The Motley Fool is an investment advisory service newsletter I’ve been following since the 1990s, and my take on things is they generally have good advice and make predictions that have proven to be sound. Most recently, The Motley Fool published an article (Harley-Davidson Really Misjudged the Electric Motorcycle Market) about Harley’s Livewire electric motorcycle. Their take on the new Harley is the same as ours…Harley’s marketing muscle and distribution channels will help, but the idea of a $35K+ electric motorcycle nearly guarantees a dead-on-arrival introduction. The Motley Fool piece is well reasoned and mirrors our earlier prediction. Let’s hope both we and The Motley Fool are wrong.
Category: Harley-Davidson
Precipitation, polarities, headgear, and gobble gobble…
The rain has been nonstop here for the last several days, and for the last couple of nights it’s rained so hard that it woke me up a few times. I guess nearly all of California is getting drenched. It’s too wet to ride and it’s too wet to shoot, so I’ve been catching up on other stuff.
On that shooting bit…to get to my gun club you have to drive down a dirt road for a couple of miles, and at one point the road actually crosses a stream. Usually it’s only a couple of inches deep and sometimes it’s even dry, but that sure isn’t the case right now. The gun club sent out an email yesterday afternoon with a video warning folks not to try to drive across the stream (which is now a little river)…
So, with all this rain (and some hail) I’ve been attending to other things…catching up on writing a couple of articles, doing a bit of reloading, and I even put a new battery in my TT250.
Reloading is a good thing to do on a rainy day, and the menu today included .44 Magnum and .45 AutoRim, two of my all-time favorite cartridges.
Back to the battery for my TT250…I’ve owned my TT250 for close to three years now and the battery finally gave up the ghost. I stopped in at CSC and told Steve I wanted a new one on the warranty, and we both had a good laugh about that. Steve told me I was the only guy he knew who could get that kind of life out of a Chinese battery. I thought that was kind of funny because all the batteries are Chinese now.
Seriously, though, I think the reason my batteries last so long is that I usually keep them on a Battery Tender. Those things work gangbusters for me, the bikes run better when the batteries are kept fully charged, and the batteries seem to last a good long time. You can buy a Battery Tender most anywhere; my advice would be to get one (or more) from CSC. They come with a little pigtail you can permanently install on your battery, which makes connecting the Battery Tender a snap. I have one on both my RX3 and my TT250.
Another bit of a commercial for CSC…the mailman dropped off a box on Saturday, and it was one of the new CSC hats. I’m a hat guy. I like wearing a hat. My favorite kind of hat is a free one. The CSC hat I received was free (thanks, Steve), but unless you wrote a blog for CSC for 10 years, it’s not likely you’d get yours for free. I think they sell for $19.95, which is a bit above what hats normally go for, but this one is more than worth it. It’s got cool embossed stitching and it looks good. I like it and I think it will make me a better man. Like I said, $19.95 ain’t bad, but maybe you could get one for free as part of the deal when you buy a new CSC motorcycle. I’d at least ask the question. The worst that could happen is Steve will say no. But if he does that, ask for a free copy of 5000 Miles At 8000 RPM when you buy your new motorcycle. You never know.
Hey, here’s one more cool photo. I’ve been spending a bit of time up in northern California. I have a new grandson up there who I think is going to be a rider, a shooter, and a blog writer. On that blog writing thing, I told him it’s a great foundation for any “get rich slow” scheme, and I think he gets it. Anyway, my wife Sue is still up there, and she saw the neighborhood brood of wild turkeys this morning walking around like they own the place…
You know, there was some talk of making the turkey our national bird instead of the bald eagle when our country first formed (Ben Franklin was pushing for the turkey, but I guess the rest of the founding fathers told him to go fly a kite). As an aside, when I ride up to northern California, I take Highway 152 across from Interstate 5 to the 101, and there’s a tree where I always see one or two bald eagles. Bald eagles are majestic raptors. I can see the logic behind the turkey, though. But wow, would it ever take a rethink of a lot of marketing stuff, and in particular, it would make for a major revamp of one particular Motor Company’s marketing and branding efforts (you know, the guys from Milwaukee). Seriously, their performance parts would all have to be marketed under a new Screaming Turkey brand. You could bask in the assumed glory of your motorcycle’s heritage as you rode like, well, a real turkey. Perhaps the Company could get a patent on a new exhaust note….one that would have to change from “potato potato” to “gobble gobble.” There would have to be new logos, tattoos, T-shirts…the list just doesn’t end. But I guess I had better. You know, before I offend anyone.
