TTxGP: world's first e-bike grand prix race report

The Kingston University team's bike, ridden by George Spence, suffered a terminal motor failure after around six miles. The team told us this week that the reason for the failure remains a mystery, but they expect a full bike post mortem to reveal all.

Kingston's e-bike would fail to finish

The nine eventual finishers were led home by Rob Barber on the Team Agni machine, which had also been the fastest bike through qualifying.

Barber finished the single lap race in 25:53:50 and at an average speed of 87.434mph.

Second place Thomas Schoenfelder clocked the fast time through the Sulby speed trap of 106.5mph and was the only rider to officially exceed 100mph.

To put that into context, before his 1000cc Honda gave up the ghost on lap four of the Senior TT race, John McGuinness was putting in lap times of just over seventeen minutes and covering the course at an average speed of around 130mph.

Victor: Team Agni's Rob Barber heads to the finish line

Following his victory, Barber paid tribute to Cedric Lynch whose unique electric motors powered the winning bike. “I’m really pleased for Cedric,” said Barber. “He really wanted to beat the 50cc record and we’ve done it.”

It's worth pointing out that the 50cc TT record average lap speed of 85.66mph was set in 1966 - 43 years ago.