About 2 weeks ago I had the pleasure to shoot a truely unique bike – An electric bike based on a Ducati Scrambler Cafe Racer. Yes a 100% electric bike – like a Tesla but on 2 wheels. A while ago I also had the privilege to actually test this machine. It is fast and I mean FAST! On top of that it speeds up without any engine sound or by combusting high octane fuel. All you can hear is the wind in your helmet. Top speed is around 140 km/h (for now) and it gets to that speed linear. The look of the bike is true to the cafe racer type bikes – some like it, some don’t but I love it. The range is about 100 km and charging can be done through any normal household plug. Obviously it will charge a lot faster when plugging it into a Tesla “refuelling” station but those are not always at hand when you need one. The bike is – as I said – truly unique. So far there is just one bike of its kind on the planet. The man behind this bike is Mr. Apichat Leenutaphong, the owner and Managing Director of Ducati Thailand. He is a true visionary and beside being very busy with managing Ducati Thailand he is also CEO and driving force behind Share Novation. Share Novation is a new company in Thailand, that sets its goal to replace engines of petrol powered vehicles with electric drives. Recently they signed a contract to become Tesla’s service agent in Thailand. Besides cars and motorbikes they are working on Tractors, electric go-karts and speedboats. Please let me tell you a bit about the shoot though: All in all we did 3 days of shooting – starting with a more urban approach and shooting the bike on Bangkok streets. If you know the streets of Bangkok you will know that this is a challenge in itself. Traffic in the Thai metropole is one of the worst I have encountered around the globe. It is so bad that people actually order their dinner into their cars while being stuck in traffic (obviously delivered by a bike courier). So the challenge is where to find an empty road in Bangkok? The answer – shoot on Saturday morning 3am. That is the time when most of the clubbers are already home and no work traffic on the weekend. We got a few hours of fairly empty roads to get the first set of images done. Since I wanted to capture the speed of the bike I shot it from a back of a pick up truck while doing 50-60km/h. We ended the first day with some shots in front of the royal palace in Bangkok – to emphasis that the bike was developed in Thailand. The second day we started at the garage where I had the chance to meet the technician behind the bike. The entire bike can be diagnosed through either a laptop, tablet or even a smartphone. After some shots at the garage it was off to the race track. I concentrated to capture the speed again but this time on a track that is actually made to drive fast. The last day we set off to Khao Yai National Park. Khao Yai is usually known for its elephants and lush green vegetation, but on that day wherever we stopped with the bike, it got all the attention – like a true celebrity. To shoot those images I needed a bit of a crew though. My thanks go out to Khun Lek – who drove the bike wherever I wanted to photograph it and never got tired of doing an extra round. The lovely people at Ducati for providing transportation and location support and last but not least to my friend Paul who assisted me on the shoot and lending me his tele converter to get the extra millimetre of focal length I needed.
