Zero . . .

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Naming an electric scooter a Zero is at least editorially honest.

Of course, Zero – the manufacturer of electric scooters – likes to pretend that it’s selling motorcycles. And the scooters it sells do look like motorcycles. But looking is not the same as being – much as the Left would like us to pretend that how one looks is literally what one is.

As in male actually becomes female because he makes himself look like a female – and says “she” is one.

Except of course “she” isn’t.

Just as a scooter that looks like a motorcycle isn’t one, no matter how insistently the company that sells them calls them “motorcycles.” Definitions matter and it is the essence of a thing that defines a thing. Lose that thing and – literally – anything goes. Conversation becomes incoherent. Things can no longer be identified with any certainty or permanency when “A” can also be “C.”

And maybe also “D.”

There is nothing wrong with scooters, electrically propelled or otherwise. But they are not motorcycles. Just as those of us who have XY chromosomes and specific reproductive equipment are male. Females do not have the same equipment. Two different things. Not the same thing.

Not fungible things.

A motorcycle is a machine defined by its engine. Without one, it is something else. Like the drugs being peddled as symptom reducers that do not confer immunity. A Clinton-esque attempt has been made to change the definition of “vaccine” to encompass these drugs, but that does not make them vaccines anymore than calling an electrically-propelled device a “motorcycle” makes it one.

If it hasn’t got an engine – and a transmission and shifting – it is something else. Not something inferior necessarily.

Just not a motorcycle.

Unsurprisingly, Zero is having trouble selling its electric scooters to people who want a motorcycle. In 2020, about 3,500 were sold. With subsidies – in the form of EV tax kickbacks to compensate buyers for what they’re not getting. (These subsidies have, apparently, been rescinded by not having been renewed as part of the Biden Thing’s Inflation Reduction Act.)

To put this figure in context, Honda sold about 437,000 (not a typo) motorcycles in the U.S. alone during the same time period. Worldwide, the total is in the millions. Even a small, boutique – and very expensive – brand of motorcycle such as Ducati sold 61,562 bikes last year.

Probably because the machines they’re selling have engines that are music to the ears of people who esteem motorcycles. And Ducati engines don’t sound like Harley’s engines – just as neither of them sound like Honda engines. The engine is the beating – or racing – heart of every motorcycle.

Remove it and you’ve flat-lined the thing.

02-08-23_EPonKMED     

There is another thing. Motorcycles have transmissions that need to be shifted and which motorcycle people love to shift. There is something fun for your left foot and left hand to do when you ride. Something that takes skill acquired via experience to do well and which – once mastered – gives tremendous satisfaction to the rider of a motorcycle.

Scooter people do not understand this.

Or are willing to forgo this. Not that there’s anything wrong with scooting, electrically or otherwise. But that’s not what motorcycle people want. In italics to emphasize the emotion people who love motorcycles want to feel when they ride. Take away the engine and transmission and the shifting and mostly all that’s left is the sitting.

And it’s hard to feel much about that.

When it comes to motorcycles, these feels matter most. Even the usual EV considerations about range/recharge are not primary. Two-stroke street bikes from the ’70s, for instance, got horrendous gas mileage and so didn’t go very far, either. You often had to stop to clean/swap out the plugs, which were prone to oil-fouling. But – if you’ve ever ridden one of these things – you remember every ride with a smile, the sounds and the smells.

Quickness is secondary, too. A motorcycle can make you feel more idling than an electric scooter does moving.

So, unsurprisingly, Zero is resorting to paying whomever is willing to give up everything that makes a motorcycle an “instant incentive” of $3,000 off the sticker price of its 2022 SR/S and SR/F scooters to  . . . scoot on down the road on one.

Note the italics.

It being 2023.

But Zero dealers still have a bunch of leftover 2022 scooters that are now last year’s scooters – and it’s time to clear out the inventory (though it begs the question about replacing what hasn’t sold with more of the same).

The contrast – with motorcycle sales – is striking. If you have visited a motorcycle dealer lately, you will have discovered the showroom floor to be largely empty – and most if not all the handful of bikes you can see have already been sold. There are no leftover 2022s on hand – and good luck (back in 2022) trying to get a Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha, Suzuki, Ducati, BMW or Harley store to discount the price of a new bike by $3,000. You were lucky if you got one for full sticker, without any mark-up.

Or got one, at all.

If someone else got there first.

