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wackston

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  1. Thought I'd share my experience of the EM5.7 I bought last autumn. First off a little background. I'm a long-time road bike rider who switched to dirt bikes a few years back because (a) exciting riding on roads is too d**m dangerous ( track days here in southern Germany were too time consuming and expensive © dirt biking I can do together with my kids (they're only young once). Before the EM my only exprience of trials was the odd borrowed ride in a gravel pit or w/e courses. My main ride is a 350 ktm sports enduro (mostly ridden on local motocross tracks) but my kids (also riding mx) started with an OSET and continue to love riding their electric trials bikes. Jealous of watching them zip around having fun whenver they felt like it in the back garden and adjoining stand of trees like it I decided to splash for the EM and join them. First off the EM has been, by far, the bike I've had the most use out of bar none. Being able to simply pull boots, jacket, and helmet and go ride in your own backyard makes all the difference. Fancy mucking about sliding turns when there's snow in the garden or a quick (illegal) whirr along the canal - no problem. Situations where a petrol bike would cause complaints or even result in a call to the cops. No problem. A polite slow-down to walking speed to pass the dog walkers and so far not even a terse word. Technically the Bike is extremely capable. It's got a bit less raw raw grunt off the throttle or clutch than the 200cc Petrol trials I'd ridden before. I reckon even my son's 65cc crosser is a spot sharper off the gas. That said its got all thr grunt I need, open the throttle sharply and the front wheel comes up nicely, but unlike the ktm I don't feel like inattention would have me flipped onto my back. Quite like a 125 trials bike I suspect. Also the power that's there is ridiculously controllable. The pseudo-clutch is really only there to snap up the front wheel. The slowest crawl is easily ridden off the throttle with instant response to rider inputs. This is all to the good since the clutch seems to be on/off with no provision for slipping. Pull it, open the throttle a bit, and release and there's brief surge of power for a quryer second or so. No noticeable simulation of a biting point. Mechanically the bike easily matches the quality for the borrowed betas and gas-gas I've ridden before. The suspension is capable beyond anything I can ask of it with decent quality components, plastics and thick paintwork all round. That said the Bike is very obviously a small-batch effort. For example, the box for the mapping switch is a generic hobbyist catalogue part that's slightly too big for its location in the frame and seat plastics are held by generic rubber-seated lens-head bolts rather than quick release fastness specific to the job. The good: terrific fun, excellent motor regulation / mapping, quality frame, brakes, suspension etc. Conventional footbrake and clutch so you can easily switch to/fro your petrol bikes. Battery durability is excellent. An hours trialling around rarely discharges more than 15%. Mucking around doing "GARDEN MX", practicing crude wheelies mostly off the throttle etc still gives 2 or more hours riding time. The not so good: the 15A charge adaptor (I got the sport version) is a dud. It suffers from horrific in-rush when first switched on - trips the circuit breaker on a couple of the mains in my house. Often it actually only starts charging when plugged in a second time (with already-charged smoothing cap). I work for a semiconductor company that builds power transistors and controllers for this kind of stuff - in-rush like that is probably putting components well out of spec - NOT good for device durability. Things to bear in mind: the battery needs to be stored away from hard frost and won't charge below 5-10C. So keeping it in the garden shed etc won't work in mid-winter in cool / continental climates. Hence the lack of fast fasteners for the seat plastic and the battery itself is more of at nuisance than you'd imagine. For "trail riding" usage you really do miss a gearbox. It's simply geared too low for efficient riding at more than 30km/h and at what feels like around 35km/h the Motor reaches a rev limit. As such the homologation as a 125 equivalent is very misleading. Trundling down down a green lane or bridle path would be great. For riding on a road it's basically a 50cc moped - too slow to go with traffic even in a 50km/h (30mph) Limit. Overall: it's hard to overstate how liberating is is to have a fun, capable, trials bike you can without the noise/complaints Issues.
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