4.2 inches of travel in front, 4.3 inches of rear suspension travel, and 12-inch wheels…this puppy can carve!
I thought I would add a few words today about the CSC City Slicker’s wheels and suspension.
First, the suspension. Slick’s front end has a conventional non-adjustable inverted front fork with 4.2 inches of travel, and the rear has a swingarm, pre-load-adjustable monoshock, arrangement with 4.3 inches of travel. Here are a couple of photos showing each:
The action up front…Slick’s rear monoshock. It’s adjustable for preload by loosening and moving the locknuts.
The City Slicker’s suspension felt good to me, and the handling was razor-sharp. On prior internal combustion bikes from Zongshen (the RX3 and the TT250), we realized a handling improvement changing the fork oil from whatever the bikes shipped with to a 10W oil. The City Slicker did not feel to me like it needed this change. The front suspension feels good right out of the box. The was no bottoming out, nor was there any topping out (when the forks fully extend). The rear suspension felt firmer to me than it needed to be, but I noticed the rear shock had been set with the spring preload adjustment in the middle of the monoshock’s adjustment range. There appears to be plenty of room for adjustment. This can be accomplished by using a spanner to unlock the locknuts and relax the spring a bit (this assumes the spring is already compressed a bit with the adjustment as delivered by the factory). I haven’t tried this yet, but I will the next time I have an opportunity to do so.
The Slicker’s cockpit view on Route 66.
The wheels on the City Slicker are 12 inches in diameter, which is the same as most scooters, the Honda Grom, the CSC Mustang replicas, and the original Mustang motorcycles. On one of the many recent forums discussing the new City Slicker, a poster commented that 12-inch wheels are dangerous…you know, you might hit a pothole in the rain and get thrown from the bike. I don’t think that should be a concern. The truth is this: 12-inch wheels are a common design on smaller bikes and they make for incredibly quick handling. When I was on my 150cc CSC Mustang replica, I rediscovered what Walt Fulton proved back in the 1950s (more on that in a second). My CSC 150 had 12-inch wheels (just like the original Mustangs) and it was awesome in the twisties.
Yours truly with my CSC-150 on Glendora Ridge Road. I rode that bike to Cabo San Lucas and back, but that’s a story for a future blog.
Glendora Ridge Road, up in the San Gabriel Mountains, is just few miles from my house. It’s a great road from many perspectives, not the least of which is a set of glorious twisties. It is my favorite ride, and I wrote a story about it for Motorcycle Classics magazine. The point that I’m getting to in my very roundabout way is this: When I was on Glendora Ridge Road on my 150cc Mustang, I could hang with any bike up there, and most other motorcycles of any displacement couldn’t catch me (other than on GRR’s very few short straights). In the corners, my little 150 was king. It was all about wheel diameter and handling. You might not believe me, but there are more than a few riders I’ve met up there who know. They’re not talking about it, but they know. They’ve been humbled.
Walt Fulton breaking 100 mph on a Mustang back in the day…all on 12-inch diameter wheels!
So, back to Walt Fulton. He was a famous factory racer back in the 1950s who had lost his factory ride with another manufacturer. This was just before the Catalina Grand Prix, and Fulton did not have a ride. At the last minute, the Mustang Motor Corporation offered Fulton a factory spot, he accepted, and he nearly won on his 320cc, 12-inch-wheeled Mustang. Fulton passed 145 other riders on machines with up to four times the displacement (and, of course, larger wheels).
Fulton’s engine failed just a few miles from the finish, but he was on a tack to win that event. To make a long story just a little less long, the other factories complained to the Catalina Grand Prix organizers and delivered an ultimatum: Find a way to outlaw that damned Mustang next year, or we’re picking up our marbles and going home. Whaddya know…there was a sudden change to the rules. As Forrest Gump might say, just like that no one could race with wheels smaller than 16 inches. Yup. It happens.
The bottom line here is this: Slick’s 12-inch wheels make for extremely crisp handling. If you’ve never ridden a bike with 12-inch wheels, you really need to try one. I’ve found the handling is sharper than anything I’ve ever experienced.
One of the guys on an ADVRider forum asked for more information on the City Slicker electric motorcycle, so I put together a list of Slick links on the ExhaustNotes blog. My idea was to include a single place that listed all of the links on the City Slicker covering the testing I’ve done on this bike.