But there are some great deals to be had on an electric scooter.

. . .

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76 COMMENTS

  1. “A motorcycle is a machine defined by its engine.”

    Yes, I agree!

    If it has an engine, it should be called an “enginecycle”.

    An electric has a real true motor, no engine. So the electric is the real true motorcycle and should be called such.

    So let’s not confuse “enginecycles” with the real “motorcycles”. We have used the wrong name for way too long for the ICE bikes which are NOT motorcycles! Time to start using the correct words for each!

    -Don- Reno, NV

    • Hi DonTom,

      Etymologically speaking, you are correct, sir (Per Ed McMahon, RIP). But you – we all – know what I meant. A motorcycle is not an eBike. And an eBike is not a motorcycle. An eBike is something that looks like a motorcycle but lacks everything that makes a motorcycle not an eBike!

  2. Cleary the author hasn’t yet taken a Zero electric Motorcycle out for a test drive. No heat, no vibration, and more power. My Zero FX has as much torque as my Kawasaki 1600 had with its V-twin engine and twice the weight!

    • Hi David,

      You miss the point entirely. A “motorcycle” without vibration, heat – and sound and shifting – is like a “woman” without warmth that is just a receptacle.

      The Zero is fast and has lots of power. So does an escalator. I’d rather walk.

      One of the greatest joys of riding a motorcycle is starting it up. Hearing it fire to life. Listening to it idle. Listening to it scream. Feeling it. The almost-alive quality of it.

      I understand there are people who like the idea of a “motorcycle” that makes no noise, produces no heat (as you say – unless of course its lithium-ion battery erupts in flames) and has abundant/immediate roll-on power. But I cannot fathom anyone who likes motorcycles liking that; much less a “motorcycle” that has no transmission, that you never shift, that you just sit on and rotate the right grip to make it go.

      This being a scooter – however powerful.

      To be clear: I don’t care that these things are being made. I do however deeply resent the forces pushing them into production. Take away all the “climate change” crap – and it is just that, crap – and with it, all of the disgusting rent-seeking and virtue signaling – and there would be even less “market” for these things than there is.

      Most of all, I hate the threat these things pose to real motorcycles. Not because they are the superior product – like the Model T vs. the horse and buggy – bur rather because of the opposite.

      Ich scheisse uber alles daruber!

  3. At the Santa Clara CountyFairgrounds Indoor Short Track races a few years back, they had one heat just for Zero motorcycles. They put on as good a competitive show as anyone, and it was neat to be able to hear the tires struggling for grip in the concrete floor. I wish the Zero people luck.

  4. Sometimes I want to talk to Eric and his people…

    Those who might understand.
    And tonight is here:

    “Sometimes i drive to run from all my demons
    Sometimes i drive so i can be alone
    Sometimes i drive to see the world in different light
    Sometimes i drive for no reason at all
    Sometimes i drive to run from all my demons
    Sometimes i drive so i can be alone
    Sometimes i drive to see the world in different light
    Sometimes i drive for no reason at all:”

    Assemblage 23:
    “Drive”
    What I consider the best driving song.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuobS2IjgsE

  5. I don’t see the practicality in the zero. Nor do I see the practicality of big EVs.

    The only electric vehicle idea I have seen that works is in Peachtree City, GA. I’m sure there are other places like this, but this town is setup around golf carts. Golf cart almost everywhere on their own paths. However; it is not hostile towards larger vehicles as everyone can still enjoy all the perks of owning and using a larger vehicle for traveling further when one desires. Seems like a win-win for areas that have weather that can support nearly/all year round electric cart use.

    Also, “scooter” as a term is synonymous to me with that horrible song/video in the 80s where they were driving Vespa scooters and trying to look cool. I always laughed at that video as a kid.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrOek4z32Vg

  6. Harley goes gay:

    ‘Potato, potato, potato … the iconic sound of Harley Davidson’s 45-degree V-twin engine, the same sound that Harley-Davidson once tried to trademark, will eventually fade into a memory— so says CEO Jochen Zeitz.

    ‘Zeitz recently gave an interview to the architecture and design magazine Dezeen, telling them that at some point, Harley-Davidson will be all-electric.

    ‘Perhaps they will make Harley-Davidson the “premium” electric motorcycle brand, with LiveWire positioned as an entry-level brand for those “aspiring” to the more upscale Harley-Davidson brand.

