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[gman669]

After a week of owning my bike and putting a couple hundred miles on it I am absolutely loving it and have no buyers regret (uncommon for me). A few questions have arisen from my time on it:

1. If i were to run out of battery in the woods and have my friend tow me back, but i kept it on so it regen braked some energy back in, would this mess anything up?
2. Has anyone rerouted the brake line to not interfere with the display? ( I was going to zip tie out of the way but thought maybe there was a better option)
3.Has anyone made or bought a windscreen to keep air off of your chest?
4.It seems from an energy standpoint that LED headlights make a lot more sense. Anyone done the conversion on a FX? I saw something for the streetbikes on this forum.
5.If i installed a headlight switch to turn them completely off (offroad), would this void the warranty?
6.Does adding a reverse switch void the warranty? (saw this in another post)
7. I took it down to 0% and it said it had 3 miles left on it. Does the bike have a limp mode to warn you that it is REALLY DEAD but lets you make it just a bit farther? Or does it just shut off?
8. I read somewhere that Zero doesn't use UV inhibitors in their plastic. This seems like a HUGE oversight and unbelievable. Is there any truth to this?
9. Is there a helmet lock? I didn't see this in the manual or anywhere on the bike?
10. Name one thing you know now that you wished you would have known when you bought your bike.

I know this is a lot of questions, but i appreciate any you can answer! Also, I am located in Eaton, Colorado. Anyone sort of nearby?

[pinkyracer]

congratulations! My 2013 is the funnest bike I've ever owned, and I've owned a few.  I can answer #7- The governor does kick in and limit your speed to like 55mph then less then eventually ZERO if you keep trying to ride. I've only done that ONCE in two years of riding this bike as much as 30 miles on the freeway. The only reason it happened was because I'd done two days in a row of long trips on my R1 and just could NOT bring myself to go slow after watching the Evel Knievel documentary at Deus. Luckily it was all downhill or flat the rest of the way home and only about 2 miles.

8- my plastics may have faded a tad bit since 2013, the past year of which I've parked outside, and I ride this bike every day. But they're still black.

9- I don't need a helmet lock, I've got a Givi top case for that. ;-)

2- It would be nice to get that brake line out of the way...

[KrazyEd]

   I am sure that the official stance on towing would be to disconnect the belt from the wheel before doing so.
That being said, I have seen videos of people towing Nissan Leafs to recharge a dead battery pack, no reason
that it wouldn't work for the Zero. I have noticed that if I am riding, and, roll off the throttle, at a high enough
speed to maintain regen, if I turn the handlebar switch to off, it still has regen. If KEY is turned to off, regen
seems to go away.
   Lots of posts about windscreens already on here, so, will defer to them.
There are a few threads about LED headlights on here, they seem to work well.
On off switch for headlight shouldn't affect the warranty, unless it can be traced as the cause of a warranty issue.
As stated, there does seem to be a "limp" mode. I am usually going fairly slow if that low on power, so, have
never experienced it. If already going slow and you run out of power, in MY experience, the bike stops. I have
not tried it with my Zero, but, with other electric vehicles I have owned, if everything is turned off for a short
period of time, you can SOMETIMES get a few more yards out of it. Unfortunately, in stock tune, you would have
to get it up to over 10 miles to get any regen to occur. Okay if it stops at the top of a hill, but, otherwise,
look for an outlet.
Welcome to the world of EVs.
Enjoy your rides.

[Christian Frankl]

Regarding your question #2: I just bent the brake line out of the way by using a combination pliers.

Best regards,

Christian

[rayivers]

Congrats on your new bike!  I'm real happy with mine as well.

By number, skipping the ones I don't have any input on...

1) I don't see any difference between towing and coasting downhill, so you should be fine leaving the bike on to build up charge.

2) I've rotated my front master cylinder banjo fitting twice to change the brake line angle, without losing fluid or affecting brake operation.  I just slightly backed the bolt out until the fitting could barely be moved, turned it to the new position, and tightened it back up.

5) Personally, I wouldn't do any rewiring or serious modifications until the warranty expires. I never ride at night, so I pulled the headlight fuse (far RH fuse on my '14 FX).  The running lights are still on, which is fine with me.

