Vida Dirt.E K3 electric bike walkaround – Kids will put away their phones for this! | Autocar India
As a child, if you wanted to get into motorcycleycling like I did all those years ago, now if you were to go up to your parents and say that yes, I want to do this. I want to get into motorcycleycling. More than the task of convincing them to let you get into such a what is realistically a very dangerous thing. You really didn’t have the infrastructure nor did you have any machines that were geared just towards children to buy. But I think Hero now has a solution for you in the form of the Vita Dirty K3 kids electric bike. Vida has launched the Dirty K3 electric bike. The dirty in the name is going to signify the range of dirt bikes that Vida is going to have in the future. The K3 is just the first model that the company is starting off with. Now we’ve been told that deliveries for this thing will begin early next year sometime around Makar Sakranti is what we’ve been told. It has just been launched at an introductory price of about 70,000 rupees. That’s limited for the first 300 units and after that prices will rise to what Hero has not yet told us. Now you might be thinking this is a really small thing. It’s only 22 kilos. So it is a very small thing and that 70,000 price tag is somewhat close to the Hero Splender which is like a fulls size bike. Now where does all that money go? What does all that money get you? Actually quite a lot. For starters, this entire mainframe, that’s this piece that goes from here to here and the swing arm are both cast aluminum pieces. They really have very nice finishing. Even though this is a pre-production prototype, I really haven’t seen a lot of cause for complaint in terms of fit and finish. And that is also something to do with that this was a joint effort between the Hero Motorsports base over here and the Hero Tech Center in Germany. As you can see, designed and developed by Hero Tech Center Germany. So quality, fit and finish, attention to detail is really topnotch on what is supposed to be a children’s bike. Uh Heroes also spent no expense when it comes to features and things like that. Uh you’ve got a lot of safety oriented features because this is going to be a child’s first foray into motorcycleycling. So VA has made sure that the children don’t feel like they’re going to be left to hung out to drive. For example, there is this little piece over here. It’s made of foam. It’s supposed to protect the child’s chest when they have a bit of a heartbreaking incident or if they just have a little bit of a tip over on the front side. Then this foam piece will act as a nice shield. Another thing you have and this might look like a front fork and this might look like a monoshock to you from out there but there’s really no suspension on the dirty K3 those are supposed to be accessories. Now Vita tells us the idea behind not giving suspension as standard over here is so that the child doesn’t get overwhelmed by the pitching and yawing motion that suspension can generate under acceleration or braking and they learn on this as if it was an electric bicycle. So the lesser forces there are to contend with the child grows more comfortable with the machine that they are riding. As your child does develop their riding skills and they also grow in stature. You can get accessory suspension units both for the front and for the rear. What you will also get is an accessory front brake. As standard, the Dirty K3 only comes with a rear brake. As you can see, it’s only one lever on the handlebar that comes to a brake disc at the back. Now what Vida has very nicely done is that they have shielded the entire disc with a bit of a plastic shroud sort of thing so that a child doesn’t accidentally put their finger or something a little more precious through there when the bike is operational when it’s just on the stand or something like that and no unfortunate incidents happen. Some other safety features are this magnetic tether. Now what happens is before you set off you place this and you put the child’s hand through here and you cinch it down properly uh and you connect it. So this means your hand is not leaving the handlebar. If your hand does leave the handlebar like say in the event of a fall then the bike will automatically shut the motor off and it will stop. Another safety feature that Hero has baked in is that all the riding modes and the rate of acceleration and all the electronics that are on the K3, they can only be controlled by the phone app that is controlled by the parent. Now, once the child gets on the bike and they start it via this button over here, the parent decides what ride mode they are in, there are three. It’s they limit the top speed to 8, 16, and 25 km/h respectively. What that does is it gives the parent absolute control over what speed the child does. These modes also play around with her rate of acceleration. So everything is designed with safety in mind, which is very important when it’s a child’s first foray into motorcycleycling. Now the K3 has a lot of nifty features, but I think the most standout one on this machine is the ability to tailor the height of this bike. Now what Hero has very smartly done is that since children tend to grow and outgrow their clothes and shoes, what Hero has very smartly done is that it has given you the option of tailoring the bike’s height to the height of your child. What you can do is that there are three notches, small, medium, and large. So what you can do is you can tailor the suspension to go down all the way down or you can raise it to its maximum setting as your child increases in stature and perhaps even confidence when it comes to riding. And since this is after all an electric bike, let me tell you what the battery and how you operate and charge this thing is like to do. Now on the seat over here there is this little clasp. You just unlock it, you unscrew it and you have the seat in your hand. Then there is just a little magnetic tether that you need to detach and you need to unclasp this and voila, you have the battery with you. You need to take this at home, charge it. A 20 to 80% charge takes about 2 hours if I’m not wrong. Uh I’ll put that a on screen. Uh and a full charge will take close to 3 or 4 hours. Vita tells us that with a full charge, a bike can run for about 2 to 3 hours depending on the riding mode you are in and how the child uses the throttle. Summing up, I think VA has gone in a very new and uncharted direction with the K3 and I think the company deserves all the praise for it. There isn’t a lot of movement in the grassroots arena when it comes to children getting into motorcycleycling and really the only way to inculcate newer riders at a younger age is to introduce them to something that’s a little bit affordable, not that uh scary, not that dangerous. And I think the K3 checks all the right boxes. If this was something that was available when I was a kid, I know for a fact that I would have pestered my parents no end to buy me something like this and it seems like a great way to spend a weekend. You know, come to the edge of the city at a little bit of a muddy playground, have fun with it, learn something in the process, go back home and do it all over again.
Vida is aiming to get younger riders into the fold with its Dirt.E K3 electric bike. The K3 is designed for riders aged 4-10 and here’s Dinshaw Magol – who’s mentally still a child – to give you all the details.
Cameraperson – Roshni Manghani
Editor -Sanil Sawardekar
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