Typically when we talk about personal mobility devices we're talking about something like an electric scooter.
Something that'll get you from A to B in a practical economical way.
They're usually cheap, they're environmentally friendly and they're always Very boring.
This is something very different, this is the DPV shredder.
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And I assure you this is anything but boring.
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About five years ago I got to ride a very early prototype of one of these.
This year it's finally coming to retail in the United States and I'm gonna get to ride the real thing.
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I'm here at Ben Gulak, Founder and CEO DP New York.
Ben, tell me a bit about the company?
How do we get here?
So, I started the company 7 years ago with the buddy of mine.
We saw a gap in the power sport industry that we thought we could come maybe to fill basically, traditional power sports.
Or ATV and snow mobiling.
It's older guys that are into the sport And as we get older the market is been shrinking.
Action sports, so like, skateboarding, snowboarding, motorcross, wakeboarding.
Traditional board sports, has been the most explosive sport market worldwide for the last decade but traditionally action and power sports are marketing to us completely separate.
If you're skateboarder, snowboarder, you like to going fast.
You like doing dangerous things.
You like that adrenaline rush.
And we thought that if we could create like a power vehicle they could ride year round but still have that feel of traditional board sports.
There'd be a market for it.
So the idea behind the shredder is completely off road vehicle you can ride it year round, sand, snow, mud, mountains, you name it you can ride it on.
And it really captures that feel of freedom of when you're carving down a mountain.
And it's kind of a push behind the US launch there's a racing series coming up as well.
Can you tell me about that?
So this year we're working with Tara Cross which is the natural UTV and side by side race series.
So Tara Cross race events there's gonna be an event called shredder cross and shredder's will be racing against each other And as we grow and bring more into the market, the ideas will set up more and more events and partnerships with other race series.
And eventually the end goal is to bring it to the X Games so as a competitive sport.
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All right, we're here with Ryan Fairhead, co-founder and inventor of the Shredder.
Now Ryan, we've got an engine in there, we've got dual CVTs.
Can you walk me through how the power shifted from the left side to the right because it's kinda like a tank, right?
Yeah.
You're speeding up one side to turn?
Yeah, so in essence it's a dual CVT transmission, right?
So it functions like a differential Except it uses two CVTs that are linked together.
And by linking them what you're doing is you're enabling the transfer of power from one track to the other and vice versa.
And by actually biasing one CVT one way or the other you can actually make the vehicle turn by slowing one track down and speeding up the other.
Let's talk specs, so 260 engine, is that right?
Yeah, well 208 cc motor, and it's a four stroke single cylinder.
It has an electronic engine management system, similar to a fuel injection system.
It uses a Delordo ECS platform, which enables oxygen sensor readings and air fuel corrections.
Part of why we went down that road is for the emissions, for the EPA, also for the performance.
It helps drastically.
It's actually really hard to talk and ride this thing at the same time.
To turn the Shredder you basically lean side to side like you would on a surfboard or a skateboard and it distributes power across the tracks Ready to go.
But, it's a little bit like a, jet ski or a snow mobile in that it really won't turn unless, you get some power going.
It means you gotta kinda commit to the turn.
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Now it probably doesn't look like I'm going that fast.
And I'll be the first to admit.
That I'm not getting the maximum power out of this thing.
But well first of all give me a break this is my first time riding one of these things.
Second of all it feels like I'm actually flying.
I'm cruising through the trees on this thing with very little perception.
It definitely gives me.
Illusion that I'm going really fast.
And these things will top out at about 25 miles an hour, so that's pretty quick.
And what's really impressive, as you may be able to tell, is that I'm cruising through mud, going over big sticks, piles of leaves, lots of big jumps.
And this thing has no shortage of traction at all.
It's pretty impressive.
It's pretty tiring, too.
Now as fun to ride as this thing is, and it is really fun to ride, the most impressive thing is actually the engineering and how much stuff they managed to tuck in here.
There's a 200 cc 14 horsepower engine, dual disc breaks, 4 mountain bike shocks with adjustable preload and damping There's even a snorkel on the front if you want to go running through some puddles, which we did a little bit of that earlier.
Is the DTV Shredder destined to be the next great extreme sport?
Well, once folks see these things thrashing around the X-Games, I think they're gonna want them and honestly with something you can ride through four seasons through the snow, through the mud, through the dirt, and with a little bit of practicality on the back from that trailer hitch, I wouldn't mind having one of these in the farm myself.
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