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Such a great bike

2K views 24 replies 6 participants last post by  Krylov 
#1 ·
Went for a ride last night through town to go to class. Was in the low 30's but dry. Traffic, pot holes, twisty mt roads. I know my joy at riding it is mixed with being back on a motorcycle but it just is so easy and manageable at the same time as being exhilarating. Harley built such a great bike but really didn't understand it. Or maybe they did but it was too hard to sell it. I guess I am lucky they didn't as I certainly wouldn't have spent $28K on it.

I think some of the Del Mar marketing is closer to the truth about it. Simple yet all the intensity of the gas bikes. I think the real issue is that all the reviewers don't keep them long enough to get it. They are all looking at how it fits in a gas bike box. And it just doesn't. It isn't the same thing. I suppose that is genius of tesla that they manage to build something better that mostly fit in the same box. I suppose that is the charging network. It will be interesting if there are ccs adapters at the super charger stations soon. But also just the really big batteries.

For my life in a city. Where it would be a very odd day that I needed to ride more then 50 miles. It is perfect. And Level 3 is plenty for when I do. It won't let me easily ride down the coast to SF. I could do it but it isn't that bike. It is a pretty perfect city bike. It could be light and have better options for storage.

I think the thing to get is that EV's aren't going to be the same as ice vehicles. They will actually be way more flexible. So you will need to see how each one might work for you. This really is a great bike for me.

I think livewire should take the first 30 Del Mar's and give then to motorcycle press for 6 months. These dumb group rides they take them on make no sense. They need to understand how great it is to live with. Sure there are some people that it isn't a match for. But there are a bunch of you here with garages full of gas bikes and you ride your Livewire's. That is the thing Livewire needs to capture if they want to survive.

The pleasure of a bike. No gas stations. Almost no maintenance. No shifting. Great ride.
 
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#2 ·
Yeah I can't wait to put some miles on mine. I was excited for the bike when I first heard about it but $37,300 CND MSRP was more than I was willing to pay. To be clear, I'm not saying it's too much or not worth it, just more than I was willing to pay at the time for my first Harley.

I think if more people knew about applications like ABRP and could actually see how little time it would take to fast charge on your ride more people may have adopted it. I was looking at a route around the southern half of my province and according to ABRP it would take me 10 hours to go 661kms including 2 hours and 40 mins of charging. Now if I was to do the same 661kms on my ICE bike it would still likely take the same amount of time once you factor in stopping for meals, gas/coffee, site seeing and butt breaks. Would cost more than 2x the price to do that on my Mean Streak though. Come on Spring!
 
#3 ·
As an electric car driver I get the LiveWire and want one desperately as I've sold my ICE bike but the price of these things being more than a slightly used Nissan Leaf make it hard to commit. If it had a surfboard rack I'd buy one tomorrow. I just need a way to get myself and my board 15 miles to and from the beach.
 
#5 ·
100% I’m looking at some for $16k with low miles in a couple weeks. My one question I can’t answer online is whether I’ll like the 30” seat height I’m used to my Honda Fury with a 26” height and I’m short 5’6” with a 30” inseam so don’t want to feel like I’m always on tip toes. Also can’t find any reviews of anyone who has put some miles on one to see how battery degradation is on my Leaf I lost quite a bit of range after 5 years of driving and they replaced the battery under warranty thankfully. But it still degrades over time. Also can’t find any info on battery replacement cost but I assume that will go down by the time I’d need a battery.
 
#6 ·
Here is a short video of a guy comparing his sons livewire with 15,000 miles on it to his with 2500 miles they left with same charge and rode together. There is no measurable degradation. You might be able to get one still under warranty. I was able to buy a 3 year unlimited mileage warranty with mine. I'm 5' 10 but have a short inseam 27 inches and haven't had a problem with the height. I have the low profile seat on mine though so that may make a difference. LiveWire battery deg after 15k
 
#19 ·
I wonder if a good sus shop could custom tune it? I mean certainly a different spring. Softer with progression? I don't know how much of the mountain bike world applies here. Mt Bikers are way more sensitive to small and different speed forces/anti squat etc. What is your main complaint? Too harsh?
 
#22 · (Edited)
Getting nonlinear springs is a bit of a delicate affair, as you need to get the spring rates involved right to get the desired effects. Getting a spring suitable to your own personal weight, however, is a sensible suggestion anyway, as the OEM spring rates are chosen as a compromise over all possible driver persons, mostly with concern for stability and safety at all costs, i.e., comfort issues may take a second place. (A 60 kg person will require a different spring than a 100 kg person to get optimal results.)
Playing around with damping settings (e.g. softening up the compression damping for a more comfortable ride) eventially is also a bit of a problem, as a softer setup may allow for more uncontrolled wheel movement and can result in a wallowy, unstable ride - not something you want on a bike capable of severe speeds at high lean angles.

