angrygirafe

I had one of the Givi tanklock bags. Took it to the beach, got sand on it, and had to disassemble the latching mechanism to get it to work again. I sold it and used a cheapo magnetic bag instead. 

17 hours ago, micah2074 said:

I’m not buying into the notion that electric vehicles are the future. 

You don’t have to. I don’t think it’s going to happen soon, or even that it’s the best option. Hydrogen fuel cells could be more practical. But it is where all the money is being spent, and there is more and more support to ban the sale of ICE vehicles, so you can draw your own conclusions. Whatever way it goes, I don’t think ICE is the final evolution of personal transportation. 

5 hours ago, petshark said:

The test ride was just 45 minutes.

I do have a comfort seat on the Tracer and never experienced the stock seat so I can't really compare the two.

This is an interesting take. When you say that commuting is all it can do, are you talking about range only or also that you don't enjoy it as much as, say a Tracer? There.'s no substitute for a year of testing but it stands to reason that using a bike for commuting only can maybe create the negative association that that is all it's good for. 

I also think that anyone (with an open mind at least) will really enjoy a first ride on an electric but that doesn't mean it actually is as much fun in the long run. I dread paying so much for a bike to find that out in the end so if you care to elaborate, I'd be really interested. Especially coming from a FJ owner this information is gold.

Happy to answer any questions or share my experience! You definitely want to know what you’re getting into with the electrics. The tl;dr is: FJ/Tracer is more fun.

Something specific about my experience: I do not own a four wheel vehicle. My wife does, but for myself I rely completely on my bike, and have since 2015. The bike (whatever I own at the time) has to always work because I won’t take the car if the weather is bad or something’s wrong with the bike. Don’t have a car. 
 

Here we go!

For me the range and charge times make it only useful for a commuter. I have a 13kWh battery, which Zero claims is good for 161 mi. That’s not happening in real life. At freeway speeds,(70-80mph) I’m going to get 40-50 miles depending on environmental factors. On surface streets, stop and go at ~40mph, I might get 100 miles. Since I live in Phoenix, there are no 100 mile routes from my house that are fun to ride at <40mph. It could be fun if you had really tight twisties right outside your door, but you’d have to be happy with only riding what was right there and not going farther. 
 

And you’re totally right about the fun factor wearing off. The first time you twist that grip and and take off in silence with no shifting (and no engine vibrations!) it’s a giant smile. And it stays fun for a while. But eventually you start thinking about everything you can’t do. Take the wife out on a bike date? Range depleted. Add luggage so you can carry stuff? Range depleted. Wear a backpack? Range depleted, though not as bad. The weather is cold (<45F)? Range depleted, sometimes significantly. Having fun and going fast? Bike too hot to charge. Weather is hot? (>90F) Risk of charging failure due to heat. Charging in the garage overnight when it’s really hot? (>100F) I hope I don’t wake up to my house burning down. Range anxiety is real. Anytime I have to go to a field location farther than my normal commute, or I have to go to a doctors appointment on my way to or from work, I get nervous about making it back. 

The FJ did everything for me. When I bought it I had a 50 mile commute one way in California. I would take winding backroads going 50-70mph, or freeway at 90+mph. I could do 200-400mile mountain and canyon rides on the weekends. I could put on the cases and do multi-week multi-thousand mile cross country trips. I can do none of that on the Zero. I’m not even sure I could have made it to the beach and back from Temecula without charging at the beach.  
 

The Zero is a good commuter. Even if I was paying for the electricity, it would cost me about 25 cents a day compared to the $3 (before the current madness) in fuel the FJ would need. Not having chain maintenance or oil changes or valve services or throttle body adjustments is awesome. Normal maintenance is every 8k miles, and is just making sure the motor is still in sync; a quick and cheap computer test. Assuming nothing else has popped up. I think my belt is okay, but it’s a few years old now, and I’ve never heard of anyone getting the actual expected life out of one. My charge tank (6kW charger) is messed up and my ride mode has been changing itself. That one is scary. 
 

At my current company (utility), I rotate departments every 6 months. My commute is 9 miles one way. I’m hoping for a future assignment at a power plant with a commute greater than 40 miles, so I can justify selling the Zero and getting another Tracer or something similar. 
 

I believe electric vehicles will be the future, and some of the currently exotic technologies for batteries and charging are insane. But not affordable. If I got another electric bike, I’d want something with DC fast charging, which right now is basically just Energica, which makes Zero look cheap. And the DC fast charging infrastructure is almost non existent. It’ll get there. Eventually. 
 