Then I thought…hey, that might be a good thing to post on the blog, too! So, here you go…
This is an interesting thing to do…a comparison of two electric motorcycles, the Zero SR and the CSC City Slicker. Some of you might think I’m nuts for even attempting it. After all, the Zero costs $16,990, and the Slicker is $2,495. And that’s before you put all of the fees, taxes, and other stuff on either bike. You might predict I’m going to say one is overpriced and the other is cheap Chinese junk, but I’m not. These motorcycles are different tools intended to meet different needs for different riders. The good news is they’re both fun. A lot of fun, actually.
$16,990, plus fees. Or $2,495 for the City Slicker. Decisions, decisions…
You might ask: Why just these two motorcycles? Aren’t there other e-bikes out there?
Well, yes and no. But that’s a subject for another blog and I’ll come back to that question later. I included only the City Slicker and the Zero because I had access to both. I have a relationship with CSC (I used to write the CSC blog and I’ve literally been all over the world on their bikes) and my good friend Art Guilfoil owns a Zero dealership (Douglas Motorcycles, in San Bernardino).
Zero has been around for a few years, and the SR is one of their latest models. It’s a refined design, and it is the state of the art in electric motorcycles. To cut to the chase, I was impressed (more on that in a bit).
Riding a Zero in San Bernardino…
The CSC City Slicker is new. I first rode one in China during a visit to Zongshen, and I recommended to CSC that they bring the City Slicker to North America. It’s working well; the City Slicker has received tremendous press here in the US and CSC sales of this new electric motorcycle are brisk.
On a City Slicker for the first time on the mean streets of Chongqing…
I’m going to compare Slick and Zero from performance, price, and product perspectives. There’s too much going on to cover it all these topics in a single blog entry, so this comparison will be presented in several blogs. This first one is on two aspects of performance: Acceleration and top speed. There are other performance parameters, including range, recharge time, braking, and handling. I’ll cover those in a future blogs.
Acceleration
For starters, if you’re looking for 0-60 or ¼-mile times, read no further. I didn’t do any of that. The City Slicker won’t go 60 mph, and I didn’t take either bike to Irwindale. My comments on acceleration are subjective. With that caveat, let’s dive in to this topic.
I rode the Zero at Douglas Motorcycles in San Bernardino and I was impressed. I like it when a motorcycle accelerates so hard it scares the hell out of me, and the Zero did that. I’ve owned fast bikes before (a Suzuki TL1000S, and a Triumph Daytona and a Speed Triple). Those bikes had a direct connection from their throttles to the gland that releases adrenalin. The Zero, however, is in another league altogether. In the Sport Mode, the SR has a punch in the pants that is downright terrifying. Bottom line: I thought that was very cool. I liked it. A lot.
The City Slicker? The first time you ride one, it has a tendency to feel like it’s going to squirt out from under you, but you get used to it quickly. That’s what happened to me in China. Slick’s acceleration is more manageable. Slick had no problem keeping up with city traffic when the light turned green. It was a little weird accelerating in total silence. I could hear every sound from the cars and other bikes around me. It was different.
They tell me the torque is instantaneous off zero rpm with electric bikes. What that translates into is a punch the instant you twist the throttle. On the City Slicker, it’s there, but it’s not intimidating. It’s maybe a notch into the “wow” range the first time you ride the bike, and then it just becomes part of the experience. On the Zero, it’s simultaneously awesome, exciting, and terrifying. Folks, the Zero is one hard-accelerating motorcycle.
I mentioned the Sport mode on the Zero, so let me get into that now. Both bikes have rider-selectable operating modes. I’m an older guy and I always thought the idea of a “mode” was a silly thing when it first appeared on internal combustion bikes. In fact, a kid at one of the motorcycle shows once visited the CSC booth after spending time with the Ducati people and he wanted to know how many modes the CSC 250cc bikes had. At first, I didn’t know what he was talking about, and then I got it.
“Two,” I said. “On, and Off.”
That was then, and this is now. On electric bikes, these modes are good ideas. You need them to maximize range (the subject of a future blog), and in the case of the Zero, to keep the bike from getting away from you.