Stay tuned, folks. Like always, there’s more good ExNotes stuff coming your way. Gobble gobble.
Gun stuff is da bomb!
Or so sayeth Joe Gresh, soothsayer, philosopher, and observer of the human condition extraordinaire. Say what you wish, every time we post a gun blog here on ExNotes, the hits (no gun puns intended) go through the roof. We’re primarily a motorcycle site, with an emphasis on vintage bikes, restorations, destinations, Baja, and adventure riding. But our readers love gun stories. What to do?
I guess we’ve got to find a way to merge the two topics: Guns and motorcycles. Somebody did it with roses. We’ve got to be smart enough to find a way to do it with motorcycles. Here are my thoughts…
Maybe armed motorcycles. Hmmm, that might work. I’m thinking a .45 ACP Gatling mounted centerline on a big V-twin, maybe with the bike being designated the FLH-GG. Centerline mounting would prevent recoil-induced torque steer (just as was done on the A-10 Warthog), and the .45 ACP chambering would allow for increased ammo storage and shorter barrel length (plus, the .45 ACP is an incalculably cool cartridge). I’m thinking a firing rate of 1000 rounds per minute would do nicely.
That Gatling thing could work. When I was in the Army, we called our 20mm Gatlings Vulcans, and Kawasaki made a motorcycle called the Vulcan. There are branding possibilities here, folks.
Or maybe we look for bikes that have already been built. Ural had a sidecar model with a machine gun mount a few years ago. Yeah, that could work.
We could focus on police and military motorcycles. Hmmm, I know a pretty good book on that topic, and Lord knows there’s enough models of police and military bikes to support a string of blog features. But hey, we’re already planning to do that. And it will be cool. I guarantee it.
Maybe a feature or two on how to carry a gun on a motorcycle, both out in the open and maybe a concealed carry feature. The Army had some cool ideas on open carry back in the 1940s (see the above photo). For concealed carry, I’m thinking maybe something that’s integrated into the clutch lever, or a tankbag holster that looks like a map case. Or maybe a cell phone mount with a Derringer designed to look like a cell phone. Yeah, we could have a lot of fun with this one.
When I was at CSC, we sometimes ran a postal match. You know, where folks shoot at a target, send the target to us, and we’d score them to find a winner. That was a lot of fun.
While we were running the postal match, somebody actually wrote to me suggesting we have a match in which you have to shoot from a rolling motorcycle (no kidding, folks…I can’t make up stuff this good). It would be kind of like polo, I suppose, but with bikes and bullets instead of horses and mallets (or whatever they call those things they whack the ball with). Liability coverage might be tough, but it could be made to work.
We could design a gun that transforms itself into a motorcycle. You know, you carry the thing in a holster, say a few well-chosen words, and it converts itself into a motorcycle to allow for a convenient and quick exit. We could maybe call it something catchy, like the Transformer. We ‘d probably sell a few just because it sounds like an electric thingamabog (you know, it would sell to folks wanting to show they’re green). Nah, I don’t think he technology has caught up to the EPA challenges yet. But it’s fun to think about.
I’ve done a blog or two on motorcycle companies that started as firearms manufacturers. You know, BSA (which actually stands for Birmingham Small Arms), Royal Enfield (of Lee Enfield rifle fame), and well, you get the idea. That would involve a lot of research, so it may not fit in with our ExNotes labor minimization strategies. But it might be worth considering.
All of the above is food for thought, but I’m rapidly approaching a state in which I’ve been thinking so hard I may not be able to think for the next several days. Help me out here, folks. What are your ideas?
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The Three Flags Classic: Day 3
The third day of the 2005 Three Flags Classic motorcycle rally would take us from Grand Junction, Colorado (where we stayed the second night of the tour) to Driggs, Idaho. Wowee, we were covering some miles! You can catch up on the ride by reading our prior blog posts here:
The 2005 Three Flags Classic Rally: the Intro!
The Three Flags Classic: Day 1
The Three Flags Classic: Day 2
And with that, let’s get to Day 3!
As you’ll recall, it had rained big time during parts of Day 2, and it had continued to rain that evening. The next morning, though, was a bright, crisp, Colorado day, and after a great breakfast, we pointed the bikes north and crossed over into Utah.