    ‘The current crop of Harley faithful like their potatoes, but Jochen Zeitz apparently thinks that future riders may prefer to drink the electric motorcycle “whine.”’

    https://www.advrider.com/moco-ceo-says-becoming-all-electric-is-a-natural-evolution/

    Have y’all tried Harley-Davidson’s new rechargeable vacuum cleaner?

    It sucks like nobody’s business. 😉

    • Jim,

      You get copious points for the vacuum-cleaner. 😉

      Also, you happen to remember the movie featuring the LiveWire, purchased by one of the films villains? It had to do with an armored car robbery. Can’t remember for the life of me…

      But what was funny is that the LiveWire just hung out in the villains apartment, and the protagonist remarked about how he was being stupid for purchasing such an expensive motorcycle (sic for Eric) after the robbery.

      You’d think that Harley would want that the LiveWire to be featured in action, perhaps in a chase sequence, rather than just sitting there, like a dumb shit, while its price tag was derided…

      But that’s just me.

    • The only place, absolute shit enough, for me to meet up with actual/literal “Black and Red” guys was in the open-air sewer better known as San Diego, CA. Those people are just indescribable — at least among decent folks. One instantly develops a sense of palpable danger in their presence.

      I hope that I live to see the day that those murderous fucks ride gay-ass scooters with Harley emblems. It’s difficult to imagine a more ironic combination TBH.

    • Hi Jim, I didn’t buy a Harley Pan America for the sound. And frankly, it it quite quite, relative to most harley’s. Almost too quiet. At least from the riders positiion. My son said when I rode up our ‘hill’ from our driveway, he said it sounded awesome, his words. From the riders perspective, it does not. But I don’t care, I didn’t by it for the Harley sound. I bought it because it met my needs and wants for an large adventure bike.
      I would call Harley smart for not making it sound like a traditional Harley, because I am not a traditional Harley customer. Isn’t that what they were trying to do? Get new, non-traditional Harley buyers to buy their brand?
      This CEO sounds pretty stupid. The old CEO who started this attempt to attract new Harley buyers seems smarter to me.

  7. Oh man, now you guys got me thinking too deeply.

    ‘Montrose – Bad Motor Scooter’

    — “Get on your bad motor scooter and ride!” —

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B2XJsKUtjQ

    …You mean he wasn’t singing about motorcycles?

    Anyway, I just hope that someday there’s a flying motorcycle & it’s got a real motor. ‘Er, I mean, “enginecycle”?

      • The wife and I saw Ron White up in Frederick, MD this past September! He did the “I don’t think so scooter” and “drunk in public” bit as a reluctant encore! Well, maybe not all *that* reluctant. He asked at the end, “what else do you guys want me to do?!” The crowd absolutely roared for that bit! It was pretty awesome, we were in row 4 at the fairgrounds.

        He said that was one of his last ever shows if not *the* last. So we were thanking our lucky stars that we managed to get out there for it.

        Thanks for the reminder Jim!

  8. Although I do like the feeling in the chest produced by an engine. The noise itself was always more of a nuisance for me. The Zero sounds like a stealthy escape or infiltration. For me a scooter will always look like a Vespa with two feet firmly together on the deck electric or no.

    Now a motorcycle club with over 20 engines is a another story. That’s more like the cavalry arriving.

  9. I like scooters. I’ve had a couple Honda scooters in the past. I’ve always been interested in the Suzuki Burgman with the 650cc engine. It features a chain drive rather than belt as most scooters do and it has gears with an automatic transmission.

    The Burgman is still 100% *SCOOTER* (i.e., not motorcycle) and it even has similar features as a motorcycle! It will never be a motorcycle and no serious person pretends otherwise.

    Now those electric scooters. I suppose those are more practical than an EV for tooling around to the grocery store or down the street. But it will never be a motorcycle and will never even be as cool as a Burgman.

    Any person claiming that Zero is a motorcycle is gay. Sorry but, in times like these, there’s no sense in nuance. Cut to the chase.

  10. Clearly there’s money out there for trying anything and seeing what sticks. Top down capitalism. I’m sure many people have prototyped electric two wheeled vehicles over the years. Some may have even got backing to set up a factory. But they all failed to gain market share. The backers probably blamed the usual suspects: Poor marketing, lack of proper capitalization, running out of runway, conspiracy by incumbent players, bad founders. The idea is always sound.

