Full cease, I cherished the primary Harley-Davidson LiveWire.
I rode it on the Brooklyn Components E observe manner again when it first debuted, and me and one of many model’s advertising and marketing leads—what’s up, Laurence!—had an absolute ball hanging in the back of the pack and shredding the observe. It had energy. It had poise. And it appeared nice.
However it had its failings.
The bike was too heavy for its brakes, vary—like all electric motorcycles—sucked, and it carried a very eye-watering price ticket. It will definitely went down as market demand was nearly non-existent for a $30,000 electrical bike, however the entire pricing affair would se the primary of many missteps for the fledgling off-shoot that’d set it on the trail it presently finds itself going through. That of a model that doesn’t quite know what its purpose truly is.
Living proof, LiveWire is debuting a brand new bike known as the Alpinista in a couple of weeks based mostly on its S2 platform. There’s only one downside, I do not actually know who the bike is for. And I am unsure LiveWire does both.
Photograph by: LiveWire
LiveWire is in a little bit of a pickle in the intervening time. It is burned through cash, needed to transfer back into Harley-Davidson’s main campus in Wisconsin, has merged again with Harley-Davidson for its govt capabilities, and might’t actually appear to promote any bikes to most of the people. There’s additionally the truth that for these bikes which were offered, most have been recalled for some form of small-to-catastrophic failure.
Which, once more, ain’t nice given once they work, I actually like what they do. And I am a giant fan of electrical bikes as an entire, though I actually solely suppose they work as a backyard toy at present.
However the debut of the Alpinista is a bizarre one, because the promotional media and photos had been all taken round my place in Northern Utah. A spot the place I’ve ridden a lot of electrical bikes over time, together with each the Zero FX and DSR/X. It is a spot of mountainous canyon roads, breathtaking surroundings, and the chance to breathe recent mountain air. And LiveWire clearly desires to market the bike to those that purpose to, or already do, trip these roads. Individuals like myself.
But, taking an electrical bike into these roads, which I’ve, all the time falls quick, as vary nervousness creeps in or is outright trash. I legit threw the FX into the again of my truck to take it to the very street Harley shot the Alpinista on overlooking the valley beneath. Why? As a result of EV bikes do not work within the place that they are selling you’re taking your EV bike to. I rode these roads, and never too agressively, however doing so necessitated me towing the bike there and never driving it from my home, which is simply twenty 5 minutes away.
So I assure LiveWire trailered these bikes as much as that spot, as a result of in the event that they stayed wherever in my city or Park Metropolis, they’d’ve been driving again in limp mode because of its 77 mile mixed vary, or turning off regen and simply coasting down the mountains. How will that truth of life assist flip LiveWire’s future round? How will people doing what the advertising and marketing supplies promise, solely to seek out themselves both caught or limping residence at 5mph, assist LiveWire overcome its lackluster gross sales and debt?
Hand on coronary heart, I need to see LiveWire succeed. And I believe electrical bikes have their place within the grand scheme of motorcycling, even when I believe it may not be their time to shine. However when the advertising and marketing people at LiveWire do issues like this, i.e. make guarantees that the corporate’s bike’s cannot hold, it turns into actually exhausting to say something aside from the above.
The S2 Alpinista will debut on January fifteenth, so keep tuned to see what the bike is all about.
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