Utah was amazing. I continue to believe it is the most scenic of our 50 states. Although I had been to Zion and Bryce on previous trips, the Three Flags Classic was taking us to places I had never seen. We had a checkpoint in Vernal, a most interesting place in the heart of Utah’s dinosaur country.
We rode north, up to and around Flaming Gorge Reservoir. These were all magnificent destinations. The folks who planned the tour route did an amazing job.
After leaving Utah, we entered Wyoming for a brief period, and then we were into Idaho. Idaho is a beautiful state. We saw quite a few dead animals on the road, and in particular, a lot of dead skunks. We also saw a few larger roadkill carcasses that I didn’t immediately recognize. I later learned they were wolves!
We would our night in Driggs, Idaho, at the end of Day 3. It was an interesting night, with forest fires raging around us. We had a great dinner, more great conversation, and I was getting to know the guys better. Marty, as always, was an easy guy to travel with. I got to know good buddy Dave, shown in the above photo, a lot better on this trip, too. Dave was an absolute fanatic about keeping his bike clean, which was a hell of a challenge considering all of the rain we had ridden through the prior day. We had a bit of rain that night after dinner, too, and I remember talking to Dave as he was wiping down his GS, in the rain, cleaning it as the rain fell on the bike. I told him he was going to have a hard time, washing a bike in the rain, and we had a good laugh about that.
And that, my friends, wraps up Day 3 of the 2005 Three Flags Classic. The following day would take us way up north to Whitefish, Montana, just south of the Canadian border. It had been an amazing three days so far, and we still had a long way to go. But that’s coming in future blogs.
Stay tuned!
Where does the line form?
So the price of the new Harley Livewire has been announced, and it’s just under $30K. With taxes, dealer setup, freight, etc., it’s a bike that will be somewhere around $35K. Every blog, motorcycle forum, and motorcycle news outlet on the planet is carrying the story, and I have little more to add. Everyone with an opinion is posting why this makes sense, or why it makes no sense.
When Harley came out with the V-Rod 15 or so years ago, I said it would flop, and I posted a comment to that effect on one of the forums:
Wow, a 600-lb motorcycle with 85 horsepower. Where does the line form?
That comment ultimately was proven correct, and it somehow seems Livewire-appropriate today. I’ll leave the Livewire pricing, marketing analysis, and deep thinking to the other online pundits. My prediction? It took the V-Rod more than a decade to die. The demise of the Livewire, at $35K, will be mercifully quick. I hope I’m wrong, but I suspect I am not.
Dream Garage
If I had all the money, I’d be one of those crazy collector types, like Jay Leno or Anthony Hopkins, the Silence Of The Lambs guy. You know, the kind that has 177 motorcycles, their Great Paw-Paw’s washing machine motor and 42 washed-up old cars stored in three aircraft hangers. All of my bikes would be in neat rows, I’d have every color of every year of each model and they would all sit in my gigantic storage shed and slowly seize up. And when I die there’d be an auction where the stuff would sell for pennies on the dollar to a bunch of soulless flippers intent on making old motorcycles as expensive and annoying as the collector car scene is today.
Maybe I’d organize both cars and bikes by engine type. There would be a Kawasaki 750 triple, a Saab 93 triple, a Suzuki 750 triple next to a crisp, modern Honda NS400. Flathead Row would have a Melroe Bobcat with the air-cooled Wisconsin V-4, and all three Harley flatties: The 45- incher, the Sportster KH and that big block they made (74-inch?). You’d have to have an 80-inch Indian and the Scout along with most of the mini bikes built in the 1970s.
I love a disc-valve two stroke but I’ve never owned one. First bikes in that section will be a bunch of Kawasaki twins (350cc and 250cc). I’d have a CanAm because with their carb tucked behind the cylinder instead of jutting out the side they don’t look like disc bikes should. A Bridgestone 350 twin without an air filter element would be parked next to a ferocious Suzuki 125cc square-four road racer, year to be determined.
Besides the two-stroke Saab I’d have a two-stroke Suzuki LJ 360cc 4X4 with the generator that turns into the starter motor like an old Yamaha AT1-125. I’d need a metalflake orange Myers Manx dune buggy. It would be that real thick kind of metalflake that looks like some kind of novelty candy served only on Easter or found in table centerpieces at wedding receptions. A few Chevy trucks from the 1960’s would make it into the collection also. A mid-60’s Chevy van, the swoopy one, would be a must-have to go with one of those giant steam tractors, the ones with the steel wheels and the chain wrapped around the steering shaft and then to the center pivot front axle to make the beast turn hard.