  11. Not saying you’re wrong, Eric, because far be it from me, but…

    My high school shop teacher had a pet peeve about people calling engines “motors”. He said sometimes it sounded better, as in more poetic, such as in the phrase “383 stroker motor”, but insisted it wasn’t correct.

    Perhaps he would’ve insisted on “enginecycle”.

    But the term “motor” simply refers to something that imparts motion. Something that makes something move. So, an electric motor certainly fits that definition.

    I can only assume that the term “motorcycle” came about to separate self-propelled devices from those which must be peddled, which were “bicycles”. The term “bicycle” replaced the earlier term “velocipede” (if I remember correctly), meaning “quick-foot”, and was used for the first bicycles. “Bicycle” indicates that there are two rotating elements (wheels), obviously.

    So, the term “motorcycle” SHOULD make sense for even those two-wheeled machines propelled by electric motors, though I know a great deal of culture and expectations have long usurped the root etymology.

    Also, the term “scooter” would suggest that you can stand on the machine with one foot whilst scooting it along with the other. I suppose a dexterous person might be able to do that with any motorcycle, however. 😉

    • you’re correct BadnOn. I dislike people calling ICE engines ‘motors’, but everyone does it.
      Motors are electric motors. ICE engines are engines. 🙂
      From an Engineers perspective.

      • My ex-girlfriends Navy officer dad set me straight on motor vs engine once upon a time! Also about how a ship is not a boat, a boat is not a ship, but a submarine is a boat!

        I think “General Motors” is appropriate for where those losers are ending up. “Ford Motor Company”, “Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors Company”, etc.

        They just want to make things that go. Apparently.

        Now, if you want serious “engine” people, then you’re talking about “Cummins Engine Company”!

        Damn shame really. ICE is a very valuable technology. It’s utterly and impossibly retarded to walk away from a century of development!

        • I’m wondering if some day, we don’t go back to simple, effective, cheap, vehicle engines. I guess it will have to take a serious event(s) to get our gov off their tracks. strait 4, 6, and a v8. yes fuel injection, yes a cat, but nothing else, ohh maybe coil on plug? basically bck to the late 90’s early 2000’s, engines were at their prime, now they are buggled up with multi-displacement e-lifters, direct injection, etc….

        • Hey XM,

          Also, perhaps you’ve received a stern talking to about how pistols and rifles aren’t “guns”, because guns are howitzers? Also, a magazine is not a “clip”, because a clip is a clip?

          Also, as a chemist, you are never to call an analytical instrument a “machine”. So much very important nomenclature!

          • Hey BaDnOn, oh yes! I did get the talk about guns! I didn’t get the “magazine is not a clip because a clip is a clip” until later on in handgun qualification class though!

            But I’ve never heard the thing about instrument vs machine!

  12. ‘The engine is the beating – or racing – heart of every motorcycle.’ — eric

    Weirdly, today the New York Slimes features an article titled “The First Car” — an impressionistic photo essay about late teens and early twenties in Los Angeles, enjoying the freedom of joyriding in cars.

    https://archive.ph/dlW0y

    This, from a ‘paper’ whose cliiiiiiiiiimate change agitprop would cynically take it all away from them.

    Has Operation Mockingbird thrown a rod? /sarc

    One sad quote: “It’s really hard nowadays, especially with social media. Everything is about branding yourself.”

    Huh … that’s exactly what we hear from auto makers, with their slick pabulum about ‘passion brands’ and brand management.

    I’m more into old-fashioned branding, using a red-hot piece of shaped iron to burn the rebel symbol ‘V8’ into the rumps of the EeeeeVee-ers. It’s a whole different kind of tattoo!

  13. Great point Eric, but since you created the division in definitions, which is correct, you are going to have to come up with a name, hopefully one that will stick. 🙂
    Re: music. I think I’ve written it here before but it’s worth repeating. One of the reasons I loved roadracing motorcycles was the sound, or better, music. And the icing on the cake was when passing another bike there was a rare occurrence of a resonance that was a ‘wah, wah, wah’, that is hard to describe, but it was so amazing that I risked close passes and had to slow down just a little to hear it. I still can hear it in my brain. It was something about two engines doing 10-12K rpm and/or the two exhausts being so close to each other that did it. and it wouldn’t happen if the bikes were straight up and down (I tried), but only if they were leaned over a little, and why it was a little risky.
    And also, as you mentioned was the shifting…..there is absolutely something magical about shifting at race speeds and race rpms, up and down. My brain still hears it, 30 years later. Wish they had gopro’s back then, I would have tried to capture the magic, but not sure a copy of it would be the same to what we hear?

