The Zero SR-F I’m about to ride has 110 horsepower and a whopping 140 ft-lbs of torque.
Picking a day in the middle of January when the roads are filthy and I had to wait for the frost to melt before setting out this morning wasn’t the smartest idea I’ve ever had.
Despite the mind-bending performance figures, the Zero SR-F is perhaps the most docile – if you want it to be – motorcycle I’ve ridden. To describe the SR-F as smooth does not do it justice. I’m carving through city traffic, and the Zero SR-F is an absolute gem.
The Zero SR-F is perhaps the ultimate urban motorcycle.
Sliding Through the Traffic
I decided to wimp out and start the day in ECO mode, reducing the power and limiting the speed to a little over 70mph. The last thing I want to do is step the backend out leaving the Pidcock Motorcycles car park.
I needn’t have worried. Despite the mountain of torque, the power delivery is silky smooth and easily controlled. As a result, you can slow ride the Zero SR-F, and I assume all of the other Zero motorcycles, at less than walking pace.
The low centre of gravity and absence of any off-centre moving parts makes the SR-F a delight in traffic. After a few miles and some U-Turns to get familiar with the bike I’m cutting through the Nottingham traffic, looking for every opportunity to slide to the front of a queue.
But the best bit about filtering is winning every traffic light GP without even trying.
On the way to pick up the Zero SR-F, I’d filtered through the middle of two lanes of traffic on my KTM 1090. The BMW X5 on my outside decided I had insulted his manhood and floored the Beemer across the lights as soon as they changed to amber.
I let him go and then passed him while he waited in the next queue. Had I been on the SR-F and I’d wanted to prove a point (never helpful), he would never have seen which way I went.
Smooth constant drive from the Z-Force 75-10 motor delivers the torque in a highly manageable and very effective manner. You will get you from zero to “I was going how fast, Officer?” effortlessly.
There are no gears to shift. No power band or torque curve to worry about. You simply twist and disappear.
Having filtered to the front and then left everyone standing at the lights, you can time your entry onto roundabouts, using just the throttle. Rolling off when in ECO mode is similar to feathering the rear brake and makes merging with traffic a breeze.
Never touching the brakes is a sweet feeling and massages one’s ego tremendously.
The Silence
For years I’ve worn earplugs when riding. Add to that the Schubert C4 I was using that day is one of the quietest helmets available, yet the silence of the Zero SR-F was shocking. I never realised how much mechanical noise there is from a petrol engine.
The sensation is very relaxing if a little strange. The number of conversations, phone calls and music you can hear coming from cars is a revelation.
As for whether the silence of the Zero SR-F made people less aware of me, I’m going to say no, and here is why.
First, the number of distractions other road users introduce into their own world. A lot of them are doing something else as well as driving.
Secondly, on the way home on the KTM, two people edged out of side turnings on me, and the KTM has very bright riding lights and is quite loud.
So, on balance, I don’t think it is anything to do with not making any noise. Would it help when filtering? Perhaps but only when I was already next to them; otherwise, there are too many distractions around them for an exhaust note to make any difference.
Open Roads
After an hour of playing with the traffic and having won every traffic light Grand Prix, without even trying or breaking a speed limit (honest!), I decided to head toward Melton Mowbray.
The route out of Nottingham is a blend of urban dual carriageway and national speed limit A-roads that wind through some inspiring countryside.
I was also noticing that I was feeling cramped on the Zero SR-F and hoped that a long stretch on the bike would let me find a more comfortable riding position.
My upper body was pitched perfectly for both town and motorway speeds, but my legs were starting to cramp. The footpegs on the Zero SR-S are 20mm lower and the bars slightly higher. I’m told that a popular modification for the Zero SR-F is to fit SR-S pegs and bars.
Stopping at one of the lay-bys on the A46, I tried shifting about to see if I could get a more comfortable riding position. As there are no gears to change and the rear brake master cylinder would be easy to relocate, I would have thought a more flexible arrangement with the footpegs would have been part of the design philosophy.
