ElectricMotorcycleForum.com
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: princec on March 02, 2021, 11:48:57 PM
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Zero SR/F premium, an ex-demo with 2 £grand off RRP. Goodbye 690 Duke and XAdv, both amazingly good bikes. Welcome me to the world of paranoia about snapping belts, BMS failure, firmware shenanigans and OBCs not working but at least I'm not going to be burning petrol or scaring children and horses when I'm out for a ride enjoying myself any more.
Cas :)
ps. it is red, of course, because as we know, red wunz go fasta.
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Looking forward to tales of adventure and woe!
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Children do seem to love my bike. I bet they'll like yours even more ^-^
-Crissa
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Finally! Shame you've got to get rid of the other bikes, will you be getting anything else to have as a second bike or will the SR/F be your only one? How many miles on it? My ex-demo bike was barely used with just over 100 miles on it and I saved about £1500 over buying new.
Also did they happen to say whether the warranty starts from when you bought it or from when they first registered it? According to the ToS, as far as I can understand, demo bikes in the UK don't fall under Zero's ex-demo warranty as they need to be registered to be ridden on the road and Zero classify an ex-demo bike as one that was used by the dealer but not registered.
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Zero SR/F premium, an ex-demo with 2 £grand off RRP. Goodbye 690 Duke and XAdv, both amazingly good bikes. Welcome me to the world of paranoia about snapping belts, BMS failure, firmware shenanigans and OBCs not working but at least I'm not going to be burning petrol or scaring children and horses when I'm out for a ride enjoying myself any more.
Cas :)
ps. it is red, of course, because as we know, red wunz go fasta.
Great! what other options were you considering?
And why not an SR/S over the SR/F? :)
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will you be getting anything else to have as a second bike or will the SR/F be your only one? How many miles on it? My ex-demo bike was barely used with just over 100 miles on it and I saved about £1500 over buying new.
Mrs. Prince has a CB500F which I think is awesome fun, and as it happens, the few times a year I actually do my long (700 mile round) trips, it means she won't be coming with me so I can take her bike instead. I'm gutted to see the other two go but she has fairly reasonably put her foot down about the space they take up. And, er, I don't have enough money otherwise :D The ex-demo bike has just 300 miles on it, so it's been charged like 4 times in its life and probably even still smells a bit of New Bike.
I didn't check the warranty situation, though I was assuming the clock has already ticked a year off of it. I wonder if anyone sells an extended warranty for them?
Children do seem to love my bike. I bet they'll like yours even more
And I literally live next door to the junior school... the boys like to come to the gate to make the universal Sign of the Wheelie whenever I start it up and they're in the playground, heh.
Great! what other options were you considering?
And why not an SR/S over the SR/F?
Literally all of them... every one has its good and bad points and I realised that the situation wasn't going to change any time soon. I was fairly keen on an FXS but the 50 mile range was just a tiny bit too short (and I wouldn't even have been able to get back from the dealer!). The Energicas are nice but I'm not strong enough for them. The HD is impossibly expensive. The DSR/SR have fallen into the trap of feeling like they're just about to be superseded by a newer version with the new tech on the SR/F. And the SR/S would basically make me ride too fast everywhere, which is why I switched to naked bikes 5 years ago to slow me down (it mostly worked).
Cas :)
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You are worried about a snapping belt? How about an exploding rear drive cog sprocket on a 2008 BMW F800ST? That is what happened to a friend of mine on the way home last Sunday. :o
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Blimey, that's a new one. (Hah, belt still intact)
Cas :)
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Congrats Cas.
Welcome aboard. Nothing like a new bike in time for Spring.
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Congratulations and welcome to the world of flying carpets and torque surfing :)
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Maiden voyage today. 31 miles, 35% used. Left it in "Street", absolutely fast enough for me. Everything went without a hitch, charged up at home, and it even did Bluetooth connection to my phone and a firmware update without any issues. Only problem is it's bloody freezing! Even with the grips on max I had to come home because my fingers were starting to hurt.
Cas :)
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I just signed up here to get more information on Zero. I of course fell in love with the SR/F
My first question. I’m new at motorcycle riding. I have spent a lot of time on bicycles and electric bikes. Would I be crazy to buy the SR/F as my first motorcycle ???
Congratulations by the way.
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Yes, you would be crazy. Though it's as easy to ride as falling off a log... it's very easy to fall off a log and hurt yourself very badly.
I'd recommend a year on something like a Super Soco TC Max before getting something like a Zero S or DS, and then maybe an SRF after a year on that. You don't have any extra lives and they really can get you into instant trouble. The SRF has shocked even me and I've been riding for 30 years and half of my bikes could do over 170mph.
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I realise that might be a bit of a wizz on your chips sort of post, but hear me out... I suspect that you're in the US from the fact that they'll let you ride one with a cheery wave and pat on the back whereas over here in Blighty we have to pass a fairly decent set of tests and young uns are further restricted anyway for a number of years. I might sound like a killjoy but I can't help noticing that the motorcycle fatality rate in the UK is something like a half that of the US when adjusted for population so I wonder if we're doing something right on that front.
