[cycleworld.com] - Ryvid’s Anthem E-motorcycle

[Ninjette Newsbot]

The Ryvid Anthem is a clever e-bike solution for that part of the world that already gets around on two wheels. But will it plug-and-play in Peoria?

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The Ryvid Anthem is aimed straight at the soon-to-be-electrified heart of the global market for daily-driven two-wheelers. (Ryvid/)Doug Tran, the founder and CEO of Ryvid, has the chops to start a motorcycle company. A graduate of Detroit College of Creative studies, he’s worked at General Motors, BMW Designworks USA, Toyota’s Tokyo-based Design Laboratory, and Honda R&D. Since then, he’s been the lead designer of the Icon seaplane and was the head designer for an eVTOL (electric vertical take-off-and-landing) aircraft so secret that he can’t even name it.

But his real passion is motorcycles. And even though he had a superbike at age 15, what really interests him is something that’s not really fundamental to the US or European motorcycle markets: motorcycles as transportation. He sees the vast two-wheeler markets of Vietnam, of India, of Indonesia, of all Southeast Asia and Latin America and Africa, and figures they’re ripe for electrification as the price of batteries drops, fuel prices rise, and the appetite for cleaner air and lower emissions increases.


E-bike stan and man with a plan Doug Tran holds Ryvid frame and seat pan. (Ryvid/)The $7,800 Anthem is a first step in that direction, a modular design that can be different things for different markets, and a machine designed around the limitations of a start-up motorcycle company. Its frame is made from flat 316-stainless-steel plates, laser-cut and riveted together; there’s not a single weld in sight. The steering head is modular and can be easily substituted with a different design to offer different chassis geometry.

What you see hanging in the lower front of the bike, where an internal combustion engine might be on a conventional bike, is a removable battery pack, equipped with wheels so it can be wheeled to a remote location for charging. The pack itself uses cells from Farasis, the American/Chinese brand that has been used in every Zero motorcycle for the last decade; the Anthem pack carries 4.3 kWh of them.


The Ryvid’s removable 4.3 kWh battery pack. Note the clever rollaboard wheels. (Ryvid/)Aft of the pack is the stainless-steel frame and an integrated motor/swingarm, generally like the design that’s commonly used on internal-combustion-engined scooters. The motor doesn’t mount to the frame, but directly to the swingarm, and drives the rear wheel through a long-lived Gates belt that’s fully enclosed inside the swing arm. The original BMW electric scooter, the C Evolution, used a similar design. All three designs, ICE scooters, the BMW C Evolution, and the Ryvid Anthem, take advantage of the fact that the swingarm doesn’t move very much at points close to the pivot; a heavy electric motor can be hung there and have minimal effect on the unsprung weight, because it moves only a small fraction as much as things back by the axle. For the Anthem, the aluminum swingarm also acts as a heatsink and a cooling surface for the motor. In addition, the entire drive system can be pre-assembled off the main assembly line, just plugging into the chassis.

With the 65-pound battery carried low and forward, and the motor also low, the center of gravity of the Anthem should be far less than for most motorcycles. According to Tran, that’s indeed the case, and he says that the already light 240-pound Anthem “feels like an e-bicycle.”


The Anthem’s motor is mounted to the swingarm scooter-fashion, which may seem odd but makes all kinds of engineering sense. (Ryvid/)There’s lots of other cleverness going on with the Anthem. Instead of a conventional wiring harness, the Anthem is using insulated printed circuit board (PCB) that carries connectors so lights and switchgear can plug directly in. “We’re focusing the design for the requirements of Asian markets, where more durability is needed than for the US,” Tran says. “We were looking at how to do things differently: a frame that doesn’t require welding, a wiring harness that gives longevity. Our frame is flat; there’s no need for a crazy harness that wraps everyplace. Our harness is just a flat-coated PCB.”

Surprisingly, the 18-peak-horsepower Anthem has a top speed of 75 mph, with the surprise coming from the fact that speed is not typically very compatible with a 4.3kWh battery. Zero FX models with similar capacity could only go about 20 miles at that kind of highway speed before emptying the battery. Tran explains that the Anthem is more efficient, and that “We’re going for a niche in the middle:* Guys who want a lightweight urban bike with no maintenance, but also want to be able to hop on the freeway a couple of miles.”* Tran also says that the Anthem will go 50 miles at 65 mph, much more at urban speeds. As with all electric vehicles, range is very dependent on speed: go slow and travel far, or go fast and charge often.

The Anthem currently exists as prototypes. Production of the Anthem is scheduled to start in October 2022, with a pilot build of 20 units, with full scale production scheduled for the end of the year. Ryvid is still raising money to support production, but Tran points out the design was done to minimize tooling costs, with only the dies for the swingarm and plastic pieces requiring substantial expense. Tran expects the bike to be distributed through direct sales to consumers, much like Rivian trucks or Tesla automobiles, with initial distribution in the lower 48 states. We look forward to being able to test an Anthem.