LIGHTNING LS-218
FIRST RIDE
P88
a weight penalty entailed in fitting them too, and
since the batteries are really heavy, it seems that
anything you can do to decrease overall weight of
the bike is very desirable."
Riding a bike with this much performance asks
serious questions of the handling, and in gen-
eral the Lightning handled the twists and turns of
Mulholland's Racer Road pretty well. However,
while the 498-pound curb weight, complete
with oil/water and split 52/48 percent front and
rear, isn't outlandishly heavier than a fully fuelled
one-liter Superbike, there's no doubt that it feels
distinctly top heavy when you start to push on, and
it's definitely not flickable through turns in the way
that an Aprilia RSV4 or 1299 Panigale is. In spite of
the fact that there's considerably less gyroscopic
inertia to contend with when entering a corner—
there's no heavy crankshaft assembly to fight the
effects of laying the Lightning into a bend—you
do have to work quite hard physically in changing
direction on it from side to side. It isn't as immedi-
ately confidence inspiring as the MotoCzysz was
when I rode that and ended up seeing off the likes
of a well-ridden Ducati 1098R at a PIR track day.
The Lightning's handling isn't as intuitive as the
TT Zero-winner was, and the culprit felt to be the
weight distribution in terms of the center of grav-
ity, rather than the chassis geometry. That's not to
say it doesn't steer (Carlin Dunne's achievement in
winning Pikes Peak shows that it does) it's just that
you must get attuned to its quite esoteric handling
characteristics, which seem likely to be derived
from its all-up weight and especially distribution.
The only other issue I had was a practical one—
the LS-218 has a very restricted steering lock,
and that makes maneuvering it around in city
streets or other tight places distinctly awkward,
especially when combined with that wide seat
which had an average height rider like 5'10" me
struggling to tiptoe it around a parking lot. The
front fork is attached to a CNC aluminium head
box containing the pivot bearings, which con-
nects to the front of the battery box. This incorpo-
rates the indents for steering lock, and needs to
NO DOUBT ABOUT IT, THIS
IS A TRUE LANDMARK
MOTORCYCLE THAT'LL
CAPTURE THOSE LOOKING
FOR ALLURING PERFORMANCE
COUPLED WITH SHOW-
STOPPING LOOKS, AND
EXCLUSIVITY.
