Interview: Ray Russell cruises silently into history on his revolutionary electric bike,, 'The Phantom'

Climate Conversations

Shepparton's Ray Russell (pictured) and his Mooroopna business partner, Marty Rogers, built their first electric bike, "The Phantom" in 1987.

Building the bike was, in a sense, the easy part, bringing changes to Victorian State Government road rules was truly the hard part - it took months and months of dedicated lobbying by many people, including a former CEO of Victoria's Bicycle Network, Harry Barber.

Ray and Marty produced 80 Phantoms and one is presently on show in Shepparton's "Museum of Vehicle Evolution (MOVE)".

Ray, who is still enthusiastic about electric bikes, and recently graduated to a carbon fibre mountain bike, believes it is such things as mountain bikes with their go-anywhere capacity that can reshape human movement in Shepparton.