Cleveland CycleWerks, purveyor of fine American-designed, Chinese-built motorcycles, is about to launch a new electric bike, and it’s taking the company where the founder has wanted to be ever since its beginning.
Most people aren’t familiar with CCW’s products, and if they do have some knowledge of them, it’s probably the simple air-cooled lineup. For years, Cleveland CycleWerks has been selling basic retro-styled motorcycles based around low-cc engines, with many similarities to classic Honda designs (the 250 single line is very similar to Honda’s old CG125 engine). Cleveland CycleWerks has also been messing around with liquid-cooled supermoto designs and even a battery bike platform that was sort of half-way between an e-bike and a full electric motorcycle.
Now, CCW says it’s working on a new electric motorcycle design, to be launched this winter. It’s dubbed the #FalconRising project, and Cleveland CycleWerks says this machine will be “our first made in the USA (Cleveland) E Mobility vehicle.” For years, CCW’s founder Scott Colosimo has said he wants to make bikes with US-built components, but has been unable to get what he needs locally, causing him to work with Chinese manufacturers. Now, the new electric bike will finally be made from US-sourced parts, or at least that’s what the marketing seems to imply.
The new motorcycle will debut in a March 20 event at Cleveland’s Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum. For now, that’s really all we know, as there have been no specs released, not even any design sketches. However, Cleveland CycleWerks has already said it is looking for pre-orders on this motorcycle, although it acknowledges there’s been a bit of scammery in the motorcycle world lately revolving around this business practice. As per its website: “#FalconRising will be the first bike we have ever run pre-orders on. There are too many good people spending money on startup flash in the pan concepts that go nowhere. We have 10 years of manufacturing, supply chain, distribution, sales and after sales service under our belt. Manufacturing product is what we currently do. Sales, service and after sales support is important and you can count on us to deliver.“
The 400cc bike looks nice, I’m familiar with that model in Taiwan. It’s called the Bristol classic. I’m pretty curious about the electric, I look forward to seeing it in person. I have my doubts about it being made in America, maybe assembled in America. Scott Colosimo claims he designed the line of CCW bikes when they were just rebranded Chinese bikes. He even gave a lecture at a local design college in his home town. You can see that line of bikes in every corner of the world with different decals on it. I don’t have a problem with that, I like inexpensive small displacement bikes for the masses but just don’t claim to be the designer of those bikes.
I’ll have to rush right out to my local CCW dealer and check this stuff out.
Oh, wait…. 🙁