Hey folks,
This is what I think of my new 2010 Zero S. It is a great bike and I am really loving it. I am a happy, satisfied customer. Handling: I have only owned 650 cc road bikes so that is my baseline for comparison. The S handles very well and is clearly superior to the 09 in terms of acceleration, details and stylling. I guess I would compare it to a 400 cc bike but having never ridden on one I could be way off. It is spry (which it should be for 270ish lbs.) corners well, brakes fine (the brakes are on the light side but so is the bike). I took it down a steep it at about 40 mph and had no problem breaking for a stop sign at the bottom of the hill. My Suzuki DL 650's breaks gave me more confidence than the Zero's do though. The lack of engine breaking is not as much of an issue as I thought, but it takes a bit more forethought when entering a tight turn. At about 50 mph I started to notice that it is pretty stiff legged and transfers a lot of road surface bumps to the rider. This of course could be a matter of adjustment. I love the way it leaps up to speed in city traffic. An import part of a motorcycle for me is the ability to be quick and agile and the Zero is both. On the freeway I had no problem reaching 67 mph with a very solid steady climb to max just as advertised. This was without any tucking in and I weigh 185 without any gear on. 0 to 60 (calculated using my wrist watch in light freeway traffic so I could be little off) was just under five seconds without tucking in or ducking down. My first ride I took hard and pretty fast to check out acceleration and watch for over heating. No problems. I did notice that my range was pretty limited while I was "aggressively taking on any urban environment." I could probably have gotten a max of 23 miles out of it before having to charge. Once again this is full throttle from almost every stop sign and light and full throttle onto the freeway.
I was a bit thrown at first by the battery charge gauge. When the bike is pushed hard the gauge reads a rapidly diminishing remaining charge in the battery. When you lay off the throttle you get an accurate reading. I will ask Zero about this. After about five rides I would say that Zero's advertised range at different speeds is pretty accurate if you don't gun it. An average range of about 40 miles on surface roads, maybe about 30 miles on the Freeway if one is careful with the throttle and a max range a little below 60 miles (with careful riding, speeds around 25 and no stop and go situations). A caviat to all of this is that I have only had the bike for a couple of days. Time will provide better data. The bike did come with a free Hero helmet cam and I asked for a shirt and hat and they they were also given free. I don't know if this is standard or because i have volunteered to promote Zero at "green" events and at the TTXGP. I can't get my pics to upload so I will have to learn how to do that. I hope to have some pics posted soon.
~GC
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Topic: Just picked up my new 2010 Zero S (Read 1182 times)