Motorcycles

Cake goes fully street legal with its Kalk& electric enduro bike

Cake goes fully street legal with its Kalk& electric enduro bike
The Cake Kalk& looks like a brilliant street-legal dual sport electric commuter, but shoots itself in the foot with a crazy price tag
The Cake Kalk& looks like a brilliant street-legal dual sport electric commuter, but shoots itself in the foot with a crazy price tag
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The Kalk& is an excellent looking lightweight electric commuter at an eye-bleeding price point
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The Kalk& is an excellent looking lightweight electric commuter at an eye-bleeding price point
Developed as an enduro machine, this thing rips
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Developed as an enduro machine, this thing rips
With dual sport tires, the Kalk& will be very comfortable on dirt tracks
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With dual sport tires, the Kalk& will be very comfortable on dirt tracks
With dual sport tires, the Kalk& will be very comfortable on dirt tracks
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With dual sport tires, the Kalk& will be very comfortable on dirt tracks
Lightweight construction should make it great fun to throw about
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Lightweight construction should make it great fun to throw about
Tail scraping fun
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Tail scraping fun
Custom-designed Ohlins suspension is ready for abuse
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Custom-designed Ohlins suspension is ready for abuse
Does it wheelie? Yes it wheelies
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Does it wheelie? Yes it wheelies
The Cake Kalk& looks like a brilliant street-legal dual sport electric commuter, but shoots itself in the foot with a crazy price tag
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The Cake Kalk& looks like a brilliant street-legal dual sport electric commuter, but shoots itself in the foot with a crazy price tag
Don't worry, that's a fully armored kevlar suit
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Don't worry, that's a fully armored kevlar suit
License plate holder
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License plate holder
The machining on these things looks lovely
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The machining on these things looks lovely
LED headlight
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LED headlight
Dual-sport hoops
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Dual-sport hoops
A lightweight electric commuter
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A lightweight electric commuter
View gallery - 15 images

There's a neat little category opening up somewhere between e-bikes and electric motorcycles, and Cake's new Kalk& (Kalk and) is a perfect example. Weighing just 79 kg (174 lb), with a range "over 86 km" (53 mi), it'd be a super fun dual sport commuter if it wasn't for the price tag.

The minute you ride a powerful, lightweight electric bicycle like the Stealth H-52 – or heck, even just anything with a 1,000-W motor in it – you start thinking: something a bit more powerful than this, with a bit more range, would make an absolutely wild zero-emissions giggle-machine commuter if you could get it street legal, make it do highway speeds and keep it lightweight and silly.

The Cake Kalk& is such a giggle machine, and it's got all the bits and pieces necessary to make it street legal. Developed from the company's Kalk Or off-roader, it runs a 10-kW (13.4-hp) motor putting out 42 Nm (31 lb-ft) of torque – enough for a top speed "over 90 km/h (56 mph)" that won't get you honked off the freeway on a short stint. The battery offers a humble 2.6 kWh, but the range is more than enough for daily duties round town or the odd blast up a trail if you've got one close by.

Developed as an enduro machine, this thing rips
Developed as an enduro machine, this thing rips

It's got programmable regen braking, multiple riding modes, 220-mm motorcycle brake discs front and rear, a mirror, LED headlight and taillights, indicators, fenders, plate holders and a set of dual-sport tires.

It's also got suspension that's been specially developed for it by Ohlins, which is probably lovely to ride on, but it contributes to the Kalk&'s biggest issue: the price of €14,000 (or US$14,000 in the USA) is just insane for what you're getting. The Zero FX, optioned up with a 7.2-kWh battery, offers four times the power and better range for $10,500, and even that's too rich for a lot of riders. China's Sur-Ron is doing a 10-kW street bike with a bigger battery for $3,000, and rumor has it the company is working on a street-legal version of its wicked Light Bee off-roader that could match or beat the Kalk& on performance for Chinese money instead of Swedish.

That's not to say the Kalk& doesn't look like a ball to ride, and a beautifully built thing, but we can't imagine it's going to sell in huge numbers at that price. Check out the Kalk& in the video below.

Kalk& now delivering

Source: Cake

View gallery - 15 images
2 comments
2 comments
Logan Delworth
They are idiots to think people will pay that kind of money! Jerks.
guzmanchinky
This is interesting, in a way better than the Zero because it is lighter...