Regardless, stopping did give me the perfect excuse to select sports mode and discover just how fast the Zero SR-F can accelerate. I’m going to say I didn’t know how fast I went because, in four seconds, I was going fast enough for most things to be a blur.
The acceleration isn’t arm-wrenching. There isn’t the sound of tortured valve springs or a howling exhaust. One second you are trickling along at less than walking pace, and four seconds later, you are … well … you get the idea. Clucking bell, the Zero SR-F is quick.
The power and how it is delivered makes overtaking almost too easy. As soon as you know the overtake is on, check behind, point, squirt and then let the braking effect from regeneration adjust your speed if you need to. Overtakes are completed in the time it takes to say, mirror, signal, manoeuvre.
Run Around Recharge
Playing with the performance does put a dent in the remaining range figure. The figure is a little misleading as the range is based on how you are riding, as it can’t predict what is ahead.
Ten miles at 70mph had cost me 30 miles in range, but as the speed limits approaching Melton Mowbray reduced my speed, the range started to creep back up. At around 30 miles remaining, I wasn’t going to get back to Pidcock Motorcycles and so went hunting for a recharge station.
The Zero SR-F uses a Type Two charger. Arguably the most common of the six or seven different types available. Both Google Maps and ZapMap offer the option to filter the charging stations they display to just those that meet your requirements, and according to Google, there are four in Melton Mowbray.
Of those four, two didn’t exist or were perhaps somewhere I couldn’t get to – such as the Council Office Car Park. One was broken, and the one in the Supermarket Car Park needed me to have brought my own cable.
Thankfully, riding around Melton Mowbray playing hunt the charging point didn’t use much power, but it was still dropping.
With twenty-eight miles of range remaining, I decided I wasn’t going to get anywhere in Melton and opted to look elsewhere. The nearest alternative charge point was eighteen miles away, and ZapMap reported it as Type 2 and functional. It was all getting rather frustrating.
Station Car Park
After what felt more like 118 miles, I arrived at the charging point, and thankfully the Zero SR-F was now humming quietly to itself as the electricity flowed.
So there I was, standing in a station car park in a small town late on a Saturday afternoon, wondering what to do with myself. The café I’d passed on the way was closed, but I did spot a mini supermarket so I could scratch something to eat and drink together.
Other than that, standing in the station car park for the next 45 minutes waiting for the Zero SR-F to charge was about all there was to do. At least wasn’t raining.
And that is the problem with electric motorcycles. The Zero SR-F is a great motorcycle, but the national charging infrastructure lets it down.
Would my petrol-powered colleagues have wanted to follow me around Melton Mowbray for 45 minutes looking for a charging station only to end up in a station car park waiting for the volts to flow?
If there were two of us on electric motorcycles, we would have to take it in turns to charge up as many of the charging stations can only pull enough power for one charge at a time, despite having multiple connection options.
Bottom Line
The Zero SR-F is, as the popular saying goes, an absolute weapon. It will frighten a litre sports bike and is a practical, cheap to run, everyday motorcycle. What lets it down is the charging infrastructure, which is frustrating to use, and every charge point seems to be run by someone different.
My personal details and credit card information are now stored in multiple different systems, most of which seem to have forgotten the Delete My Account option on their websites.
To make owning an electric motorcycle work, either your requirements match the lifestyle choices that come with the bike, or you must adapt. The recharging infrastructure doesn’t give you much latitude to do anything different.
Failing to adapt will only lead to frustration and range anxiety joining you on every ride.
Clarity
Thanks to James Dempsey and Pidcock Motorcycles for the loan of the Zero SR-F and for answering the 101 questions I had about electric motorcycles. If you want to know more, James has more stories, anecdotes, and hard facts about Zero Motorcycles than we have space to print.
You can reach him on 0115 946 2608
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