Remember all that ballyhoo when the Canadian government was looking into buying stealth snowmobiles for the military? Well, the US government seems to be thinking along the same lines – supposedly, they’re hoping to purchase stealth motorcycles for their special forces.
Apparently, the US feds have thrown some money at Logos Technologies (from California) to develop an off-road bike that runs with almost no noise. The idea is to put together a motorcycle that commandos can use to cross rough ground quietly, and in a hurry.
To achieve that goal, Logos is working with battery bike manufacturer BRD (best-known for their Red Shift electric motorcycle, seen above). The stealth bike won’t have a purely electric powerplant – it’ll be a hybrid bike. The designers hope that will also allow them to use the bike as an electricity source in the field. They also intend to include a 2wd system on the machine; military buyers are already purchasing existing 2wd bikes very quickly, so this isn’t a shock.
It’ll be interesting to see where this goes. Ten years ago, there was a lot of buzz about the Hayes Diversified Technologies diesel-powered KLR650, with hope the technology would trickle down to consumers. Eventually the bikes became available for purchase, but they were so pricy that KLR owners quickly dropped the idea, and more well-heeled adventure riders kept buying BMWs.
