When Ed Darmanin departs Sydney on 24 June 2026, he will throw a leg over an Energica Experia electric motorcycle and set off on a journey that no one has ever attempted: a complete lap around mainland Australia on battery power alone.
At 67, the retired electrical engineer from Sydney has earned the right to take things slowly, but this particular adventure is anything but leisurely. The anti-clockwise loop spans approximately 18,000 kilometres through every Australian state and territory—from Queensland's coast through Cape Tribulation and Darwin, across the Kimberley and Broome, down through Perth and the Nullarbor, before swinging east through Adelaide and Melbourne and back home in time for his birthday party in late September.
What makes this journey remarkable is not just its audacity, but its necessity. Darmanin had originally purchased a BMW R1300 GS Adventure, arguably the world's best long-distance adventure tourer, for this trip. He had used a similar bike on a European Alps tour in 2025. But Australia's fuel supply crisis—the country is operating under a Level 2 fuel emergency declaration—forced a reckoning. As petrols stations across the outback begin to dry up under Middle East conflict pressures, Darmanin realised that waiting 24 to 48 hours for a fuel tanker to arrive would demolish his carefully planned accommodation and family rendezvous schedule. "The range anxiety had flipped from EV to petrol," he told CleanTechnica.
The Energica Experia became the logical choice—a bike he knows intimately from a previous 5,000 kilometre Sydney-to-Darwin ride. Its highway range sits around 180 kilometres at 100 km/h, stretching to 250 kilometres at 75 km/h and even 300 kilometres at 60 km/h. Fully loaded with touring gear and rider, the bike weighs approximately 460 kilograms, making it a nimble machine for what Darmanin calls not a bike ride, but an expedition.
That expedition mindset is evident in his preparation. Rather than assuming charging infrastructure exists, Darmanin has spent dozens of manual iterations using GPS route planning and PlugShare to map every charging location, building a detailed spreadsheet to confirm each leg falls within range. He has personally called and emailed roadhouses and remote hotels across the Kimberley and Gulf Country to verify power point access, offering to pay for every kilowatt consumed. Most stops, he discovered, connect to the main electricity grid—a revelation that only came through methodical research into which remote outposts run on micro-grids or diesel generators alone.
His wife Sally will join him two-up from Airlie Beach to Palm Cove and again from Broome to Perth, while his son Evan rides through the Gulf Country from Palm Cove to Mount Isa. The rest he will tackle solo.
Darmanin brings a particular philosophy to this undertaking. Earlier this year, routine preventative cardiac monitoring caught a 90 per cent blockage in his right coronary artery—what could have been catastrophic was caught before any damage occurred. He frames this not as a cautionary note, but as a reminder of something deeper: there is no guarantee of a later. "I mention it not because it changes anything," he explained, "but because it is part of who I am and how I approach these rides—with thorough preparation, clear eyes about the risks, and a deep appreciation for not putting things off."