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 until late 1979 that Sinclair returned to electric vehicle development. Around Christmas that year, he approached Tony Wood Rogers, an ex-Radionics employee, to carry out consultancy work on "a preliminary investigation into a personal electric vehicle". The brief was to assess the options for producing a one-person vehicle which would be a replacement for a moped and would have a maximum speed of . Although Wood Rogers was initially reluctant, he was intrigued by the idea of an electric vehicle and agreed to help Sinclair. The vehicle was dubbed the C1 (the C standing for Clive). He built a number