To complement the Bobcat I’d have a gas-engined backhoe, something from the 1950’s with all new hoses and tires. I’ll paint it yellow with a roller and then hand paint “The Jewel” in red on both sides of the hood with the tiny artist’s brush from a child’s watercolor set. The backhoe would be a smooth running liquid-cooled flathead with an updraft carburetor and it would reek of unburnt fuel whenever you lifted a heavy load in the front bucket.
No one would be as into my junk as me, so I’d have to hire a guy to feign interest in the stuff. I think $10 an hour should get me a sidekick who would always be amazed at what I had found. We’d both marvel at how little work or parts the item would need to get it running and then we’d push it into an empty space. After a cold beer from a refrigerator plastered with Klotz decals he’d run his card through the time clock with a resounding clunk, leaving me and the shop cat sitting in my beat-up brown vinyl recliner to stare at my collection and wonder if I really had all the money.
And the winner is…
Our moto adventure book giveaway winner is none other than good buddy Trevor Summons, and that’s a hell of a coincidence. I actually know Trevor. We have quite a few folks following the ExNotes blog, and Trevor is one of those who signed up for automatic email notifications when we post a new blog. I first met Trevor when he did a story on CSC Motorcycles several years ago for the Daily Bulletin newspaper, and we’ve stayed in touch since.
Trevor’s the real deal…he’s a columnist who writes the “Trevor’s Travels” feature, and he’s a Harley-Davidson rider. Trevor and his son (who lives in Japan) do a 3,000-mile moto camping trip every year. They’ve been to the Canadian border, Sturgis, Yellowstone twice, and southern Colorado. This past September Trevor and his son went up to northern Ontario (the one in Canada, not here in So Cal).
Trevor opted for a signed copy of Moto Colombia, and we’re getting together for lunch sometime in the next couple of weeks so I can give it to him. You can bet I’ll grab a photo or two when we do that.
For those of you who didn’t win this time, don’t have a cow. We’re going to have a regular quarterly book give away, and the next contest starts today. We’ll announce the winner on April 1st, except it will be for real (that is to say, it won’t be an April Fools sort of thing). All you need to do to enter is be on our email list, and you can do that by adding your email address to the widget on this page!
Happy New Year!
I’m celebrating the start of 2019 the right way, with a trip to the rifle range to test a few new loads for accuracy, but during a break in my reloading session yesterday (at the tail end of 2018), I let chaos theory take over. That’s the theory that says you often get unpredictable outcomes from random, seemingly unconnected events.
The unconnected event was the light bulb over our bathroom shower blowing out a couple of days ago. The Boss (SWMBO, or she who must be obeyed) gave me directions to get it taken care of, and that meant a short ride to the lighting store. You’re probably wondering about now if I somehow got electrocuted or if I slipped on the ladder taking the bulb out. Nope, neither one of those things happened. But….
You see, the lighting store is just across the street from our local Harley dealer. You know, the T-shirt guys who also sell motorcycles. I had to stop in to see the new Harleys. I mean, I was right there. No, I didn’t need a new T-shirt. But I was curious. It would be 2019 in a few hours, and I needed to see the latest and the greatest from Milwaukee and Mumbai.
I’ve owned a couple of Harleys in my life. The first was a 1979 Electra-Glide Classic, a two-tone-tan-and-cream-colored full dresser that was beautiful. I called it my optical illusion. It looked like a real motorcycle. The thing was gorgeous, but it couldn’t go a hundred miles without something breaking, and when I finally sold it (also in 1979, after its third top end overhaul), I swore I would never buy another Harley.
Promises are made to be broken, and that led to a 1992 Heritage Softail, which was a great motorcycle. I did some real traveling on that one, as you’ll need from reading Moto Baja. The Softail made it to 53,000 miles before the engine froze up, and that was after I owned it for just over 10 years. I’m real certain about that “just over 10 years” time frame, because when the engine locked up, the Harley dealer wouldn’t touch it. That was because it was “over 10 years” old, and that’s the cutoff for Harley working on a motorcycle. But that was okay…because I put a 96-inch S&S motor in the thing, and that really woke the bike up. Top end went from just under 100 mph to well over 120 mph (the speedo only went to 120, and burying the needle was no problemo with the new motor). The fuel economy went from the low 40-mpg range to about 30 mpg with that new motor, but hey, who’s counting?
