While RGNT aims to break the ice speed record for electric motorcycles, the TOP 1 Ack Attack rocket bike will attempt to break the 400mph barrier for the one on land. Parallel worlds but in which the same passion burns
February 23, 2023
Curious at times the coincidences with which the news can cross under our gaze or the table of an editorial staff. Just as we were reading about a speed record attempt another one pops up. So equal in passion and intent, as romantic as only the pursuit of a speed record on two wheels can be, yet so far apart that they are literally two parallel worlds. What are we talking about? Of a small electric motorbike inspired by the styles of the past and of a large “endothermic” motorbike which instead looks like a missile from the future. About a small Swedish company and an expensive American project. Satan and holy water. Of course everyone can then choose who is one and who is the other…
The Aurora of the frozen lake
RGNT is a Swedish startup that immediately attracted attention with its own n.1 Classic SE, a compact electric motorbike, with city performance but above all with a design inspired by the Sixties. A modified version of the same, rebranded Aurora projectand led by its own engineer Timmy Eriksson will compete this weekend at the SMA Svenska Motorsport Speed Weekend, which takes place on a frozen lake. Here the engineer Eriksson and his little Aurora will try to set the ice speed record for an electric motorcycle, a specialty so niche that it would not surprise us to discover that it is the first attempt ever. However, the idea came from a small team of RGNT employees who started preparing a bike on the weekends and as it got closer to the debut it infected the whole company with enthusiasm. Thus the invention of the speed record soon became a mission for all forty employees of RGNT who, gathered on the shores of Lake Arsunda with the whole family, will cheer and party this weekend in any case.
The Salt Lake Missile
The team is instead working at a completely different latitude, temperature and with completely different investments Ack Attack which next August will try again to beat its previous record of 605.698 km/h fixed way back in 2010 with specialist Rocky Robinson. The 2017 attempt was unsuccessful, but the tycoon Mike Akatiff owner of Ack Technologies he’s not going to give up or let someone else take the motorcycle land speed record from him. And on the Uyuni salt lake in Bolivia, 3,600 meters above sea level, it will try to be the first bike in history to break through the 400 miles per hour (643.740 km/h) barrier! Certainly calling it a motorcycle is a bit difficult as it is a real rocket and not only in the sense of the aerodynamic shape which is also the ballistic one, but of the propulsion. To find out how it will end we will have to wait for next August, the result will certainly be amazing.
And what does this coincidence tell us? Whether it’s electric or petrol, the passion that binds us feeds on the same spirit romantic to embrace a mechanical horse capable of pushing us a little beyond our limits whether they are of more or less absurd speed, as in these cases, or of kilometers travelled, countries visited, new friends met. And when we read these stories we are once more certain that electrons or petrol in the end our passion will always remain the same.
rgnt aurora under construction
