Sinclair Zike maximum speed of the bicycle operating under its own power was kept below 15 miles per hour to prevent it being classified as a motorcycle under UK law. The Sinclair Zike was developed by Sir Clive Sinclair following the commercial failure of the Sinclair C5 in 1985. Electric vehicles were one of his long-term research ambitions. The Zike was financed largely with his own money, and the manufacture was subcontracted to Tudor Webasto, a Birmingham-based company. The Zike was launched on 5 March 1992 at the Cyclex exhibition in Olympia, London, when a prototype was demonstrated to both press and
Sinclair C5 a snow- and ice-covered hill – later prompted criticism even from Sinclair executives, who admitted off the record that spring conditions might have been better for a vehicle with so little protection from the British climate. The "Financial Times" called it "the worst possible timing to launch what was proclaimed to be a serious, road-going vehicle". Sinclair's biographer Rodney Dale describes it as "a calculated (or miscalculated) risk", pointing out that production was already underway, details were beginning to leak out to the press and "the launch could hardly have been held up until the possibility of a bright spring