VA Tech BOLT team making progress on GP Class bike for the 2013 TTXGP season

The 2012 North America TTXGP season saw the entry of the Virginia Tech BOLT team, a student team supported in part by Kollmorgen who supplied the motor and controller.  The team showed an impressive performance for their first season, with a bike that performed well in its class, and a great physical presence in the paddock.  While they were completely outclassed by the likes of Brammo and Lightning, they weren’t attempting to compete directly with those teams anyway.  In July, the team announced their intention to develop a “GP Class bike” for the 2013 season.  Recent activity on the teams Facebook page indicates those plans are well underway.

First, in late October they posted this picture

“Look what Pat found. Thanks to Go Race for all of their help. Now the real work begins.”

Unless I’m missing something this looks like there isn’t a seat.  They’re engineering students, presumably they already figured this out (grin).

Then in late November, this picture showing a team-member scanning the stripped frame to generate a 3D CAD model of the bike.

“Scanning in the bike.”

Then on December 6, this picture shows the CAD model:-

“Thanks to Matrix CAD Design we’ve got a very accurate model to work with this year: http://carscan3d.com/“

Then this week they posted: “Batteries coming in Friday. Now we get to start building.“

Follow the team at: http://www.facebook.com/VTBOLT