Zero has three modes: Eco, Sport, and Custom. The Eco mode dials down the bike’s acceleration and maximizes range. The Custom mode lets you use your smartphone to manage the bike’s power output, and you can dial in whatever you want between the bike’s Eco and Sport settings. The Sport mode is for balls out, no holds barred, raw power. It’s wicked.
Zero advertises that their bike will out-accelerate a Porsche 911. I didn’t have a chance to check that out, but I’ll take their word for it. I tried the Sport mode when I rode the Zero, and it is seriously fast. I was scared I would lose control of the rear wheel (the Zero has ABS but not traction control; they tell me that may change next year). Not much scares me; accelerating on a Zero in the Sport mode did. I like being scared. You probably will, too.
The City Slicker has two modes: Eco and Power. The Eco mode limits the bike’s top end to 36 mph, and it gives the bike a longer range. The Power mode removes the output limit, and lets the bike accelerate up to an indicated 46-47 mph. What’s cool is you can switch between modes on the move. If you’re rolling along at 35 mph in the Eco mode and you flip the right handlebar switch to the Power mode, it’s like kicking in the afterburners. You get an immediate burst of acceleration up to a new top speed of 46.6 mph. It’s cool. It’s not exhilarating or frightening like the Zero, but it’s still cool.
I can tell you that I spent a lot of time riding the City Slicker around town, in the Eco mode, and I never felt like I needed more acceleration or top end. Even with the Eco mode’s 36-mph limit, I had enough for mixing it up in town. And I still had Slick’s Power mode afterburners in reserve.
Top Speed
Zero states that their SR’s top speed is just north of 100 mph (they also say that top speed is a function of riding style and motorcycle configuration, which I took as hedging their bets a little). I didn’t attempt to run the Zero to its top speed; all of my riding on that bike was in urban San Bernardino. I can tell you this: The Zero is one seriously fast motorcycle, and if they say it will do 102 mph, I have no reason to doubt that number.
CSC says the City Slicker will hit 46.6 mph. It will, but it’s an indicated 46-47 mph on the bike’s digital dash, and my testing shows that the speedo is about 10% optimistic. That means the City Slicker’s real top speed is more like 42-43 mph.
The bottom line: From the perspectives of top speed and acceleration, the Zero is the clear winner. The real question, though, is this: Do you need or want that much top end?
You and I already know the answer to the “want” part of the question, so let’s turn to the “need.” Hey, what you think you need is your call. The City Slicker wasn’t engineered to be a drag racer, nor was it designed to run on the freeways. The City Slicker, as the name states, is an urban commuter. The Zero can run on the freeways, the City Slicker cannot. The Zero is faster. If you’re looking to argue that point, you need to look elsewhere.
But the performance the Zero delivers comes with a price. Let me go back to what I mentioned at the start of this blog. The Zero costs $16,990 plus fees and the City Slicker costs $2495 plus fees (and Slick’s fees will be a lot less than the Zero’s). Stated differently, you could buy seven or eight City Slickers for the cost of one Zero. Yeah, the Zero is faster. But wow, the price differential…
And don’t delude yourself into thinking you can see the price differential in the build quality of the two bikes. They are both well made. Fit and finish on both bikes is world class. If you want to argue that the City Slicker is a cheap Chinese piece of junk, you have my permission to demonstrate your ignorance on an Internet forum or in the Disqus comments on any of the many articles recently written on the City Slicker. There are a lot of stupid and uninhibited people posting nonsense on the Internet, and if you want to join them, go for it. But you’d be dead wrong.
What would I buy? It depends on what I was trying to do, and how much money I wanted to spend. If I wanted to be green and I had a commute at city speeds, I’d be all over the City Slicker. If I wanted a cool bike to add to my collection and I didn’t need it to ride cross country, score one for the City Slicker. If I wanted a bike that could run with IC bikes (for shorter distances, anyway; neither of these bikes are all day rides), I’d go for the Zero. But I’d only do that if I had $20K laying around I didn’t need (that’s about what the Zero’s purchase price would be after tax, licensing, registration, and all the rest that goes with buying a bike). The bottom line here? It’s your money and your call. In my opinion, both bikes are a lot of fun. You wouldn’t be making a mistake with either one.
