VOL. 54 ISSUE 14 APRIL 11, 2017 P97
Phil and I had company for
the first part of our ride in very
"British" conditions—i.e. it was
raining!—after picking up the
vaguely sinister-looking all-black
Zero DSR at the firm's Scotts
Valley factory.
I plugged in for a free "fueling"
top-up after the first 50 miles
of snaking silently up through
makes at slow speeds comes
from muted tire roar and a hint
of chain lash, plus a subdued
whine from the transmission.
Fortunately, the Zero's Spanish-
made J.Juan brakes did their job
well without grabbing the front
wheel thanks to the Bosch ABS
fitted as standard, which allows
you to squeeze as hard as you
regenerative braking as displayed
on the dash when you back off
the throttle, though this can be al-
tered via an app on your iPhone.
Sport is what is says on the label,
with vivid acceleration and zero
regen. It lets you keep up turn
speed to flow through a series of
bends climbing a winding hillside
road where you don't want to lose
The Zero DSR
has no problems
fulfilling the sporty
parts of touring.
like to stop the pretty heavy
463-pound stock motorcycle
(plus the added weight of the
twin chargers in the topbox) from
the high speeds it can attain in
an ultra-short distance, aided
by whatever regen level you'd
opted for. There's a choice of
three different riding modes that
are definitely well thought out,
and while limiting top speed to
70 mph, Eco mode has gentle
acceleration and quite heavy
momentum via what amounts
to engine braking. Then the
Custom map can be tailored to
suit your tastes via the Zero app
on your smartphone, and the
one they gave me on the DSR
had maxed-out drive that would
lift the front wheel slightly wide
open, coupled with full regen,
so it was fine for descending a
winding road, or swinging from
side to side through a series of
Esses.
"We still had
another 15 miles
to go before we
reached the lakeside
hotel, which my
dash reading told
me I wasn't going
to make."
the redwood forests to Skyline
Drive, the Bay Area's favorite
racer road leading to the famed
Alice's Restaurant for a late
breakfast. The ride took us
through a series of small log-
ging towns whose main source
of income is speeding tickets.
Crawling through these at the
prevailing near-walking pace,
speed limit was no handicap
on the Zero in the same way I
could hear it was for Phil on his
Triumph behind me, but there
was another hazard to watch
out for if I got too far ahead of
him, namely pedestrians who
step out in front of you because
they can't hear you com-
ing! The only sound the Zero