  14. Semour Hersch has made it official – the US blew Nordstream, a serious act of terrorism and in older times would of call for a declaration of war on us. So how much longer we have living in these normal times I do not know, but nuclear war is becoming a very real possibility, and I was thinking what is a good survival vehicle after the “big one” goes off?

    I made the assertion a couple of essays ago that electricity is easy to make compared to a liquid fuel. Anyone can put a solar panel vs. making biodiesel from scratch or methanol, or ethanol. You need a farm to make the grain or oil seed to make the fuel, but with a solar panel all you need is a credit card. But you can not make enough electricity to power a 6,000 lb Tesla – that requires a huge array of panels, and in the winter, sorry, with the car self draining juice it may be impossible.

    But there is an alternative – and electric bicycle. Can anyone throw some math down on how many panels for how many hours would it take to charge a new electric bike with Lithium Ion batteries?

    If we really had a nuclear war I think that getting anywhere may be a fantasy, as communities that survive may close themselves off. Post nuclear war is going to make us walk, and lose weight, as the freeway food supply will be cut off. In a post apocalypse governments will still have fuel, but we will have rationing or none at all.

    • ‘How many hours would it take to charge a new electric bike with Lithium Ion batteries?’ — Yukon Jack

      For a 500 Watt-hour bike battery, two hours with a single 250-watt solar panel.

      The bike battery’s capacity is less than one percent of a Tessssssla’s 60,000 watt-hours.

        • @ eric

          When I lived in North Idaho way back in the woods, off the grid, I would trudge over to my friends shacks on cold winter nights and we would drink whiskey talking about end times survival strategies while sitting by the wood stove. Since Idaho is absolutely freezing cold for 5 months of the year, we decided that any gasoline post apocalypse should be used to power chainsaws to cut firewood.

          The takeaway from all those talks is this, whatever you have in your truck gas tank and in the back shed is all you have when the big one goes off. Most people with survive the detonations so long as they are 20 or more miles from ground zero, it’s what comes after that it truly horrifying, fallout and starvation. And if you are not ready, well you chances are close to zero.

          A good working bicycle, tubes and tires, is a must. Clean filtered water, that doesn’t require an electric pump to get it. Food storage, and a garden. A fallout shelter, basement at least, and a radiation detector, and short wave radio.

          The big problem is post apocalypse are you willing to risk speeding around with a motor car or bike if your neighbors are stuck walking? And people will surely be trigger happy in those times.

          Bottom line? The USA is pushing Russia into nuclear war and that ain’t good for anyone, and all over Ukraine, like who gives a rat’s ass about Ukraine, I sure as hell don’t. But nevertheless what is happening is insane and surreal.

          • Morning, Jack –

            All true. The latest news – confirming what we already knew – about the Nordstream pipeline is almost unimaginably bad. These maniacs – – the ones puppeteering Biden – seem determined to trigger a nuclear conflict (EMP or otherwise). I’m not sure I want to spend the last half of my life grubbing for a subsistence living, attempting to fend off the Golden Horde. Might be preferable to go out with a bang, as it were.

            • Not to worry, no one will survive everything being poisoned and a perpetual nuclear winter.
              I think a lot of people see Russia as backward. A grave mistake. Guess who has the most nuclear weapons. And it ain’t the US or China. So if it goes off, it will be an extinction event. For every living thing.

              • It appears to me that the Russians/Chinese/Iranians etc are playing a very smart game. They are taking their losses and minimizing them, and they are using the tar baby in Ukraine and elsewhere to use up the USA’s and NATO’s supplies of weapons and munitions, all of which are exorbitantly, impractically expensive things. So by plugging along they are disarming the empire, and by way of this potlatch are bleeding it white.

                Nuclear war is unlikely, and the threat is probably overblown. Nuclear winter is unlikely to affect the climate more than anything else man can do. Radiation decays, faster than you’d think. If anything the threat of nukes to the ozone layer is the biggest worry.

                The Bill Gateses of the world don’t want to destroy it- they want to steal it all for themselves.

                Sometimes they’re evil, sometimes they’re stupid, and sometimes they’re both. But people do tend to look after their interests.