There’s a third streetable electric motorcycle out there, and it’s the Alta. My good buddy Danny, with whom I’ve ridden Baja several times (both of us own CSC RX3 and TT250 motorcycles), recently sent this note to me after he read the ExhaustNotes blogs about the City Slicker and Zero motorcycles…
Joe,
Interesting timing; I took this photo yesterday to send to you, taken before I suited up. This is what I rode:
And what a ride. Mode one would smoke my RX3, and probably the Guzzi. Mode two – it was fun. Mode three – OMG, hold on tight. I didn’t try mode four, two was enough.
I was impressed with the performance. The bike itself was not my type. I have been following Red Shift since their early days. Impressive design and engineering.
Dan
Thanks for the photo and the report, Dan. I’ve got to get a ride on an Alta, too. I know what you mean about the acceleration; it was the same thing I experienced on the Zero. It’s almost too much, although I never thought I would ever say that about any motorcycle.
Folks, I’m headed to Tinfiny Ranch later this morning. Watch for the report!
It was another broiler-hot day out of Ajo this morning, but it was an easy run…Arizona 85 south to Arizona 86, stay on 86 for about 100 miles, and a right turn on Arizona 386 for the twisty 14-mile climb up to Kitt Peak National Observatory. The La Luz saga continues. Gobi and me, we got some blogging to do. Maybe a video or two. We’ll see. So will you. And for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, you’ll find out soon enough.
The topic du jour: Kitt Peak National Observatory, a gem of a destination and a seriously cool place. And, it’s a great ride to get there.
Kitt Peak is up on a ridgeline at roughly 6700 feet, about 50 miles southwest of Tucson. On our ride there today, the skies were clear and the visibility was amazing. Once again, it’s best left to the photos to do the talking…
A glorious set of twisties, with Kitt Peak as the piece of cheese at the end.Impressive credentials!No tigers?That’s Baboquivari Peak on the horizon, the holiest peak for the Tohono O’odham Native Americans. Kitt Peak National Observatory is on their land. The Tohono O’odham believe their creator resides on that peak.The Case Western Reserve University telescope. There are a lot of different telescopes on Kitt Peak.This telescope dominates Kitt Peak. We could see it 30 miles away as we rolled across the desert floor.We didn’t see a single one. Seeing signs like this is a cool thing.One of many cool and colorful explanations at various Kitt Peak observation points. The views are impressive.
It’s Tucson tonight, and we should make Las Cruces by nightfall tomorrow. I love these road trips. The ride today was awesome, but hey, they all are.
I’m gathering my thoughts on the Zero electric motorcycle. It was a fun day and a fun ride, that day last week at Art’s Douglas Motorcycles dealership. It’s way different than any motorcycle I ever rode, and it’s also way different than CSC’s City Slicker. They’re both good bikes, I loved riding both, and they both have their strengths and weaknesses. The differences are driven by what each company designed their bike to do. Different missions, like we used to say in the Army.
Watch for the Slick vs. Zero blog. It’s coming. I’ve been thinking deep thoughts about both bikes, and sometimes when I think really deep thoughts on any topic, I can’t think for days afterward. I’m in that mode now, so I’m simply enjoying the trek to Tinfiny. La Luz, Gobi, Tinfiny…I know it’s confusing and I’ll explain what it all means soon enough.
I had a good look at a Zero motorcycle last week at my good buddy Art’s dealership, Douglas Motorcycles in San Bernardino, California. There’s more info coming, folks, but check out this cool photo of yours truly on an arm-stretching Zero…
Zero gasoline, zero oil changes, zero oil filter replacements, zero air filter replacements, zero smog checks, zero valve adjustments, zero noise, zero emissions, zero chain lube…you get the idea. This is an appropriately-named bike, unless you’re referring to acceleration! It was scary fast!
My wife took that shot, and I processed it in Photoshop to convert the background to black and white. I like it. And I liked the Zero. It was scary fast. But that’s a story for a future blog. Keep an eye on the ExhaustNotes blog, because that story is coming!
