It wasn’t long ago that most people, if they were aware of electric vehicles at all, thought of them strictly as small, slow, flimsy things, perhaps suitable for short trips to the health food store. Who would have predicted that one of the first automotive niches to be conquered by electricity would be…high-performance motorcycles?

Well, that conquest is now at hand, as electric cycles have been beating the dinosaur-burners fair and square on the racetrack, and now the motorcycle portal RideApart has named the 2014 Mission RS Bike of the Year – not the best electric bike, but the best motorcycle on the market, beating out Ducati, BMW, the Japanese crotch rockets and the American hawgs.

RideApart: “2013 will be remembered as the year the motorcycle world changed forever. Why? With the Mission RS, electric power became a superior performance solution to internal combustion engines. It’s not just faster, it delivers much greater feel, more stability and faster steering than any ICE rival, too. Sure, it’s expensive, but progress costs money.”

Why did RideApart choose the Mission RS? “We like motorcycles because they solve congestion, are cheap to run, put wind in our hair and all that, but mostly we love motorcycles because they go fast. And the Mission RS goes fast better than anything else ever made.”

RideApart published a full-length review of the bike in August, in which it said, “The Mission RS isn’t notable because it’s electric or because it’s designed and made in America, [but] simply because it’s a superior performance motorcycle to any yet made. Period.”

Source: RideApart