Charging West

China to Italy on electric motorcycles- is it possible?

- Flavio Allegretti

In 2013, a team from Italy set a new world record by riding two Zero FXs from Shanghai to Milan (over 13,000km) in 44 days. They had back-up, with spare batteries and mobile generators to enable an average 175 miles a day through remote areas. Nicola Colombo and Valerio Fumigalli were the riders, and what follows are extracts from the blog written by Flavio Allegretti, a member of their support team.

DAY 1 – CHINA

Going to sleep at 2am and waking up at 4am is not so easy, especially if you are leaving on the first 700km section of a big trip. We wake up on time and ride really carefully, because the roads from Shanghai, even though the sun had still not risen, are already very busy. Local drivers ignore traffic lights regardless of colour because for them green, yellow or red have the same meaning. The riders say the bikes are comfortable and we use an intercom to keep in touch with them, but it is still not easy to stay together.

DAY 2

At Dezhou we see a huge expanse of solar panels, then others in all sorts of configurations – vertical, horizontal, placed on wind turbines, on every lamppost, for miles and miles. We arrive in Cangzhou and realise that there is a problem – the generators have limitations and are not doing the work they should. Never mind, we skip our dinner and work until 1am.

DAY 5

At Huade the scenery changes dramatically as the desert becomes a vast prairie. It extends over a plateau, 1500m up, and the air is crisp, clean, but in a moment the wind gets up. Then, suddenly, a storm breaks – the temperature drops at least 6Ëš and the rain becomes a wave of water that forces us to take a break. Nicola and Valerio are wet, but do not give up.

DAY 6 – MONGOLIA