Ah, the motorcycle forums. Truths, half-truths, and outright lies. When I worked for CSC, I used to watch the forums regularly for people who posted about CSC so I could answer honest questions and take on the trolls. After doing that for 10 years, I concluded there are a few mean-spirited people posting stuff on the Internet who don’t have a clue (I wrote an entire chapter about that in 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM). It didn’t take a full 10 years to reach that conclusion, though. It took about 10 minutes.
Having said that, there are three forums I enjoy visiting, and here they are.
ADVRider.com. This is the first forum I ever read. There are more than a few folks there who are full of what drops from the southern end of a northbound horse, but there are a lot more who are knowledgeable and helpful. My screen name on ADVRider is Gatling. If I had it to do over again, I would use my real name, but I chose Gatling several years ago (mostly because I wrote a book about the Gatling gun). My favorite threads are the Shiny Things thread, the Thumpers thread, and the Electric Motorcycles thread.
Chinariders.net. ChinaRiders is a much smaller forum focused on Chinese motorcycles. Yeah, there have been a few yahoos on that forum (as is the case on all forums), but the ChinaRider monitors do a good job and the flakes don’t last long. My screen name on ChinaRiders is CSCDude. I picked that name when I was working for CSC. If I had it to do over, I’d use my own name.
ElectricMotorcycleForum.com. My newest favorite forum is appropriately titled ElectricMotorcycleForum.com. It’s also a small forum, but it’s picking up speed and I like the place. It’s a good source of information on all kinds of things related to electric motorcycles. My screen name on that one is Joe Berk.
If you have a favorite forum and you’d like to suggest it, please include it as a comment to this post. We’d like to know about it.
Slick, taking a breather at the Mt. Baldy Lodge. My apologies for the mediocre image quality; all I had with me was my iPhone.
Phase III (pardon the electrical pun) of our City Slicker testing involved riding Slick from my home up to Mt. Baldy Village. It’s a 2,500-foot climb over 9.2 miles, and it’s rough. It’s a challenging climb on a small IC-engined motorcycle, and it’s really, really rough on a bicycle (as I know from personal experience). I knew power consumption would be higher based on our Phase I and II testing (see those results here and here), but the earlier tests did not include steep climbs. Phase III was a fairly steep uphill climb all the way, and then a steep descent all the way down. Here’s the route I took, up and down…
A satellite map of the test route…north Upland to Mt. Baldy village.
I didn’t know how Slick would do, and I didn’t want to run the bike down more than 50% (you know, to make sure I had the juice to get home). I decided in advance that if the bike hit the 50% energy remaining mark on the way up, I’d turn around and head back.
I need not have worried, though. I sailed up to the Mt. Baldy Lodge (that first photo you see above) with 56% power remaining on the charge indicator. I stopped to take a picture, and then I turned around and rode home. Here’s what it looks like on a miles versus battery charge plot…
Miles versus Battery Charge, up and down Mt. Baldy Road. The bike started with a 99% charge and was at 56% remaining after climbing from 1700 ft above sea level to 4193 ft above sea level. On the way down, power consumption was dramatically lower; I covered the same distance using only 10% of the battery’s charge.
As you can see from the above chart, energy consumption on the way down was near zero. I used 43% of the battery’s energy (from 99% to 56%) to make the 9.2-mile, 2500-ft-elevation climb, and then I used only 10% of the battery’s energy (from 56% to 46%) to cover the same distance riding downhill. Cool.
I ran this test in the Eco mode, mostly because I didn’t want to use too much energy on the climb. In the Eco mode on flat ground, the bike tops out at an indicated 37 mph (don’t forget that the speedometer is about 8-10% fast, so actual speed is lower). On the climb, Slick slowed to an indicated 33 to 34 mph on the steepest hills, which is about what my 150cc CSC Mustang could manage.
On the way down the mountain, Slick ran 43-44 mph (still in the Eco mode), and the throttle became meaningless. The bike coasted downhill faster than the motor could drive it. It reminded me of my bicycle down this same stretch. On my bicycle, I topped out at the same speed and pedaling was useless because my Bianchi was already going faster than I could pedal.
Watching Slick’s regeneration function on the dash was cool. The red regen plug (to the left of the battery charge indicator) stayed red for most of the run downhill. I previously wondered if the bike only regenerated at lower speeds; I now know it regens at all speeds when Slick is going faster than the motor is driving it. Just like before, though, I never saw the charge percentage indicator go up (say, from 48% to 49%). It just stayed at a given percentage for a much longer time. I asked the wizards at Zongshen about this, and they confirmed it’s what they would expect.