But then chaos theory took over again. I was supposed to bring home a carton of milk one day when I was out on my Harley, I forgot, and SWMBO sent me back out to fetch said carton. For whatever reason, I took my KLR 650 on that run, so I had a chance to ride the 96-inch Harley back-to-back with the KLR. You can guess where this story is going. The KLR was faster, it handled better, and best of all, the entire KLR motorcycle had cost less (brand new) out the door than just the S&S had cost for the Harley. Cycle Trader came to the rescue, and two days later, I was happily Harleyless. Chaos Theory. Powerful stuff.
So, back to the main attraction here: My visit to the Harley dealer yesterday, and the 2019 version of the Heritage Softail. $22,787! Yikes! I asked the sales guy, after telling him I was only interested in looking and I was not a buyer, about the engine size. It seems the standard motor is a 107 cubic inch V-twin, and this one had Harley’s optional 114-cubic inch motor. I guess there’s no substitute for cubic inches. My two earlier Harleys had 80 cubic inches. My current motorcycle has 250 cubic centimeters, which is hair over 15 cubic inches, and that has taken me all over the US, up and down Baja a half-dozen times, across China, around the Andes in Colombia, and well, you get the idea. But you never know. There might be a time when another 100 cubic inches would come in handy.
Anyway, take a look at the dealer setup fee on that sticker above. Yikes again! And how about that CARB fee? Folks, I’ve been in the business, and I’ve spent a lot of time seeing bikes through the CARB process at their test facilities in El Monte, California. I know the folks who run the place. There is no such thing as a CARB fee. At least that the CARB people know about.
Moving on, I noticed the Harley Street model. Gresh told me he’d never seen one, and I thought I’d snap a photo of it for him. It’s not a bad looking bike. I like the look and feel of the Street. I don’t know how it rides. The price of the bike is reasonable, too, other than the aforementioned CARB and dealer setup fees.
My guess is Harley is eager to deal on these little bikes. They should just give me one. I’d like to ride the Mumbai Monster. I’d ride it all over and publicize the hell out of it. It would give me license to start wearing Harley T-shirts again, too.
I joked with the sales guy about the prices, and he told me to take a look at the CVO (as in “Custom Vehicle Operations”) number on the bike behind me. Wowzers! $45,522! Good Lord!
So there you have it. A burnt-out light bulb led to a Harley dealer visit and the photos you see above. No, I didn’t buy anything. Not even a T-shirt. But I had fun looking. It was a good way to wrap up 2018.
Happy New Year, folks!
Harley Tanking
This article in Barron’s on Harley’s sales popped up recently. The bottom line is that Harley’s sales are dropping more than predicted, and things are not looking good in Milwaukee. It’s simultaneously interesting and disappointing. I don’t like it when any motorcycle company has bad news, and I’m hoping that Harley gets it turned around. Harley is introducing new, smaller motorcycles, and I think that’s the ticket back. The question is: Can they do it quickly enough?
Harley has a tough row to hoe, having built their business selling overweight, underperforming, uber-expensive bikes to a clientele that is aging out. The smart move would be to acquire a small motorcycle manufacturer or importer with a proven track record and to then build on that success, but hey, what do I know? I know there aren’t too many people left willing to shell out $20K to $40K for chrome, conchos, and leather fringe. I also know that you can’t get inventory fast enough when you’re selling new motorcycles for $2K, or maybe $4K.
We’ll see.
Your thoughts on all of this? Leave us a comment and let us know where you think the market is going, why a great old company like Harley is having such a tough time in a booming ec0nomy, or any other topic.
Hey, one more thing: There are less than 4 more days left to get in on our moto-adventure book drawing! Just leave your email address for automatic email notifications, and you’re entered!
The Ideal Electric Motorcycle
I like to read the ExhaustNotes blog. In the aerospace industry, if you liked what your team created too much, we called it drinking your own bath water. The risk in drinking your own bath water was that you lost sight of what was important to the customer and you stopped reviewing your work objectively. Anyway, every once in a while I’ll read through the blog to see what looks good and what we could maybe do better. And in doing that I realized that old Arjiu and I hadn’t done a dream bike piece recently.
