Cherry

Nov 27th 2024

Cherry is a 2014 Super Soco TS1200R. It's legally a "50cc equivalent" electric moped/scooter, but with the styling of a motorbike. The 1200 stands for nominal wattage delivered to the motor. The bike can reportedly deliver more power than that, but only for a short period of time.

I bought this bike using the insurance money from Arrow getting written off

Pros:

• It's electric
• Quality BOSCH motor and decent brakes (people complain online about the brakes, but I think they are properly sized for a ~75kg bike)
• ~1.5kWh Panasonic battery cells have lots of capacity. Discharge rate is between 1C and 2C, which keeps the cells cool.
• Can hold two battery packs, but uses only one of them at a time. You can swap over when you discharge one of them.
• It's very handy to use around Vancouver. Theres a significant amount of storage that I was severely lacking on Arrow. It's enough to fit a gallon of milk and some fruits n' stuff from the grocery.
• This thing is silent. It's quieter than a regular bicycle because of lack of chain (hub motor). I think people are genuinely surprised at lack of noise.
• Lightweight (~75kg) and very flick-able
• Acceleration from dead-stop is decent
• Looks are pretty good imho. The plastics don't look much cheaper than any other bike on the market today, and it's got a bit of a sci-fi look to it.
• The screen/display is quite big and easy to read
• The tires are skinny, less inertia
• No more having to pay for gas
• No more stupid rusty chain to lubricate
• Cheaper operating costs. 30km, or 1 battery charge is about $0.20.
• My insurance is cheaper. It's about half as much as Arrow was at about $1/day.

Cons:

• The top speed, with the wind is 65km/h. More realistically you'll probably get 45km/h.
• Cannot handle any hills whatsoever
• While it can drive with 2 people, it's max loading in my opinion should be about 1.5
• The battery plug to bike interface (connector and cable) is prone to melting down! The replacement is around $23 and is pretty easy to replace.
• The power button is not waterproof. It's a membrane type (like on a cheap keyboard).
• Headlight could be a bit brighter
• The seat is not very comfortable. The "gas tank" should be larger.

A note on range: the range of an electric vehicle varies wildly depending on how you drive. There's a switch on the handlebars that controls max speed. You can switch between three modes. On mode 3, the max speed is ~63km/h and the range is almost exactly 30km per battery, but that's 100% to literally 0%. If you switch it to mode 1 the top speed is limited to 25km/h, but the range extends to about 100km. Aerodynamics and the square law...

I complain about the "gas tank" size for a very good reason. To prevent losing traction on a slippery surface, or increase your chances of properly recovering traction when you do lose it, it's very important to keep minimum weight on the handlebars of a motorcycle. This allows the rubber of the tire to conform more to the road surface (preventing loss of grip), or minimize the amount of tire deflection when you do regain grip. Instinctively you want to grab the handlebars when you lose grip or brake hard. A big "gas tank" makes it easy to grab the bike with your legs instead. Unfortunately, this bike has a very small "gas tank", and it makes it more uncomfortable to do that than on Arrow.

The main power button on this bike is crap. If any water leaks into it, it thinks that the button is constantly pressed. This shuts down the bike as soon as you start it up. I ended up taking the button apart and placing oil on the membrane contacts to prevent this (hopefully).