As the Showa shock allows adjustability, It makes sense to first try and get the sag settings right by changing the preload of the shock according to your weight and then gradually reducing the compression (and evtl. the tension) damping, maybe starting from a middle position of the damping settings. (This is what these guys did.) There is a bit of a compromise between comfort and stability.
If a suitable or satisfactory setting can not be found, any additional change in the shock (such as the suggested change of the spring rates) might require contacting a professional suspension specialist (My own basics in mechanical engineering university courses are 30 years old by now...); this might also be the case if a replacement shock is in order as there are no big brand alternatives (Öhlins, Bitubo, Foxx, Wilbers,…) readily available for the Livewire.
I have found out, however, that this German company has build a shock for the Livewire for two Jens vom Brauck Livewire custom builds.
 
#24 ·
The problem with a progressive spring is the dampening most accommodate it as well. I did set the sag as best I could for my weight. Dialed back both compression and rebound to softest settings and started from there. The rear shock just punishes the crap out of me on any sort of sharp edged bump and doesn't have a lot of travel anyway. Dialing up the compression dampening just made the initial impact even worse (as expected). The rear rebound was never so soft ever cause any pogoing in turns. It is basically a POS and I have no idea of who and what riding conditions it was made for other than maybe just at a dragstrip that was smooth.
 
#25 · (Edited)
I have given this some thought and I do not know, if all of my ideas are helpful to your problem, but please see for yourself:

Are you still running the stock seat? This is notoriously hard and with little padding. I find it to provide a direct connection to the machine (which occasionally is a good thing during spirited riding), but also to be rather uncomfortable, especially on longer rides. A little more padding might also reduce some effects of the impacts of the suspension. Did you consider going for a Corbin seat which looks as it could provide more padding (and damping)?

What size are you? I am about 177 cm which puts me in a slightly leaned forward position on the Livewire. Potential jabs from the rears suspension only partially go up my spine as some of my weight is put forward to the bars. If I were a taller person with longer arms I might sit more upright and get these impacts immediately in my spine, in which case other bars might be an option to change the „rider triangle“, i.e. the weight distribution.

Another idea: Are you still running the stock Michelin Scorcher Sport tires? While these may last for tens of thousands of miles (and are possibly designed to even outlast the heat death of the universe) I found them to be quite uncomfortable and giving insufficient feedback. I had them replaced by tires which should provide better grip (my first priority) and also more comfortable damping properties (I hope - I just had them installed and could test them myself yet.)
At what pressure are you running your tires? Maybe a small reduction of the pressure could already might help alleviate some of the damping problems you have described. As you already „played“ with the shock, however, I guess that you already have also considered this approach.
(When I was browsing through several tests of sport tires I found that the Metzeler M9RR sports tires were considered to have excellent initial damping.)

But maybe the problem is even more of a principle one given the small weight of the sporty Livewire (a lightweight bike in comparison to other Harleys.) and eventually your own weight:
Did you face similar problems on other H-D machines with direct linkage, say on softtail frame machines? The ratio of unsprung weight of the rear wheel and swingarm to the mass of the sprung frame (plus driver) is here usually smaller than with the Livewire, which weighs at least about 50 kg less than an average softtail Harley. (Shaft drive BMWs that weigh about 250 kg or less are also known to react on sharp edge bumps just as you have described, since the weight of the mechanical shaft drive exceeds that of belt or chain driven rear suspensions by several kilogram. This is less of a problem on the heavier bikes or those used for two-person riding.) This problem may become even more pronounced, if the driver were a rather lightweight person.
If this is the core of the problem, I am not sure if another shock with better sensitivity (less initial friction) and less high speed compression damping would be a satisfactory solution for you - if there were any aftermarket shocks specifically designed for the Livewire available on the market at all.
Theory says, that the sprung mass of the vehicle body will face slower changes in motion (i.e., high horizontal accelerations) if the unsprung suspension weight is significantly smaller. (This is why almost all luxury sedans typically are rather heavy cars.)
Helpful might thus be running either a higher sprung mass (=vehicle body plus driver weight. Do the problems with sharp bumps also appear if you are running a pillion?) or a reduced unsprung weight, which amounts of running lighter sports tires (touring or touring sports tires typically weigh 0,5 - 1,5 kg more to provide a higher tread depth) or even going to lightweight carbon wheels, which would be a very expensive solution.)

These are just a few ideas for possible small improvements, but eventually a Livewire as a rather light, sporty roadster bike may not become as comfortable as say a Honda Goldwing even with the best of efforts.
 
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