The knee in the x-y plot at the 56% charge level is where I turned around (at the Mt. Baldy Lodge). It shows that Slick uses way less energy going downhill than it does going uphill. Like they say…duh. The slight changes in the slope of each line (for the uphill section, and then for the downhill section) are due to changes in the grade on Mt. Baldy Road. There were undulations in the road, and that’s why there are minor variances in the slope of the line on both the uphill and downhill portions of the graph.
Once I was home, I put Slick back on the charger for the ride back to CSC. I’m headed out on a road trip next week, and I wanted to return the bike to Steve.
I did the climb up to Mt. Baldy with the lights off. My bike is a preproduction sample, and it’s not wired to keep the lights on. The production City Slickers will have the LED marker lights on all the time(that’s a US requirement). The LEDs will consume a little energy, so the range will be somewhat less for the US bikes than what I’ve been reporting.
To get a feel for what the impact of having the lights on might be, when I returned the bike to CSC I rode there with the headlight and taillight on. This is a more severe test than would be running the bike with only the LED lights (the headlight and taillight consumes more energy than the LEDs). Previously, without the lights on the 16.4-mile ride to CSC from my home took 35% of the battery’s charge. Running the same route today with the headlight and taillight on, I used 42% of the battery’s energy. Note that this is more energy than would be consumed with just the LEDs (but it is representative of energy consumption when riding the bike at night). And, I was hotfooting it a bit. I wanted to stay at around 34-35 mph, but Slick was smelling the barn and I frequently ran faster than that.
So there you have it. Eco mode, Power mode, and a steep climb and descent on the CSC City Slicker. Stay tuned; there’s more coming on this fascinating new electric motorcycle. You’ll see it here first.
I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings but us oldsters are through. Our time has passed. No one cares if we like electric motorcycles or have range anxiety or just don’t like the silence. They don’t care. Bemoan the new kids all you want but we are dead-generation walking and the future always bats last.
Harley-Davidson, having had their finger on the pulse of the American motorcyclist for more than 100 years, can feel that pulse weakening. They get that Easy Rider means a mobility chair to anyone under age 50. With the Livewire H-D is busting out of the leather-fringed, concho-ed cage they so carefully crafted for themselves and it’s about time.
Electric motorcycles just make more sense than electric cars: City-centric, short range, narrow and easy to park. E-bikes comfortably fit into the existing technology envelope as it stands today. While always appreciated there’s no need for advancements in battery technology. E-motorcycles work right now, man.
Generation X, Y, and Z are down with plugging in electronics equipment wherever they go. They grew up watching battery level indicators like we grew up watching fuel gauges. They don’t have the same history or values that we have and they’d be a pretty sorry generation if they couldn’t come up with their own idea of fun.
As usual on Wild Conjecture we have no factual information on the Livewire so the first thing I noticed is that the thing actually looks good. The heavily-finned battery compartment is kind of huge so maybe range will be decent (100-miles would do it for me). Large diameter dual discs means this may be the hardest stopping H-D yet. More than likely the rear disc will be assisted by regenerative braking because it’s fairly easy to do and adds a few miles to the range.
The rear suspension resembles Yamaha’s Monoshock system from 40 years ago except with a much shorter shock absorber. The frame appears to be cast aluminum, a construction method that eliminates costly, complicated robot welding machines and messy human interaction. Forks appear standard and I don’t see any way for the front wheel to charge the battery under braking.
One of the problems I see with electric motorcycles is that they try to be like internal combustion motorcycles. They measure their range against gasoline mileage. They pit their performance against machines that have had 100 years of refinement. For the most part they stack up so-so. E-bikes should embrace a less costly approach; give up a few miles of range and a few miles per hour for a faster charge time. Maybe cheaper, quick-change batteries so commuters could keep one at home, one at the office and one in the motorcycle thereby eliminating the wait time for charging.