One quirky potential advantage of a Zero, and it’s kind of true now, is I could install solar and a backup battery on my house, and use that to charge my bike. If gas prices become truly insane, or if there’s a gas shortage, or even a power outage, I could still be mobile. I’m surprised the “prepper” community hasn’t figured this out, but I guess they’re too busy stockpiling offroad diesel. It would be a great apocalypse vehicle 😂

20 hours ago, vlink12c said:

Okay, I’m from Phoenix and semi-retired. They had the GT on the floor for over 8 months, go figure. I watched it eventually drop $3k and started working on my acquisition plan. My wife likes her new car very much 😉. I am not above bribery. 
So it was way too easy find, like shark bait. I paid $11k plus dealer abuse. Zero regrets. Looking forward to learning all I can thru this site. 

Howdy neighbor!

How long did you have it for?
 

They’re niche machines for sure. I’ve put almost 8k miles on my 2018 S commuting over the last year, and while it’s fun to ride, commuting is ALL it can do. I keep looking at that SR/S and the SR/F, but $20k is a lot of money for a commuter. 
 

Surprised your seat was hard; mine is way better than my FJ-09 was. And I don’t think there should be any clunks. I have never had any clunks. 
 

The no maintenance/no gas is the best part. I charge at work so I pay no “fuel” costs. No chain maintenance is awesome. BUT mine is getting picked up for maintenance tomorrow for it’s standard 8k mile service, troubleshooting of the charge tank (overheats), and troubleshooting of the ride modes (randomly changes modes even with the switch disconnected). So, while you don’t have to do much, anything that really NEEDS to be done you can’t do yourself. 
 

If I had anytime for just fun riding, or a longer commute I’d sell it and get another FJ/Tracer. 

I said goodbye today. Never have been able to get it sorted out after my maintenance debacle over a year. Work last year was insane. My overtime increased 30% and I actually changed companies at the beginning of the year as a result. And then had a baby. So I haven’t had time, and won’t have to fix it. Fortunately, my brother in law does. He likes a project, and wanted something friendlier than the S1000R he picked up last year, so I signed it over to him. I’m glad he took it on. I’ve got 50k miles of great memories on it, and I hope he adds some of his own. 
 

My BIL scored a 2021 BMW S1000R with a handful of miles for 12.5k. He’s been out of the game for a while scared to ride it, and I don’t have room in my garage for it 😭

I’ve tried padded shorts without much luck. The worst is when certain equipment you don’t want to go numb ends up numb for three days. So far it’s always come back. So far 😐

23 hours ago, kilo3 said:

You know what i'm waiting for, heat activated seat foam.  If you've ever had a pair of ski boots heat fitted, that's like the best thing since taco's.  I want a heat fitted foam seat.

I was a ski bum back in the day. We didn’t have tacos, but we’d hand you a beer while fitting your boots. Heat molded liners, beer, AND a taco would probably be too many good things at one time; violate physics. Kind of like heat moldable motorcycle seats.  

On 1/19/2022 at 12:46 PM, 1moreroad said:

I want to be a motorcycle fireman. I've followed one bike tour on the moto. I've got a new jump bag, and I think I could respond to calls on the bike. How fun would that be?

Scene:

5:34pm: 1moreroad receives instruction from dispatch to respond to an structure fire in a retirement community. Advised multiple cats on location. 
5:35pm: 1moreroad fires up his non-approved red strobe and siren, and proceeds to filter through rush hour traffic like it’s not even there.  Still stops at red lights, because blowing those would he STUPID. 
5:41pm: 1moreroad arrives on scene, notes smoke coming from under eaves. Multiple cats heard crying. 

5:42pm: Upon retrieving hatchet (size constraints) from top case, 1moreroad attacks the door

6:00pm: door is breached

6:01pm: 1moreroad retrieves water bottle (size constraints) from top case and pours it on the nearest burning object, which appears to have been a 5000 piece mystery jigsaw puzzle. 
6:03pm: search for survivors begins. 
6:06pm: 1moreroad bursts from the burning structure, Ms. Matilda Fudderwumpkin over one shoulder and protesting loudly, 4 cats tucked under the other arm, also protesting loudly.

6:07pm: 1moreroad notices that his mandatory fireman’s mustache has been singed off, and one cat is not protesting loudly: checks for breathing and heartbeat. 
6:08pm: 1moreroad grabs what appears to be a tiny oxygen cylinder (space constraints) and begins performing CPR on the unconscious cat.

6:10pm: Cat has resumed breathing. 1moreroad attempts to apply oxygen. Cat freezes solid. Tire patch kit CO2 cylinder is depleted. 
6:11pm: Additional firecrew arrives on site. 
6:12pm: Questions are asked. Many questions. 

In all seriousness though, it would probably be an awesome job 😂

20 hours ago, maximNikenGT said:

I'm curious as to what temperature does the LCD display no longer work because of the cold...?

 I don’t want to personally find out 😂

I bet @Wintersdarkmight know 

2 minutes ago, texscottyd said:

I was going to ask if that’s C or F, but then decided it was an irrelevant question… -35 is ridiculously cold either way.  

On the bright side, it’s not Kelvin!   