            • I saw this shocking story and I don’t believe it, since Russia would never warn you of a nuclear strike, nor would it do a limited strike. Nuke war is all or nothing.

              Russia’s response to Seymour Hersh:

              “If negotiations fail, V. Putin will give a deadline of 72 hours evacuation period before using nuclear weapons”.

              Translate the article from Greek to another language in Chrome.

              https://warnews247-gr.translate.goog/apantisi-rosias-stis-apokalypseis-s-chers-an-oi-diapragmatefseis-apotychoun-o-v-poutin-tha-dosei-prothesmia-72-ores-prin-tin-chrisi-pyrinikon-oplon/?_x_tr_sl=el&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

      • Assuming full output. Practically will need at least 2 250W panels. Realistically a 250W panel isn’t cheap, most are 100W and you just chain them together until you get the capacity. But that takes up room. And it is usually better to increase voltage by daisychaing as opposed to paralleling, so your charge controller has to be able to handle the increased voltage. Adding optimizers will improve efficiency by isolating each panel from the others, if your charging system will support them (most DYI solutions don’t). Without optimizers the shaded panels will add resistance into the circuit, reducing capacity and if not accounted for could produce enough heat to damage panels, although most designs have blocking diodes to reduce the possibility.

        Not something that is easily carried on a scooter for sure.

        • Used 250W panels are $60-$80 online plus shipping.

          Put ’em where they don’t get shade, e.g. on a ground mount as God intended.

          One Canadian off-grid Youtuber has 20kW of solar panels…and charges his Tesla that way.

    • Yukon,
      “I was thinking what is a good survival vehicle after the “big one” goes off?”
      Vehicles are unnecessary when you’re dead. Which will be the normal human condition after a full scale nuclear war. Everything poisoned, and a nuclear winter should just about do it.
      Making it “official” was not needed. Anyone who thought otherwise is a moron or a psycho. No other party gained an advantage, except Norway, and it appears they were in on it too.

      • bomb shelters for brandon but not for you….

        Nuclear war

        Russia has built a large number of bomb shelters, enough for 40 million people….in a nuclear war a higher percentage of the population will survive because of this, so maybe pushed to the wall it isn’t totally unthinkable…..at least they gave some thought to protecting the little people..

        In the G7…no bomb shelters for the people on the bottom, the government doesn’t give a shit about you…actually the bat germ psyop shows they want to get rid of you….why do people still tolerate these monsters?

        China isn’t as concerned, they figure they can survive a nuclear war because they have a huge population, so there will be survivors.

        If your leaders are going to get you into a nuclear confrontation at least they should build some shelters for you first.

        In G7 countries what bomb shelters have been built? the ones that have been built, are for the government and military leaders,

        but…… the globalist/satanists at the top will be safe 400 feet underground in their bomb shelters in New Zealand.

        Dr. Marc Faber says these governments steal between 5% (honest governments) and 100% (crooked governments) of the money collected, borrowed.

        So instead of building bomb shelters they just stole the money, great leaders.

        Then there is anti missile defense systems…who has the edge….

        https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/we-end-wars-russia-and-china-simultaneously-lets-review-nuclear-balance-power

      • @ John Kable

        Brandon and Antony Blinken have been the two prime suspects since day one, Norway would only be playing along with the crazed hegemon trying to maintain it’s status. The MSM said Russia blew their own 6 billion dollar pipelines – which is laughable – and it means those pointing the finger did it.

        But that was only a drop in the bucket compared to the $300 billion they stole from Russian in their oil trading accounts:

        https://sputniknews.com/20220501/russian-fm-lavrov-west-has-just-stolen-over-300-billions-from-moscow-1095189793.html

        It is an understatement that they are trying to deal Russia a death blow, which means looming nuclear war is a very real possibility, but discounted because of Normalcy Bias. It hasn’t happened so it won’t happen is very bad logic, as it will only happen once.

        • I think it was Einstein that said, (paraphrased) “I can’t tell you what weapons will be used in WWIII, but I can tell you what the next war will be fought with. Sticks and stones.”

  15. A Ural is made in Russia, 80th year of production.

    Cycletrader has some for sale, they’re 15,000 dollars.

    Just go to a Walmart and ride in one of the handicapped electric mobile devices for an hour, should cure the itch.

  16. Great, a “Trans” bike to go with all the mentally unstable “trans” riders. Maybe HD and Zero can pool their “brain trust” resources and actually sell 100 of their “woke” aberrations combined. Not that I would ever give a rat’s ass about riding a 2-wheeled vacuum cleaner, but maybe Dyson will start making them, too, lol!