Cas :)
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Thanks for the honest answer. I am in the USA. I’m taking the mandatory training class to get the motorcycle endorsement on my license but I already have the permit. I plan on buying a Zero and when I first got interested I was looking at the FX. I’m 54 and I like speed buy I’m not crazy. I guess it will come down to what kind of deal they will give me. They have a left over SR/S for a sweet price. If I could talk them down on that I would have to go for it.
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Thanks for the honest answer. I am in the USA. I’m taking the mandatory training class to get the motorcycle endorsement on my license but I already have the permit. I plan on buying a Zero and when I first got interested I was looking at the FX. I’m 54 and I like speed buy I’m not crazy. I guess it will come down to what kind of deal they will give me. They have a left over SR/S for a sweet price. If I could talk them down on that I would have to go for it.
You can switch to "eco" mode which will tame the throttle response, torque and top speed until you get used to riding the bike and want more performance.
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You can set the custom settings to something ridiculously slow and ramp up. An S is fine to start with, maybe the best. An SR/F is quite a bit heavier. And sheer weight penalizes a rider's mistakes more.
That said, if you're already bigger and invest in full gear and a safety course or three, and have good places to practice your slow stuff, you can do it.
I did my practice on a Ducati Scrambler with an 800cc engine, so you can do slow stuff on anything, really.
It's in the wild that you get in trouble (like when I dropped my bike upside down on a hill. That was so hard to get back upright!)
-Crissa
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Craig, my first real motorcycle was a DS in my 40s. Either putting them in Eco or setting up the app to dial down the power makes them very easy (easiest) bikes to learn on with no clutch or gears to deal with.
The counter steering over 20MPH was what rattled me for a while but 60k miles later I've never laid one down.
Just be extra cautious until YOU are ready learn at your own pace.
Good luck.
Also super easy for the road test. It can never stall which is what gets most new riders.
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Ah you know I never really considered the mode button (I haven't used it yet :P) - what a good idea! In your 50s you'll definitely have the self control not to overreach your abilities (there's no way I'd trust 25 year old me), so in which case I'd say... yeah, go for it, and keep this in mind: all the gear, all the time; and get advanced road training.
Cas :)
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Yeah, even though I understood 'counter steering' the actual angle of the pressure is perpendicular to the wheel and varies by bike rake (angle the front and handle bars are) and so different speeds take different amounts or strength to do.
Doing it at 20mph is vastly different than 50mph, and that was the closest I came to wiping out.
-Crissa
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The SRF also handles slightly differently to most other bikes - haven't quite figured out why but I don't think it's just down to the battery pack's CoG and weight, which isn't really any different to an engine in the same location. Something something gyroscopic forces crankshaft mumble. Or something. Maybe. One thing it doesn't to for sure is squat under acceleration, so it really does feel ever so slightly odd. Nothing you wouldn't get used to in time, but you don't want to have to get used to it having just shot up to 70mph right before a tight left hander...
Cas :)
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When I started riding there was no such thing as a motorcycle license or training. I bought a Vespa motor scooter so I could commute to college and started riding it in my family home's backyard. Which was about 50 feet square. Then I graduated to the neighborhood streets and road around those for a couple of months until I decided I was ready to head out for the highway and college. My riding apparel was a WWII fiberglass helmet liner, a army field jacket, jeans and leather work gloves and boots. I wore a plastic poncho during rainy days. However, i will admit to crashing the scooter a couple of times while traveling on mountain roads with hairpin turns that I just couldn't figure out. Eventually, I determined that two-wheel riding was for me. So far no accidents that have involved moving more than a few mph. :)
So it certainly is possible to learn how to ride a motorcycle via the School of Hard Knocks, but it is not as easy or as relatively safe now as it was 54 years ago. And I agree that professional training can really help a new rider.
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I could not pass it up. I bought a new leftover 2020 Zero SR/S regular model. I had to go for a cut warranty. $4000 off list price. I don’t really understand why they have to cut the warranty on a brand new bike. They call it a demo but it has four miles on it. I’m not complaining. I think I got a great deal.
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You did! That's the price it should have been all along - if they were all priced like that they'd sell 10x as many.
Don't forget to start out in Eco mode and just leave it there for your first 5k miles. It's still faster than most cars.
Cas :)
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Don't forget to start out in Eco mode and just leave it there for your first 5k miles. It's still faster than most cars.
I wanted to do that for my test ride, but the dealer told me to leave it in Custom mode (everything at 100%). And I'm glad he said that :)
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I have had the bike for three days now. It’s amazing. I’m keeping it in eco mode for now. I have not installed my fast charging station yet but the TurboCord is awesome and the local charging station in town is free.
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Nice!
I still can't get over how good mine is. I took Mrs. P's CB500F out today (because as it said in one of the rags this month, neglected bikes are like pets, they get ill, and she's not ridden it for 6 weeks). I had to visit a petrol station!!!1!11!!1 I haven't been to one for weeks. And by goodness it's so, so, slow. Still cracking good fun though.
Observation: turns out I don't really miss the vibration, noise, gears, clutch, or petrol stations at all.
Cas :)
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Congrats to both of you new EV riders. They aren't perfect but they do what most people want to do, so well, it's a blast to ride.
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Similar to Cas, I haven't ridden the Ducati once since getting the Zero. I started it today in the garage and revved it a bit just to make sure the fluids don't form deposits and the battery doesn't go flat. Now that the weather is improving I'll put it up for sale soon. Amazing bike, but I just can't go back to gas.