Slick, two up…

So what’s it like riding the new City Slicker?

For starters, you can’t be shy. The bike is a conversation starter. Even people who aren’t into motorcycles recognize it’s something different. Stop at a light and people crossing the street look, then they look again, and then they realize: It’s silent.

“Is that electric?” is always the next question, followed by my affirmative answer, followed by their response:

“Cool!”

Sue and I took the bike out for a ride around the neighborhood. Surprisingly, even at its welterweight 216 lbs, Slick rides well two up. I think the battery life might be marginally shortened a bit two up (the bike is hauling more weight), but I haven’t done anything quantitative yet to confirm that.

Another surprise from our after-hours ride: The headlight does a good job. In fact, I think it does a better job than my RX3. I switched it on and off, accelerating under both scenarios, to see if I could feel a difference in the bike’s response, and I couldn’t.

I’m finding the riding experience is different. The handling is considerably crisper, a natural result of the City Slicker’s light weight and its crisper 12-inch wheels (I’ll write more about the 12-inch wheels and the resulting crisper handling in a future blog). I found I had to concentrate when stopping. The brakes are great, but there’s no brake pedal for the rear wheel (the rear brake is activated by the left handlebar lever).  At more than a few stops, I found my right foot dabbing into thin air, and I chirped the rear tire twice attempting to pull in the “clutch” when rolling to a stop sign. And I found my left foot similarly dabbing up and down at stop signs, trying to find neutral, and then I would remember: There is no neutral, because there is no gearbox. You simply use the brakes to stop, and the “throttle” to go. Scooter lovers will feel right at home on a City Slicker because the controls are identical.

And then there’s this: I found myself frequently looking at the tripmeter and the battery charge indicator, thinking about how much of the charge we had used, how many miles we covered, and then doing the mental math to project the range. There’s more to follow on that, too, folks.

One more nice touch…our dinner stop even had reserved parking.

Stay tuned.