACV started to help us out as sponsors with various parts.
We soon received 4 pcs Odyssey PC680 batteries and the first runs showed times around 13-13,5 sec times - we now had the World record within our reach, just needed to set the time on a proper race track...

Well, so we thought, but in the meantime the old record had been broken down to only 10,95 sec by the Orange Crush. What should we do now? Give up?
Hell no, we took it a bit further: A pneumatic activated 2-stage gearbox was made and a search for a lighter rider began. In July 2008 the gearbox was ready and the 1/8-mile time with Hans (85 kg total) was dropped to 12,5 secs, already below the old record. Top speed was approx. 100 km/h after 3-400 metres of running.

In mid-august we had Marcus (Danish National Junior Dragbike Champion) to ride the Silver Dwarf and he achieved an all best time of 11.430 secs for the 1/8-mile with a speed of 87 km/h. The time was set at MECA Raceway placed in Malmoe, Sweden.

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Later in august we were invited to run at the Mosten Race Day and later on we also participated in the 1st Annual Scandinavian Custom Show where we managed to get Danish TV2 to make a short clip with another EV, a converted Nimbus motorcycle which was the first to get approved and registered in Denmark. It was built by Glenn and its owner Axel.

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Unfortunately it was no record this time but we have had a lot of fun during the entire project. And the attention we received from the public and the meeting with all kinds of people was worth it all anyway.
So we thought: Why not build something a bit faster, the name Silver Giant was so obvious - we simply had to move on…

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