"As a born and bred Novocastrian and entrepreneur, I'm intimately aware of the breadth and depth of skills and capacity for Innovation and Manufacturing in the Hunter region. It was this capacity that saw me relocate back to the Hunter after more than a decade away, working on large scale technology and systems integration challenges in national scale projects. I was keen to recognise the hard work and efforts of up and coming stars of tomorrow that will be the next generation of problems solvers, scientists and entrepreneurs. 

I'm aware of the scale of economic transformation and population health challenges here in the Hunter region and wanted to come up with an Award category that rewarded focus on solutions that showed an integrated design approach, with a green business and population health twist. Our offroad eBikes, designed and made here in Australia, are a viable commercial example of that focus. Our Stealth eBikes are renowned as versatile, rugged and well designed across our international customers. 

We think events like this, run with such professionalism by the Tom Farrell Institute and supported by local industries, will help reposition the Hunter as a centre of excellence for the next generation of high value manufacture and showcase transport solutions that tackle climate change and population health challenges.

By participating as race entrants and taking out 2nd place in the 1500 class, with our standard specification Stealth Fighter eBike, we wanted to help demonstrate the potential in tackling tomorrows transport challenges with solutions that are available today, within Australia, delivering swift, silent riding options that can still keep riders active and provide vehicles flexible enough for a variety of end-uses. As the only all-girls team in the event, the girls from Grossman High School might not have had the fastest bike on the day, but they demonstrated the right focus in working well as a team, tackling diverse learning challenges and bringing credit to their school and the Maitland region."

"Another dimension in flat-out fun – that's my verdict from a circuit trial on a Stealth Fighter at Cameron Park Raceway. I've been fortunate enough to have some previous bursts on Stealths at other events we've attended with Quiet Rush and always been impressed.  But taking to the track pushed the adrenalin rush to a new level. The immediate observation is that riding the Stealth on a track is more like a motorbike experience than a pushbike experience. The Stealth comes out of the box fast and the acceleration rushes you to the corners at near-motorbike velocities. Adopting a motorbike hunch, you can tip the bike right in to the corner at angles you couldn't achieve on a regular bike or e-bike. And get on the throttle early to maintain corner speed and flow to maintain momentum down the next straight and into the next turn.

It's instinctive too – you just point it and squirt it, and shift your bodyweight as you would on a motorbike. Probably the main difference, is that in the flip-flops, you have to remember to make a half-turn on the pedals to always keep them away from the tarmac.

Another difference is you don't have to climb off the side of the bike to get it low into the corners – as you would on a motorbike. In fact it seemed to be more important to keep your body weight directly above the frame and concentrate more on the fore-aft positioning and balance.

My ride was on the Yellow Stealth with the Schwalbe Crazy Bobs tyres. These are damned impressive with a fine block-tread that extends well over the shoulders, so you can push the bike over into motorbike angles and enjoy the full grip of the tread. Sure enough at the end of my ride there was plenty of evidence of sidewall tread action.

A great thing about the bike is the comprehensive feedback from frame, steering and tyres – it inspires confidence so you can push the machine to the limits. It took only a few laps to start sliding the front tyre into the tight turns and using trail-braking to kick the back end loose into the faster turns. 

But the limits are high and getting the max out of the machine takes more than a handful of laps. I would have liked more time to experiment with braking points, transition from brake to throttle, fore-and-aft body weight transfer,  trail-braking levels, and full use of the available tarmac. But this was a test day for schools and the chequer came down on the test session and that was it.  

Damn satisfying though, and heaps of fun. "