Have any of you ridden electric motorcycles?

[cozmcrae]

Hey.

Have any of you guys had a chance to ride or have owned electric motorcycles? What were your thoughts on them?

[bmw320ci]

BMW Brussels can rent you one for 40euro a day

[LandRoverManiac]

cozmcrae said:

Hey.

Have any of you guys had a chance to ride or have owned electric motorcycles? What were your thoughts on them?

I once rode a Motorcrosser model called an OSET - was a bit strange until you got used to hearing no noise other than the chain/drive-sprocket whirring around. It was an early model so the charge ran down quite quickly when you gave it the beans.

Controls were similar to a conventional one, albeit no gear-change (for all intents and purposes it was a twist-and-go).

My own preferences aside (give me a thumping DRZ 400 any day) - it was light and zipped about quite handily. I could see them taking off in urban areas (and scaring the crap out of cyclists and pedestrians in the process).

Edited by LandRoverManiac on Saturday 1st July 14:58

[Caruso]

I've been commuting by Vectrix for about 6 years now. In that time I've had 2 of them, an original NiMH one and now an Li+

Good points are the bike is great to ride and makes an interesting noise. The throttle is brilliant and it's a shame they patented it then went out of business as nobody else seems to use the same system.

Reliability was a weak point on my original one, I got through 3 motor controllers which are not cheap to replace, plus I had some other strange behaviour. My Li+ has been much better despite being the same age. Both had annoying problems with brake light switches and it's difficult to source the original ones. You can modify a generic plastic one to fit but they don't last as long.