That brings us to today and the dream bike bit du jour: The Ideal Electric Motorcycle. I’m going to define the specs for what I think would be a riotously successful electric motorcycle. Bear with me…I think this is going to be good, which can sometimes happen even with bath water.
I guess the first order of business is to consider the current crop of ebikes’ weaknesses. That’s easy. Limited range, limited top speed, long recharge times, clunky and bulky external chargers (for some bikes), and the biggest one of all (at least to me): A near complete lack of cool. Yeah, I’m defining the specs for an ebike that would do well in the US, and the lack of cool is a very big deal. We have to address that. It’s a serious shortfall in all the ebikes I’ve seen. I mean, nobody visualizes themselves as Steve McQueen jumping a fence in Nazi Germany on an ebike. Nobody thinks of themselves as Peter Fonda kickstarting a silent ebike to take Nancy Sinatra for a ride.
Remember that old Harley ad? The one that showed a toddler in a Harley T-shirt with the this question at the bottom: When did it start for you? That ad says it all. I know for me, and I suspect for nearly all of you, our fascination with motorcycles originated when we were wee ones and we saw a motorcycle that stopped us in our Buster Brown tracks. You know what I’m talking about. A bike that made us just stop and stare, usually for a long period of time. I have two such recollections: One was a 1950’s era Harley Duo-Glide dresser (with a monstrous V-twin engine, corrugated exhaust headers, and drop-dead-deep-gorgeous paint); the other was a ’64 500cc Triumph twin (white with gold accents, pea-shooter mufflers, Triumph’s “parcel grid” on the gas tank, a matching tach and speedo, and those magnificent, sweeping exhaust headers). Yeah, those bikes defined cool. They were visually arresting things. None of the ebikes currently on the market do that for me. Like my old platoon sergeant used to say, this is something we need to talk about.
Okay, enough reminiscing. Let’s get to the specs. The way I see it, we need to address weight, size, top end, range, recharging, cost, comfort, and the cool factor. Here we go, boys and girls…
Let’s hit the elephant in the room first, and that’s the range issue. We need more. Nobody has a motorcycle with decent range. The City Slicker, under best case conditions (I’m talking low speeds and summer temperatures) can do about 60 miles, maybe a scosh more, and obtaining the last few miles involves really low speeds and lots of prayer. Zero claims much greater range, but every magazine that’s tested the Zero shoots those claims down with a heartfelt dismissal that goes along the lines of “in your dreams, Zero.” Nope, the range on the current crop of ebikes just isn’t where it needs to be yet. Where is that? Hey, I’m writing the spec. I’d say 250 miles. Put an ebike out there that can go an honest 250 miles at normal speeds, and I’m in. I think that should be doable at a reasonable price (I’ll say more on that in a bit). Yeah, a 250-mile range would make an ebike viable for me.
Next up: Recharging. Look, the bottom line is I don’t want to wait 8 hours to recharge a bike. As long as I’m writing the spec and dreaming out loud, I’d like to see a sub-30-minute recharge time. When I stop at a gas station, it’s about 10 minutes to pull up to the pump, put the bike on the sidestand, get off, take off my gloves, unlock the fuel cap, get out my wallet, put the credit card in the gas pump, enter my zip code, pick the octane level I want, take the nozzle out of the pump, peel back the nozzle’s foreskin so the fuel will flow (hey, we live in Kalifornia), put fuel in the tank, and then reverse the process. Add another rider or maybe another ten riders (if I’m on one of my Baja tours and I’m being my usual hardass self about not wasting time), and a fuel stop grows to maybe 30 minutes. I’m used to that, and that’s what I want in an ebike: Quick replenishment. That’s beyond the current state of the art, but don’t tell me we can’t do it. The solution is obvious: We need to change the state of the art.
On the recharger, I want it built into the bike, with a simple cord that pulls out of the bike to plug in someplace (kind of like you get on a vacuum cleaner). Give me a 15-foot cord and I’m good to go. I don’t want to screw around with an external power converter, because then I’d have to find a place to carry it on the bike. Build that thing into the motorcycle. Zero has the right idea on this one.