  17. Don’t forget what a great deal “someone” made you in order to get “Lil-Stinker” to begin with, lol! I think this may be the summer I make a stab at getting my X-6 out and running, after 30+ years. Nothing beats running the streets on a 2-wheel mosquito fogger. Kinda like watching the wake of your ski-boat to see how long it takes to dissipate, lol!

      • That’s what I thought it was. I replaced all 4 of mine over a decade ago with new SS pistons. Can’t remember where I sourced them from, though. They may have been K&L pistons I found on E-Bay, most likely.

    • ‘Nothing beats running the streets on a 2-wheel mosquito fogger.’ — gtc

      Rrrrrring-a-ding-ding!

      Foggy Bottom being notorious for mosquitoes, the EPA’s headquarters on Pennsylvania Ave could benefit mightily by Eric parking Lil Stinker at the entrance and accenting the agency’s weighty deliberations with a dramatic cloud of blue smoke and the tiny triple’s furious ring-a-ding-dinging — a kind of mechanical birdsong, or the mating cry of a near-extinct machine searching for another like itself.

  18. Most of us in the US ride mostly for pleasure. Riding a Mobility Device out on mountain backroads would not work for many reasons. I have Zero interest in electric bikes.

  19. Remember the old joke about scooters / mopeds and fat women? The punchline was you can ride them but don’t let anyone see you do it. (something like that).

    Anyhoo, in my neck of Dixie, you’d run the risk of an ass whipping if caught on a Zero…

    • Hi Mike,

      Around here – among my circle – the idea of an electric “motorcycle” would summon great guffahs if the person insisted on calling it that.

    • “Remember the old joke about scooters / mopeds and fat women?” – No. No I don’t.

      Back in the 80’s – for a time – mopeds were cool as fuck for those under 16yrs of age, the arbitrary age the State demanded before one could get a drivers license. And, no helmet required.

      Mopeds were glorious, disruptive freedom for the 14 to 15 & 15/16ths year olds. Had races, modified the exhaust to improve speed, learned how to hotwire, go to parties. etc.

      …Then – right after I turned 16 or 17 – the State required all mopeds to have a six foot fiberglass pole on the back with a big orange flag, and just-like-that (snap) mopeds were no longer cool & nobody wanted to ride them anymore.
      Except for one or two slow persons, that is.

    • Mike,
      I believe the punchline was “they’re both fun to ride but don’t let your friends catch you”.

  20. “How many lights do you see?”
    The Psychopaths In Charge spend a great deal of energy trying to convince us that what we believe is real isn’t real at all. Far too often succeeding. Call it propaganda, or a psyop, it matters not what you call it. It’s there, it IS real, and it’s ongoing.

    • We sure saw a lot of lying from Joe Biden in his speech the other night, though Big Media would have the masses believe it was the “Greatest State of the Union speech ever!” He also once pledged unity, which was rich coming from him, given that he spent the first 2 years of his Presidency demonizing MILLIONS of Americans simply because they remained “unvaccinated”, supported Donald Trump, etc.

      Speaking of propaganda, here’s a term that the propagandists used ad nauseam over the past 3 years…….”_______ DENIER!” ….Didn’t comply with mask/ vaxx mandates? You’re a COVID/ SCIENCE DENIER! Don’t believe “The Narratives” on climate change? You’re a CLIMATE DENIER! Questioned the 2020 & 2022 elections? You’re an ELECTION DENIER! , etc.

      https://www.technocracy.news/denialism-how-the-woke-stifle-dissent/

      • Former White House Physician Demands Biden Undergo Immediate Cognitive Examination

        the president appeared to be lost on stage yet again.

        Texas Congressman Jackson demanded an evaluation of Biden’s mental acuity after another clip showed Biden bumbling around in front of an audience at the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) training center.

        “You know, uh…” Biden stammered before appearing to look confused.

        He then looked vacant before placing down his microphone, picking it up again and mumbling, “you guys over here.”

        “WOW! What is going on with Biden here??? He’s TOTALLY lost. This man needs a cognitive exam NOW. There’s NO WAY he’s ok!!” tweeted Jackson.

        https://www.zerohedge.com/political/former-white-house-physician-demands-biden-undergo-immediate-cognitive-examination

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