scooter in winter

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al7777
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scooter in winter

tips on what to do with the scooter in winter..

yount3000
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Re: scooter in winter

I wish I could give you a better option here. Me being a bachelor, I do not have to answer to anyone so I just store mine (and a couple of friends) Mopeds in my kitchen for the winter.

Also, this is a good time to do any updates/repairs/cleaning of your bike. Change your light bulbs to LED, add batteries, add a BMS (Battery Management System), or just tighten everything up. Tinker with the bike but always write down exactly what you did step for step to ensure that you put the bike back together correctly. Have your mechanic check your tires and brakes to see if they need to be replaced. Get a Tailbox and install it. But Don't use it as a stock rack.
But the overall thing to do is to keep the bike in a warm location. Unless your garage is very well insulated, you need to find a better location. Also, put the bike on the center stand while you have it stored. This will help prevent the tires from leaving a mark where it sits and also gives you the option to run the bike for 1 minute before you do the month/bi-weekly charge that you need to do.

I will admit that I have never owned one for more than 3 years before I sold it. So, I just know what to do from my vantage point. I hope this helps.

yount

LeftieBiker
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Re: scooter in winter

I have a very cold garage - it gets down way below freezing by mid-Winter. Nonetheless, the batteries in my 2001 Lepton are still original, and still working. (Likewise the tires.) All you have to do to keep them alive is charge them every one or two months, depending on whether or not there is a parasitic drain on the batteries. Also, the smaller an individual battery, the more susceptible to freezing it is.

al7777
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Re: scooter in winter

hi thanks for the info i learned a lot...alex

MEroller
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Re: scooter in winter

tips on what to do with the scooter in winter..

Get a set of tires with more tread and slightly softer rubber than the usual Chinese fare, get some warm gloves, underwear and motorcylce gear and go ride! Of course that will only work if you have a contoller/throttle combination that allows for fine startup controllability, and with a set of batteries that will still have some life in them at below-freezing temperatures. Riding in the snow can be a blast, if you know what you are doing :-)

My rides:
2017 Zero S ZF6.5 11kW, erider Thunder 5kW

Johnny J
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Re: scooter in winter

In Sweden spiked scooter tyres are available...

MEroller
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Re: scooter in winter

Ah Johnny, so you've also seen Swedish Goodwheel's snow-antics with the 8kW Thunder?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nm83cuZMF0
They indeed had spikes on thier winter tires. I have a set of IRC Urban Snow that I will have mounted shortly, and hope they will also work satisfactorily in summer...

My rides:
2017 Zero S ZF6.5 11kW, erider Thunder 5kW

PJD
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Re: scooter in winter

Actually, unless you live in far-arctic or antarctic latitudes, storing lead acid batteries, or lithium or NiMH batteries, in an unheated space is fine and even beneficial to battery life. If lead acid, plug a charger in once a month. The freezing point of the electrolyte in fully charged lead acid battery is -69C/-92F. But it must be fully charged; at 60% DOD, the freezing point is only -16F/-27C.

Johnny J
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Re: scooter in winter

Yes I´ve seen that one, but spiked tires have always been available here for cars, motorcycles and bikes.

I would not recommend using winter/snow tires in the summer, they have very soft rubber that in higher temperatures vill give high rolling resistance and wear out quite quick. Experts say that M+S tires combines the bad sides of winter and summer tires. :-)

MEroller
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Re: scooter in winter

Yes I´ve seen that one, but spiked tires have always been available here for cars, motorcycles and bikes.

I know, but then in Sweden the roads aren't always immediately cleared of snow and smothered in salt as they do it here in Tyskland. Spikes have been forbidden here decades ago, sometime in my early teen years, because they tend to tear up naked asphalt. I would much rather ride on firm snow-surfaced roads with spike tires in winter than on what they create here, some mixture of snow slush and salt water :-(

I would not recommend using winter/snow tires in the summer, they have very soft rubber that in higher temperatures vill give high rolling resistance and wear out quite quick. Experts say that M+S tires combines the bad sides of winter and summer tires. :-)

And for that reason I used to ride on Heidenau All-Weather tires all year long that have a good compromise of rubber hardness and fine profiling that work well in hot summers, excellently in the cooler spring and fall and quite acceptably even in cold winter weather, even on snow and ice. Yes, wear was probably a little higher than on the usual dry weather scooter slicks, but it was well worth it for safety reasons.
Last year however German legislation made M+S marked tires mandatory in winter conditions, and did not differentiate between two-track and single-track vehicles. This has made my tried and tested tire solution illegal in winter conditions :-(
Heidenau also make the exact same tire with identical profile but out of a softer, fibre-reinforced rubber and stamp M+S on them, but they too will wear out a lot quicker in summer and thus quickly loose their shallow fine tread.
Therefore I opted for the IRC Urban Snow tires which have very fine fins, lateral in the middle for good traction and longitudinal on the sides for better cornering grip. This is something the Heidenaus do not have. And according to IRC advertising that tire should also be usable year-round. I will probably inflate it more in summer to reduce the higher rolling resistance. But with my hub motor changing tires twice every year is not really an option for me, and the Cheng Shin tires currently on the bike are nice in dry and hot weather, but can become treacherously slippery on wet roads. Your more easily detachable motor leads should make all that tire changing more feasible, I have to live with some kind of compromise...

My rides:
2017 Zero S ZF6.5 11kW, erider Thunder 5kW

tdnevmo
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Re: scooter in winter

I rode my scooter all winter, every day, in 2010/2011 here in Denmark. That was alot of fun!
I have an xm 4000 li. Just got a new controller for it.

xm4000-li

tdnevmo
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Re: scooter in winter

I rode my scooter all winter, every day, in 2010/2011 here in Denmark, on summer tires!!. That was alot of fun!
I have an xm 4000 li. Just got a new controller for it.
I'm getting IRC URBAN on it this winter though.

xm4000-li

MEroller
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Re: scooter in winter

I'm getting IRC URBAN on it this winter though.

BEWHARE! IRC Urban Snow are precisely designed for that: SNOW. Anything else they are not that good at, whet is ok, but dry roads and this tire make for VERY poor braking traction. And they are unbelievably LOUD, which is a particular pain in the ear for us electric drivers. They howl like a pack wolves. The good thing is people take more notice of an Urban Snow-equipped E-Sooter...

My rides:
2017 Zero S ZF6.5 11kW, erider Thunder 5kW

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