The Livewire is an even bigger leap of faith for H-D than their ADV bike (which breaks no new ground) and I’m not sure it will sell out of a traditional motorcycle dealership. Maybe sell them from kiosks at Red Bull events? The Livewire should appeal to a younger audience but it’ll have to be less expensive and carry less emotional baggage than Harley’s oil burners to do it.
This is Phase II of our CSC City Slicker range testing. Phase I examined how the bike performed in the Eco mode. In this phase, today I tested the bike’s range in the Power mode.
Bottom line first: The bike went further then Zongshen said it would. Zongshen claimed the bike would go 37 miles at 37 mph. I managed to go 40.7 miles when starting with a 100%-charged battery. I attribute that to the fact that part of the course I ran today had a gradual downhill slope.
The next big thing…the newest bike in America on the grandest road in America: The CSC City Slicker on Route 66!
There’s a lot more to this test than what I did in the Eco mode testing. I should start out by telling you that this was not a test run on a perfectly flat, uninterrupted test track (I’m pretty sure if I did that I would have managed to get even a few more miles out of Slick). Nope, this was real world testing on American roads. In fact, I’d say it was real world testing on what is arguably the most famous road in America: Route 66. (Cue in the theme music from the ‘60s TV show, Route 66). It was that cool. Call me Todd. Arjiu can be Buzz. All we’d need is the Corvette. But I digress…back to the main attraction.
Power mode, Amigo! It’s like kicking in the afterburners!
So, I live a little over 16 miles east of CSC at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. My home is at 1700 feet above sea level. CSC, from my home, is headed toward the ocean, and that means a gentle downhill slope all the way. CSC sits about 610 feet above sea level. You might wonder why all the topological details, and here’s the reason: I found during my Eco mode testing that Slick uses less energy going downhill than it does going uphill. The bike covered about a mile for each 1% of battery charge going downhill, and about 0.4 miles for each 1% of battery charge going uphill. One of the things I wanted to find out in today’s Power mode testing is how the bike would perform from an energy consumption perspective in the Power mode, going downhill and then uphill.
I guess I ought to point out that I had a difficult time staying at 37 mph during this test, which is the speed for which Zongshen provided the range statistic. Every time I wasn’t really paying attention, I found myself going 42 or 43 mph (and those higher speeds use more energy). It was a challenge watching the road, watching the battery charge indicator, watching the mileage, and recording the data on my high-tech data logging system.
The ExhaustNotes.us high-tech data logger…
The bottom line here is I probably penalized the bike a little because I spent more time than I thought I would above 37 mph.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering what’s magical about 37 mph, I’m only hanging on that number because that’s the data point Zongshen gave us for range and speed in the Power mode: 37 miles at 37 mph. And in case you’re wondering why Zongshen picked the number 37, they really weren’t being cute about it. Zongshen’s real magic number was 60. 37 miles at 37 mph is 60 km at 60 kph. They’re on the metric system.
To cut the chase, here are the results…
Lots of good info. The top line with the yellow dots was the ride out. The bottom line with the green dots was the ride home.
I know that’s a complicated chart, but hey, I’m an engineer, and there’s a lot going on here. Let me explain it a bit.
I only recorded the data with each 5% decrease in battery charge for this test. I was moving a lot faster than I was in the Eco mode test, and I didn’t want to try to capture data points with every 1% decrease in battery charge.
The top line (the one with the yellow data points) was my ride out to CSC and beyond. It was downhill for the first 16.4 miles (from my home to the CSC plant). Starting with a 100% battery charge, my ride to the CSC plant took me down to 65% charge remaining. Stated differently, I used 35% of the battery charge to get from my place to CSC. I was impressed. If I was still a working stiff this would be a cool commuter bike.
I wanted to run the battery all the way down until the bike quit, and that meant I kept riding back and forth between Azusa, through Duarte, and into Monrovia. Those are the yellow data points on the upper line after reaching the CSC plant. I kept doing that until the battery hit 30% charge remaining (at which point the red plug to the left of the charge indicator started flashing, just as it had in the Eco mode test).
The dashboard battery charge indicator. The red plug lights when the bike is being charged by the external charger. It will start flashing when the charge level gets down to 30% while you are riding the motorcycle. It also lights up during regenerative braking.
