I Finally Fixed My Biggest Electric Motorcycle Problem (LiveWire One)
Oh my god. You have got to be kidding me. I am at zero miles left. I’ve got to get off this bridge. Unbelievable. And if this thing completely dies and I am really toast. All right, man. Yeah, the exit wasn’t there that I needed. So, I’m like literally out of juice. Hoping that I just make it to an exit. I’ll stay with you. I appreciate it. Biker’s code, man. Oh, yeah. This thing’s almost dead. I can’t even accelerate anymore. Range anxiety is one of the biggest concerns riders have when it comes to electric motorcycles. And in the years that I’ve been riding and making YouTube videos, I’ve always tried to teach people how to get as far as possible on these bikes. For years, I’ve been telling people a windscreen adds range to the motorcycles, but I’ve actually never tested that claim. So, today I’m actually going to put my words to the test to see whether a windscreen can actually increase the range you get per charge. Now, I’ve tried lots of other windscreens and mounts in the past for the Live R1, but none of them seem to alter the range of the bike. They were clunky, took up handlebar space, or just broke altogether. So, a few years ago, I set out to write all those wrongs. And I built something you won’t find anywhere else. Today’s the first time I’ve ever tested the setup back to back. First loop, no windscreen. Second loop, windscreen installed. If there’s no difference, then that means that I’ve spent years designing something that may not actually matter. All right, so that was 27.1 mi. We’re at 65% battery, uh, which is not a good thing, I guess. Uh range is 76 miles, 106 W hours a mile. Not the greatest, but not bad either. I was really expecting the W hours per mile to be much higher than that, but I think that increasing my tire pressure probably helped offset any rolling resistance and air resistance that I would have hit. The first loop is my baseline. It’s a mix of interstate riding at 65 to 75 mph and a 55 mph highway route through rolling hills and a climb to the highest elevation point for this route. It’s perfect for testing how much elevation change affects range without a windscreen. Full up. This is like uh prime prime charging time Sunday and one of these chargers is busted. For the sake of keeping this experiment consistent, I’m going to stay here. Even though I could literally just go right down the road. 77.3 mi, highest W hours per mile is coming in here, which is at 112 W hours a mile. We got 8% left. After the first loop, I had to wait almost an hour to charge back to 100%. Right before starting the second loop, I texted my wife, “If this didn’t work, this video was dead. I’d have nothing to show for a full day of testing. Right now, range says 110 miles. I’ve already reset my trip. This person doing what are you doing? Let’s see if this windscreen does anything. I say when we were here it was at 65%. Uh now wattage consumption’s gone up, but again that’s just an average. It could have been off when I was here the last time. What we’re looking at is how many miles I’ve ridden and the percent of the battery that that I’ve used. So, I’m I’m pretty sure that it was at 63 or 65% the last time I was here. Already an improvement, but we’re going to see if that’s going to hold up over time. I don’t remember what the batteries at whenever I was here last, but uh those are the trees in the same corn field. And this is to show that there’s no wind. And I don’t want to give people the impression that, you know, that I have some tailwind that’s helping me out here at the tops of the trees. There’s, you know, some of these corn stalks here are moving, but those are from the cars that are driving by the road. This was key. Proving the wind wasn’t influencing the results. Perfect for conditions for a fair test. At this point, I knew that I was saving more battery than the first loop, but the interstate was still ahead. This was the section that spiked my consumption last time, and it could erase all of that progress. So, I want to say we’re we’re getting close to the interstate here. I want to say that how was it? 26% battery and we’re at 34% battery. Quite a bit of savings as far as range goes. All right. So, 77.1 mi, 17% battery. If you needed proof to see that adding a windscreen to your motorcycle, whether that’s electric or combustion, will gain you efficiency. Here’s the final side by side. The second lap finished with significantly more battery remaining than the first one. The windscreen actually made a measurable difference. This test finally proved what I’ve always suspected, and I’m really excited to see what other riders experience. If you ride a Liver One and you want to squeeze every bit of range out of your bike, I’ll put links to this windscreen mount in the description below. [Music]
I’ve been telling riders for years that a windscreen adds range to their motorcycle — but I’d never actually tested it. So I spent a full day running the same route twice, once without a windscreen and once with my custom mount, to finally find out if it really makes a difference.
The results surprised me… and might help you go farther on a single charge.
LiveWire One Windscreen Mount: www.adventuresonzero.com/store/p/livewire-one-windscreen-mount
