Popular Mechanics USA - 09.2019

A

CCORDING TO

social media, the

Rockingham traffic

situation is a disas-

ter. The Friday night

crowd coming to the

first-ever Epicenter

Festival, a three-day

concert in rural North Carolina,

has overwhelmed the local roads,

leading to backups miles long. I

scored cheap tickets for the next

two days, but I’m wondering if

I’ll end up spending my week-

end idling in gridlock with angry

Korn fans. So on Saturday morn-

ing, I head to the venue to do some

recon, armed with perhaps the

ideal vehicle for this mission: the

Zero FX, an electric dual-sport

bike. I figure if I get stuck in pave-

ment-bound traffic, I’ll just find

a path through the woods. That’s

the theory of the dual-sport—it’s a

dirt bike with a license plate.

The FX, like Zero’s street bikes,

is scary-quick off the line. Its stats

are unlike anything you see from

an internal combustion engine.

In terms of horsepower, the FX is

like a healthy 450-cc dual-sport.

But it makes more torque

(78 lb-ft) than a Ducati

959 Panigale, and all that

torque hits at 0 rpm. Get

too bold with the throttle,

and it’s like doing a clutch

drop from 10,000 rpm.

Which is something to

bear in mind when you ven-

ture off-pavement. You can

light up the rear tire on the

road, so whiskey throttle on

the dirt is going to be like

drinking from a fire hose.

Fortunately, the FX has

an Eco mode, which dulls the vio-

lent throttle response. On the

road, it helps you recapture more

energy anytime you slow down, so

as with electric cars, you get more

range in stop-and-go traffic (

P R I C E

$10,

HORSEPOWER

46 at 4,300 rpm

PEAK

TORQUE

78 lb-ft

WEIGHT

289 lb

R A N G E

(MILES)

91 city;

39 highway

at 70 mph

TOP SPEED

85 mph

MAKE⁄MODEL

ZERO FX ZF7.

The

Amazing

Silent

Speedy

Electric

Dirt Bike

Powersports

// B Y E Z R A D Y E R //

PHOTOGRAPHY BY RAYMOND MCCREA JONES

4

12 September 2019