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[Mike Werner]

Today, a beautiful day, I went for a ride to the Honda dealer for the region. Along the way, on one of the main roads in Le Havre, two Gendarmes motorcycle cops arrived behind me on their BMW 1200RT-P. They didn't really notice me since they were talking to each other.

At the next light, they noticed me. One drew up next to me and asked if the scoot was electric. We had a nice talk until all three of us reached the lights, which just turned red.

He then asked if I wanted to race him to the next lights. You don't wait to be asked again... so when the light turned green, I took off in Dynamic mode, with the Traction Control working overtime. All they saw was the rear, until we reach the next set of lights. When I started hitting the brakes, I was doing 90 kph.

When they arrived a second afterwards, they congratulated me, and said they were very impressed. Last question was where I bought it, and they were going there to have a look and trial.

Life is beautiful.

[roma258]

That's a swanky looking scoot. I heard they're selling pretty well in Yurp.

[Mike Werner]

Yes, indeed. local BMW PR flack told me they had to redo a production run since everything got sold out; France got 5 times more than allocated, and with Barcelona cops buying 30 in one go, it's becoming like croissants. And why not? It's fast, easy to ride and can get anywhere.

[mehve]

Such a beautiful scooter! If they had that in the US, my ride may have been different. ;-)

+ m

[Richard230]

That is a fun story, Mike.  It is good to hear that BMW is having an EV sales success in Europe.  But from what I hear BMWNA and its dealers are still not interested in the scooter. They can hardly sell the IC scooter and cringe just thinking about trying to sell the C-Evolution in the U.S. to their traditional "big-dog" GS/RT-loving customers.   

[Mike Werner]

Yeah, the mentality is different in Europe, where the majority of bikes are scooters. Myself, I've always had motorcycles, but have always looked at scooters as a type of motorcycle, just like cruisers, sports, street, etc.

With the success of the e-scoot, I'm sure we'll be seeing more electric bikes coming from Bavaria ...

Anyway, it was fun seeing the two cops being biker first, cop second.

[kensiko]

"Traction Control working overtime",

do you mean the tire would have spin without it?

[Mike Werner]

Yes. It's why they put it on. There is a lot of torque on teh rear wheel and with the weight distribution, I'm sure it had to be a must; I can feel the difference when taking off from 0 or when already in motion and opening the throttle. the TA limits the power for the first 20 kph.