When I got down to 15%, the bike went into its “limp home” mode again, just as it had in the Eco mode. When this happens, it accelerates much more gradually (that’s a gentle way of saying Slick is getting tired), and the bike tops out at about 20 mph.
I kept going in the CSC parking lot, riding in circles until the bike hit 6% charge remaining. I rode for another 0.4 miles at 6% charge when Slick called it a day. I watched to see if it would indicate 5% just before giving up the ghost, but I didn’t see that on the dash. I think when the bike drops from 6% to 5%, you don’t get to see it indicate 5%, but that’s where it quits.
To my surprise, I blew right through Zongshen’s claimed 37 mile range. I made it to 40.7 miles. And, as I mentioned in the Eco mode test, the odometer is about 5% pessimistic, so the indicated 40.7 miles is actually 42.7 miles. This is good, folks. Again, though, the fact that I went more than 37 miles is at least partly due to the fact that this leg of the test was slightly downhill.
I mentioned in the specs that the bike has regenerative braking. When that occurs, the red plug to the left of the battery charge bar illuminates. I never actually got it to cause the indicated charge percentage to increase, though. If it was at, say, 67% and it went into a regenerative braking mode, there wasn’t enough regeneration going on to bump it back up to 68%. The bike is obviously consuming less energy and it is charging, but not enough to register on the numerical percentage indicator. You do see the charge bar go up sharply (it swings to the right) while the red charging plug flickers on during deceleration. It’s cool. You feel like you’re giving something back.
The other thing I could not discern is how the algorithm operates the regeneration function. It seemed to me that the regeneration light came on while I was decelerating as my speeds dropped below about 10 mph and I was braking. I don’t know if that’s because there’s a lag between when the regeneration actually starts and when it is displayed on the dash, or if Zongshen has programmed something into the bike to prevent too much regeneration. I’m emailing them to find out, and I’ll let you know.
My big disappointment today? There was only one: When I got to CSC, all the burritos were gone. Saturday is burrito day at CSC. But I’m still young, and I’ve been working on handling disappointment.
Steve had a freshly charged battery waiting for me, and I wanted to do a video of the battery removal. One of the guys following the ExhaustNotes blog asked for that, so here you go…
Guys, when you see the video, be gentle. I’m not Cecil B. DeMille. I know that. You need to know that I know that. If you want to be a video critic, start a blog or something.
With a new battery in place, it was time for my ride home. I was very curious to see how this would go, because now instead of descending from 1700 feet to 610 feet, I’d be climbing that same 16.4-mile grade. I’ll post the graph here again so it’s easier to put the words and the music together…
The bottom line with the green dots was the ride home.
The bottom data line (the one with the green data points) shows energy consumption as a function of miles on the uphill ride home. You can see that the bike uses more energy going uphill than it does going downhill (again, duh, but the data shown in the above graph makes it clear). Some folks are confused by x-y plots (hell, some folks are confused by, well…never mind). Don’t look at this graph and think that the shorter lower line with the green dots means the bike will only go 16.4 miles. I still had 50% of the battery charge left at that point. I was home. I parked the bike, went inside, and opened a can of Tecate (which I’m nursing as I write this blog).
So, here’s the take-away from today’s testing:
The bike goes further in the Power mode than Zongshen said it would. This is good, but temper my results with the course I rode (part of it was slightly downhill).
I used 35% of the battery’s energy going from my home to CSC (a gradual descent) and I used 50% of the battery’s energy going from CSC to my home (a gradual climb).
This motorcycle is a lot of fun and it gets a ton of attention. Every time somebody stopped alongside me at a light, the questions and compliments started. I don’t mind admitting I enjoyed that.
I think these guys (that is, CSC) aren’t charging enough for the bike, but hey, what do I know?
And there you have it. Slick’s on the charger now. I’m going to the rifle range tomorrow to send some lead downrange. On Monday or maybe a little later in the week, me and Slick are going to do some climbing up in the San Gabriels to see how the steeper grades affect range. As always, if you have questions, post them in the Comments section, and I’ll do my best to get answers for you.
I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings but us oldsters are through. Our time has passed. No one cares if we like electric motorcycles or have range anxiety or just don’t like the silence. They don’t care. Bemoan the new kids all you want but we are dead-generation walking and the future always bats last.