I think an 85-mph top speed is good. I know, I know…maybe you’re one of those guys: Ah need at least a 1000cc and Ah need to go at least a hunnert else they’ll run me down on the freeway. If that’s you, don’t waste any more time here; go back to posting stupid stuff on Facebook and the other forums. Here’s the deal: I’ve been riding for a few years, and the times I’ve needed to go above 85 mph are few and far between. In fact, I’ve never actually “needed” to go over 85. Adding top end takes a big bite out of an ebike. I’m willing to give up stupid top end to get more range, shorter recharge times, and less weight. So, 85 mph it is. Give me that in an ebike and I’m a happy camper.
I want a reasonable amount of stowage space so I can do Baja without bungee cords. Some folks look like they’re moving when they go on an overnight motorcycle trip. I’ve ridden with those guys. They and their bikes are like the opening Beverly Hillbillies scene with Granny on top of the pickup truck (not that’s there’s anything wrong with being a hillbilly, or a Granny, for that matter). The City Slicker has a cool stowage compartment where the fuel tank would be on a gas bike. Something like that would work just fine for me. I don’t need to change my underwear every day on a motorcycle trip.
The ideal motorcycle (not just an ebike, but any motorcycle, in my opinion) should have a seat height no higher than 30 inches, a weight of 400 lbs or less, and physical dimensions that allow for easy u-turns on two-lane roads. None of this 36-inch seat height, 800-lb silliness. The ergonomics should be straight standard motorcycle, too. No Ricky Racer, stupidly-low-clip-on, first-two-years-of-chiropractor-visits-are-free seating positions. And while I’m on doctor references, no gynecological-exam, silly-ass cruiser seating positions, either. If the designers of my ideal ebike could just get a 2006 KLR 650 and duplicate its handlebar/seat/footpeg relationship, that would be fine. My KLR had the best seating position of any motorcycle I’ve ever owned.
I’d vote for 17-inch rear and 19-inch front wheels because that combo just flat seems to work for damn near everything. I won’t be jumping any logs with my ideal ebike or trying to fly across soft sand, and that eliminates the need for a 21-inch front wheel. And everybody has all kinds of tire combos for the 17/19 setup. To borrow a phrase, why re-invent the wheel?
I want a plug-and-play bike with BITE. Not as in “bite me,” but as in built-in-test-equipment (like the aerospace industry uses). That would completely eliminate the need for a dealer (come to think of it, it would also eliminate the need for a shop manual). No obscene, inflated dealer freight and setup fees. Nope, I want factory direct. And if anything goes wrong with the bike, it shows me which module I need to remove and replace. Plug and play. I don’t feel the need to fund an on-the-job-training program for a dealer-based, wannabe motorcycle mechanic. BITE me, baby.
I think the cost of such a bike should be about $7,500. That feels about right for what a motorcycle should cost. Yeah, I know, you probably couldn’t build it for that in America. Maybe India? Or China? Or maybe you could make it in America. Source the subassemblies wherever you need to, keep the UAW and IAM snouts out of the trough, and assemble the bikes here. Create 30 to 50 US jobs at an assembly plant, preferably in Texas or New Mexico. This is doable, folks. Trust me on this. I used to run manufacturing facilities before I moved up to blogging. We can do this.
So there you have it. Do all of the above, and folks would beat a digital path to your online direct sales website. Yep, all of the above, at $7,500. That’s the ticket.
Oh, and one last must have: Electric start. Peter and Nancy (and the rest of the Wild Angels cast), my apologies in advance, but no kickers on my ideal electric bike. I know they’re cool, but this is the 21st Century.
Want to read more of our ebike stuff? Hey, just click here! It’s our new index page with all the good ebike articles we’ve done here on the blog.
More good stuff. It seems the Chairman of the Southern California Motorcycle Association, my new good buddy Gonzo, is a big fan of the ExhaustNotes.us site. We had a nice conversation yesterday, and Gonzo told me he particularly liked our story on the Jack Daniel’s visit (so much so they are running it in their newsletter this month) and our first intro piece on the 2005 Three Flags Classic.
One thing led to another…I’ve been invited to the 2019 Three Flags Classic (boy oh boy, I’m really thinking about that one), and I became an SCMA member. You should be, too, even if you’re not living here in the Southland because SCMA’s events are international in reach. You can join right here.
And one last thing: Want to win a free copy of one of our moto adventure books? You can get in on the drawing if you sign up for automatic email blog updates (the widget is in the upper right corner if you’re on a laptop, and below this article if you read the blog on a phone). We’ll never share your email with anyone else!