6) I've taken my battery down until the bike would only move slowly on level ground, which felt a lot like limping but got me home. I only use one battery so I'm very careful about state of charge, but unexpected detours happen so I try to get home with no less than 25% charge nowadays.

10) I couldn't come up with anything, which seems significant for some reason.

Ray

[BenS]

2. Has anyone rerouted the brake line to not interfere with the display? ( I was going to zip tie out of the way but thought maybe there was a better option)

I agree that the front brake line is rather annoying, as it blocks part of the display, but be careful if you're going to try and reroute it or zip tie it, because as the forks compress, the line needs to be able to move upwards. If you're not sure what I mean, hold the front brake on and push down on the handlebars to compress the fork, and you'll see the brake line move upwards. It will obviously need to move a lot further if you bottom out the forks while riding.

[BenS]

2) I've rotated my front master cylinder banjo fitting twice to change the brake line angle, without losing fluid or affecting brake operation.  I just slightly backed the bolt out until the fitting could barely be moved, turned it to the new position, and tightened it back up.

Ray, I'm guessing the '15 brake line routing is probably a bit different to your '14, 'cause of the addition of ABS. The line goes down from the master cylinder to the ABS unit, then comes back up and over the display, then down the fork tube.

[rayivers]

Oops, right you are - I should've checked the photos at the Zero site first.  Speaking of which... I wonder what Zero did to that cross line for the studio photo shoot?  It looks even lower than the top of the key, but maybe it still blocks the dash indicator lights.

Ray

[teslatech]

1. If i were to run out of battery in the woods and have my friend tow me back, but i kept it on so it regen braked some energy back in, would this mess anything up?
No it will not mess anything up.  You could actually put energy back into the system with regen while being pulled.  I can gain a few % on my FX going down a long hill.


7. I took it down to 0% and it said it had 3 miles left on it. Does the bike have a limp mode to warn you that it is REALLY DEAD but lets you make it just a bit farther? Or does it just shut off?
When you hit 0% it does not just shut off.  As you get lower in the SOC the bike will start to cutback power so you don't hurt the cells by being able to pull full current near the end of charge.  At 20% you will feel it.  At 10% you really will feel it and at 0% you may not be able to go over 40MPH.  When a cell gets too low then the bike will shutdown.  So when you get low just try not to punch it.  If you make a cells voltage get to low it will trigger the shutdown.

[ReeveSteves]

4.It seems from an energy standpoint that LED headlights make a lot more sense. Anyone done the conversion on a FX? I saw something for the streetbikes on this forum.
5.If i installed a headlight switch to turn them completely off (offroad), would this void the warranty?

You will never notice the amount of power used by the headlight. If you want a headlight disable switch for offroad reasons, got for it, but you would never notice the range difference. Think of it this way: the bike has a battery measured in kilowatt hours, literally thousands of watt-hours. The headlight (with DC converter inefficiency) uses about 60 watt-hours in an hour of operation. It's basically a rounding error.

LED headlight conversions inside halogen housings are terrible. I've seen lots of beam shots, and they generally throw either almost no light out or lots of light nearby (where you don't want it) and very little light far out (where you need it). They will leave you visible, but that's about it. They also lie wildly about their light output, often overstating it by several times. The LED headlights that are designed as such from scratch can be better, but those aren't very available in the aftermarket yet. You're going to end up with worse light output, and no useful energy savings. If you want to convert to an HID that's less bad, they can be decent depending on the design of the projector on the FX, but you won't save any power. Plus with either HID or LED I would worry about adding electrical noise to the bike's electrical system. Halogen headlights really are a great application still on motorcycles.

[mguw]

10. Name one thing you know now that you wished you would have known when you bought your bike

Question 10

I didn't know that I would so freaking love electric driving that I HAD to order a Tesla much too expensive for me...

Marcel

Receiving it for Xmas

[gman669]

Thanks for the responses.

[Xenoilphobe]

I did the LED Headlight conversion and added LED off road lights.  There is no noticeable difference in range.  Just less burden on the DC to DC converter.

I used the JW Speaker 8630 LED headlight that includes the DOT approved lens housing.  For off road lights i bought the Rigid Industries D2 high low.  Very happy with the conversion and the off road lights.   

[mguw]

10. Name one thing you know now that you wished you would have known when you bought your bike

I didn't knew would enjoy so much the silent ride

Turn the volume up...



A+ Marcel