in this video we're going to review the harley-davidson live wire and we're
going to concentrate on how it rides how it feels how it handles how the electric motor
delivers its power more than giving you a lot of specs so you can go to the harley-davidson
website and look at all the specs it's all on there but this is about how it rides
now the first thing today when you get on this bike is to put it in Eco mode that gives you a
little chance to get used to it without all the power being delivered and at first you think
oh I'm not going to be able to do this because you're looking for the clutch and you're looking
for the gears but actually within a hundred meters you think okay I've got used to this
it's ok so we rode it roundup and Uppingham around the streets just to get used to it
and it's perfectly fine and as you accelerate you can deliver the power smoothly and it comes
in so you can go along in traffic and in cities absolutely fine it's actually quite easy to ride
once I got out of town I went through the modes and got it into sport mode and my
god it shifts I mean you open this thing up and it's like a flipping you're sitting on
the it's like sitting on a jet engine and you think oh my god I'm going so fast nor
263 seconds so I mean it's just incredible to ride and a very very pleasant surprise
now obviously this bike is a harley-davidson but it's not aimed at the usual average
harley-davidson rider it's a completely new market and you've got to get that out of your
head because well is a harley-davidson but it's a different harley-davidson and the difference is
that it's a sports bike and whether this had an engine or not it's a very nimble bike you
can corner it very well and very easily and it's incredibly nimble but with the electric motor the
power delivery is awesome and what happens with an electric motor is you get all the power and
all the talk all the time so although the figures perhaps it hasn't got quite as much torque as the
harley-davidson 114 cubic inch but it delivers all of it all of the time so it's instant and
it's fast and it's accelerates like a flippin rocket and it's incredible the silvery bit down
here all of that is the motor and then in here you've got the battery so the battery takes up
a lot more space than the motor and they kind of use that as a platform to build the bike around
so you've got a separate big piece of frame either side that's just bolted on basically
okay so it's keyless ignition I've got the keys in my pocket you just turn the bike on like that like
a normal holiday person and the screen comes on and you just wait for a few seconds and it
flashes and does various things that start you up it says press Start so we'll press Start and
now it's on so it's gone green and the S there signifies that we're in sport mode which gives
you everything and then the mode switch down here I can just press that and you can see there and it
scrolls through so now I'm in rain mode and you can see the icon there which obviously reduces
the power a little bit so you're not going to spin the wheels up it's a bit more safety in
the rain and I press it again and it goes to eco mode which is what I started in that just gives
you less power less talk and just it's a good way of riding you know in the city if you're just in
traffic you don't need all the power you need and then we go again one more time and it goes
into road mode that's kind of average mode it's not bad it gives you plenty of power but if you
want to be mental and you go back into sport mode you can be Carl poverty and win the art
of man TT so it costs twenty eight thousand nine hundred nineteen 5 pounds in black this in color
is twenty nine thousand two hundred forty five it says a little bit more for the color is not
too much of a difference but it's not aimed at someone who walk into Harley dealership and want
to buy a soft out it's a completely different type of person probably someone who's got a Ferrari and
they've got a couple of bikes and they think oh my fancy one of these I'm not usually used to
riding a bike that has this sort of riding position but actually once you get onto it
and get your feet on the pegs it's actually quite comfortable and you can lean down and get out of
the wind a little bit but the riding experience is very raw you get the wind in your face you
feel the speed you feel the power and you feel the acceleration and this is all about thrills
so the range figures on this bike it says a hundred miles but compared to a petrol
engine it's the complete reverse so normally on a petrol engine you'll get more for your economy
if you're going on a longer journey whereas with this you'll get more fuel economy if
you're going in a city because when you'll stop when you're standstill in traffic it's
not using any power whatsoever okay so I've got my little book because when you get to my age
you can't remember more than one thing at once on this you got twenty four and a half degrees
of rake on the on the forks so that's quite steep that's steeper than any other harley-davidson and
that's sort of in sport bike mode so that's why it's so nimble and the wheelbase on this is one
thousand four hundred and ninety millimeters the iron by comparison the harley-davidson iron 883
is 1515 so a little bit longer than this and the Harley 48 is one thousand four hundred and ninety
five millimeters which is five millimeters more than this so it's quite a short bike by Harley
standards I know some people that are used to sports black will say it's quite long but for
me it's quite short because I'm used to a Softail which is even longer than that so that's why it's
sort of so nimble but height wise I don't know I'm 6 foot 3 and how does it look do you think it
doesn't look small Devon as well no it looks fine ok now that's interesting it feels fine to ride it
it feels absolutely fine I feel quite comfortable so yeah it doesn't feel like a small bike it feels
perfectly ok that's interesting I'm six foot one and feels the perfect size so it doesn't look too
big at all does it no stay on earth tank this sides have a look yeah that's right that's fine
so this will do nought to 60 in three seconds which is phenomenal and then overtaking speed
sixty to eighty will be one point nine seconds so you can imagine if you're stuck behind
someone and you give it some you're going to get past them instantly it's got a hundred
and four brake horsepower and one hundred and sixteen Newton meters of torque but obviously
because it's electric you've got all of that talk from zero so that is the main difference
between this and a petrol engine so this weighs 249 kilos and just as a comparison a Street Bob
weighs 286 so it's quite a bit larger than that this bikes equipped with Brembo brakes
and you've got twin discs at the front so the stopping power is absolutely phenomenal
looks-wise I think it looks fantastic I like this rear fender being very low
down on the wheel because then otherwise that takes that away
from that and it gives this a nice shape I think following on from the fake when
it's kind of meant to look like a fuel tank as you would assume but obviously it's not
so all your charger and stuff it's under the seat so if you lift this out you have your charging
stuff in there and then to release at there's a little button here so then once you've got
your charger app this is it works that's where you plug it in obviously if you can fast charge
this bike so that that doesn't take too long until but you're not meant to do that every time
one other thing about this bike which is really good you have this regenerative
braking so as you're braking it recharges but you get a lot of engine braking so
that's really nice so as you throttle off you feel it slowing down so that's
much like as a powerful motor bike with more compression that's a good feature like that
so if the future is electric the futures looking
good because this is an amazing bike and it does not disappoint
thanks very much for watching the video and let us know in the comments below what do
you think of the livewire I know it's a hit or miss things like Marmite electric so let
us know what you think please leave a like on the video and subscribe for more bikes
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