When the we started in 2016 there were a few hurdles to overcome; a severe shortage in any funding and a few puffy battery packs being just some of the major issues.
We started the year with just 5 final years of entirely Mechanical backgrounds; some serious recruitment and funding pleas were top of the agenda. We quickly recruited some fantastic team members of various disciplines to help us with our knowledge shortage, and got in contact with Rich Llewellyn from Louigi Moto to help us with parts and experience. Rich let us raid his garage, quite literally, where we came away with a frame, wheels, forks, and even the fairings that were used as the mould for the body for years to come (thank you Steve!).
The TT
The lead up to the TT was rough. We were short on manpower, resources and money at every corner, and every hurdle we came across added to the sleepless nights. In the week leading to the TT the team averaged a few hours sleep a night and did not get the wheel turning until landing on the island. One of the highlights landing on the Isle of Man was noticing that someone was tinkering around in our van, where the bike was, while we were distracted with a couple of welcome drinks. When we went to give the person inside a good ticking off we discovered Bruce Anstey in the back!
The race week was wet, the one practice we were ready for poor Matthew Rees got a quarter of the way round before the auxiliary pack gave up on us… This was later replaced with a lead acid battery, one of several slightly band-aid solutions! The Electric Bike Gods were with us for the final race and we managed to complete the lap – there were tears and a lot of champagne.
Conclusion
The rest of the summer races were excellent fun, especially sharing tents and resources with Nottingham and Team El Pollo Loco. We won some races, lost some races, set up the Battery Hospital and came away with a second place MotoE trophy. Most importantly, we established Bath Zero as a serious race team within the University and paved way for more funding and resources for the following years.
Read More
You can read more about Bath Zero at the 2017 MotoE Championship here:
-Nadia Domanski