The funny part is you’re  totally right. -40C = -40F, so in that range, it really doesn’t matter  😂

I think it depends. Coldest I’ve ridden was 11F. Coldest I’ve been riding was 200 miles in a 38F rain doing 80mph in Wyoming, so I don’t even know how windy it was. The temp then dropped to 28F and snowed on me for another 30 miles. 

16 hours ago, larolco said:

You just use the brakes and let the engine idle. Same as an automatic car. 

I test rode the VFRX (Crosstourer) with DCT a few years back. I did not like the DCT. I felt the shifting was slow and removed any personality the bike might have had. Boring. I wish I could have ridden a non-DCT version to compare. I might have bought a manual-shift version as the bike was a good fit for me and what I use a bike for. 

I parked that 1200 and hopped on a DCT Africa Twin. Totally different experience. The lesson for me was not all DCT bikes behave the same. The AT was much sharper in shifting and I felt more "in control" of things. Much more fun to ride.

Anyway, I didn't buy any Honda and ended up with the Yammy a couple of years later when my Strom aged out. 

I'd sure like to take a Zero out for a spin. Kinda out of my price range, though, and probably not ideal for what I do to a bike. Still, I'm intrigued. 

How's that battery last at below freezing temps? While running heated gear? I'd need minimum two hours range. 

I can’t speak to below freezing, since I have the opposite problem in Phoenix. It works great all winter! 😂

Charging is a PITA in the summer though; I have to be very attentive to the battery temp while riding so that it won’t overheat when I plug in to charge. It’s not dangerous, but the charging will stop until it cools off more. Not great for the on board charger at those temps either. 
 

I have a 15mile commute, 14 miles on the interstate averaging 80-85mph. State of charge usually drops 30-35% for that, requiring about 3kWh worth of charge. My battery is a 13kWh one. So freeway range obviously isn’t great, but it goes WAY up on surface roads. 
 

It’s great for commuting, worthless for anything else. 

1 hour ago, 1moreroad said:

I got to test ride a Zero. As part of the safety review, they said, do NOT blip the throttle at a stop. You will get to know whoever is in front of you and their insurance agent very well. 

I would guess a DCT would be similar. Are you ever in neutral?

When my wife and I only owned manual transmission vehicles, it was an adjustment to drive an automatic and compensate for creep in stop and go traffic. 

That’s a good question about the DCT and neutral. Something I’ve loved about the Zero is the balance and straight line stability when in crawling traffic; like 1-2 miles an hour. Without having to modulate a clutch I can keep my feet up and track a straight line at almost no speed. Does the DCT work the same for that?

I’ve never tried a DCT, but getting a Zero I thought I would miss the control you get with a clutch. I was wrong. 😂

1 hour ago, Heli ATP said:

Got specs from Service Manual. 

Yeah, you can search the forum for more details, but the general consensus is you can safely ignore that page and a few torque values as well. Loosen it up a bit and you will have a much smoother ride. 

29 minutes ago, Heli ATP said:

Today I checked the chain slack and it was at about 1.5". Ran out to get a 27mm socket and adjusted the chain to just under 1". Went for a short test ride and all I can say is Whoooa. I never understood the snatchy throttle comments about this bike. I figured my 2017 had an update or something as she was pretty docile. She is new to me with no ECU Flash, and I really have nothing to compare it with as I had little experience with anything above 250cc before. Today the throttle was really sensitive, I had to hold on tight 🙂

When I got back I re-checked the chain slack and it was about 1/3". I will work on it again till it's closer to 1". Is it common for a reduction in chain slack to make the throttle more sensitive? I did adjust the suspension a little also.

Prepare yourself for a/multiple sermon(s) on an overly tight chain. 😂

1.5” was probably fine

Maybe look for roads under construction so you can weave through the cones?

California is a riding paradise, and the only thing I miss after moving to Phoenix. So many good roads, the entire length of the state

You’re making me homesick, that’s my old backyard!

AGV K6 arrived yesterday!

Ordered a M/L from Champion Helmets in the Netherlands. 350$ and got a free smoked shield as well. Had to wait a couple months for it to be back in stock, but they had offered me an in stock color or refund. But I wanted the Nardo Grey. Only regret is not getting a M/S. I measured exactly for a M/L and this is going to be a bit looser than I prefer over time. There are NO DOT or ECE stickers on it, but that’s fine in AZ
 

Tell you what though, it’s about 20lbs lighter than my Shoei Hornet X2, and comparatively cuts wind like a hot knife through butter. 
 

The X2 has been great, but 5 years and ~70k miles later, it’s time to retire it. 

15 hours ago, micah2074 said:

With all that weight spinning around it has to be hard to turn. Also, what do you do at a stop sign?

Potholes probably present a new hazard as well 😂

Those hub motors are pretty cool

I’ve only had a couple people mention it to me. I just toggle on the high beam. “Seems fine”