Hello, e-bike fans!
I just placed an order for a blue D/S on Friday. The rep at Zero said it would ship late July/early August. I'll keep you posted as to how that goes. Deciding factors: (1) I have a PV system on my house that was installed last summer. It is generating a substantial surplus of electrons at the moment that I might as well take advantage of. (2) The US + Colorado tax credit for the Zero cuts the final cost in half. At that price, I feel the advantages (no gas req'd) outweigh the risks (new company, new technology, rapid rate of obsolescence.) (3) I have a 16 mile daily commute, round trip, and only a brief stretch of the drive is on a 55 mph section of highway. If I include about 4-6 miles of additional riding for errands and such, the 40 mile range should be adequate for most of my daily needs. (4) Watching the video feed from BP of the leak under the Gulf of Mexico... just don't want to be part of the problem anymore.
I've been riding since 2000. I currently have an '01 Triumph Bonneville America (790 cc) and an '06 Triumph Tiger (955 cc). I had a BMW F650 G/S Dakar that I sold two years ago, which I used for a little off-roading in the Boulder/Denver area.
I test rode Zeros in Denver about a week ago at a parking lot near the football stadium. Here were my general impressions: (1) They are small bikes. I'm used to having substantial machines under my seat, so it felt odd initially. I weigh around 225 lbs, so the center-of-gravity is shifted pretty far off the ground when I'm on a 280 lb bike. This made it feel quite top-heavy, and tight corners felt particularly tricky. (It actually felt more like I was riding an electric mountain bike than an electric motorcycle.) However, I'm certain I'll adapt with time. (2) Clutchless riding is weird. I'm very comfortable feathering the clutch on a gas-powered motorcycle to control speed when maneuvering tight corners and such. Not having a clutch made me feel awkward when trying to weave a tight pattern through cones in the parking lot. The sales reps were adamant that this is something one can adapt to, but I'm not yet convinced. I'm able to adjust the torque at the rear wheel with much greater precision by feathering the clutch than by tweaking the throttle. Frankly, I think the inclusion of a simple gear box with only 1st and Neutral would really improve the ability to control the bikes. But maybe I'll change my opinion after riding the D/S for a while. (3) I preferred riding with the cut-down seat. At 6 feet tall, I did not feel that the height of the D/S with the stock seat was a problem. My Tiger is substantially taller. But it was the center-of-gravity thing that made me more comfortable with the cut-down seat. By bringing my own body weight down lower with the cut-down seat, it felt that the bike was that much more steady at slow speeds. (4) I also test rode the S. I'm guessing it had something to do with the shorter rake of the front fork on the S, but I felt less comfortable than with the D/S. The S was more twitchy in corners. (5) The suspension on the D/S was solid. I hit a couple of pot-holes and jumped a couple of curbs in the parking lot, and the bike went through/over them smoothly and without complaint. I consider this an important prerequisite in a bike when riding year-long in the Front Range of Colorado, where some monstrous pot-holes can open up during the spring thaw. (6) Acceleration was good. Not great, but good. Riding in a parking lot did not afford me the chance to really check it out: Accelerating from one end of the lot to the other at full throttle, I could only get it up to about 35 mph before needing to hit the brakes. The lot was about 425 feet long (according to satellite view on Google Maps), so that tells you something, I suppose: If I assume a constant rate of acceleration (constant torque = constant acceleration until air resistance becomes important), and I assume I accelerated about 250 feet before hitting the brakes, then my rate of acceleration (after some simple physics) comes to about 3.6 miles per hour per second. That translates into 20 seconds to reach 72 mph. Not stellar, to say the least! Still, I don't hold the acceleration against the Zero. It will work just fine on my commute. Besides, I'm not buying it to make an impression... I'm buying it to make a difference. Also, I know it could do much better if they tweaked the electronics to allow faster acceleration, but then it would have a much shorter range on a single charge. The usual engineering trade-off... (7) I didn't mind the noiseless travel. But then again, I don't buy motorcycles to make noise. I also don't believe that engine noise from a motorcycle makes them any safer. Cars hit motorcycles because they don't see them, not because they don't hear them. Since most drivers nowadays are rockin' out to their iPods while gabbing on their iPhones while watching directions on a GPS anyways, I just don't see how any amount of exhaust note on a bike is going to cut through that level of distraction. The secret to a long life on a motorcycle is extreme defensive driving: Assume you are invisible and ride accordingly.
That's about it.
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Topic: going clutchless in Colorado (Read 1268 times)