I Road Tripped The Zero S So You Don’t Have To

I did something dumb.

No, I didn’t buy another Fiat 500e. I have plenty of those in my possession at the moment, although if I found the right Abarth convertible with a manual, I might be tempted. Instead, this has to do with the electric motorcycle that Zero loaned me. It’s a Zero S, a naked bike that offers about 150 miles of range and makes 97 pound-feet of torque. I’d been riding it around town when it wasn’t raining, and it was actually far easier to ride than you’d think, at least with traction control on (I leave the traction control on).

Now, I’m not going to pretend these bikes are cheap. With a starting price of $14,995, you really have to want an electric motorcycle in order to justify buying one, but for around-town duty, it really is fantastic. It’s more comfortable than you might think, and without any need for a gas tank, it has a convenient little storage compartment that can swallow a six-pack and even a few other things, meaning I can make a quick trip to the store or a friend’s house without needing to bring a backpack.

In fact, I’d argue the Zero S is almost too easy to ride. It almost feels like an e-bike you don’t have to pedal, except then you look down at the speedometer, and the numbers are climbing far faster than you would have ever possibly imagined. And while it might not have enough range for a ride up to the mountains and back, 150 miles is plenty for riding around all day. Then, you just plug it into a regular wall outlet, and you’re good to go the next day.

So back to the “something dumb.” I had to go to Charlotte for an event, which for me is a distance of just under 200 miles. Of course, on the highway, the Zero wouldn’t get nearly the full 150 miles of range that it got around town, but I was having so much fun on the bike here, I figured, why not ride up to Charlotte? It couldn’t possibly be that bad, right? I’d stop to charge twice each way, and while I wouldn’t beat a gas-powered motorcycle, it would be fun to see what the bike was like on a short road trip.

Plus, it would give me the opportunity to review a helmet I’d just received — a Ruroc AT4.0 Carbon that you may have seen advertised with a bunch of cool designs, including several from Star Wars and Marvel. They aren’t exactly cheap, and you can definitely find perfectly serviceable helmets for a lot less, but I’m not against doing the important work of checking to make sure a cool-looking helmet is comfortable and well-built enough that those who can afford one can be OK with making the jump. Plus, there’s a Bluetooth audio system that was begging to be tested on the highway.

So I charged the bike, packed a bag, and set out on my way. The first 90 minutes or so went swimmingly on the bike, but I hadn’t set up the helmet’s audio system correctly before leaving, which meant I couldn’t listen to the Reacher audiobook on the way like I’d planned. Still, I liked the helmet. Everything from the visor to the trick D-ring-free strap felt well-built, and most importantly, it was the most comfortable motorcycle helmet I’d ever used.

Despite being built like I have a Victorian wasting disease, my head is both massive and oddly shaped, which means a lot of helmets give me a headache, at least right out of the box. The Ruroc, though, didn’t give me a headache, and it’s far lighter than my personal helmet. I haven’t crashed yet, so you’ll have to decide for yourself if the safety certification is enough for you to trust with your brain, but comfort and quality both got a check from me.

Then it was time for my first charge stop. I chose an Ingles because the charger was free, and I liked the idea of being able to grab some food while I waited for the bike to charge. Sure, it wasn’t a fast charger, but the Zero’s battery is small, and I had time. Plus, the Ingles had a small sitting area with wifi where I could wait while the bike charged. Also, did I mention the charger was free?

The free charger, however, took a long time to get me back to 80%. That could be forgiven since I wasn’t paying for the charge, and it gave me time to figure out what I’d done wrong with the audio system. Eventually I got everything figured out, and I had audio coming out of both speakers and the speakers themselves positioned exactly where my ear holes are. Apparently, the sound has to go into your ears if you want to hear it. Who knew?

By the time I got going again it had been about two hours, which is far too long to stop for a charge on a road trip, but once I got to Gaffney, I figured I’d take a photo of the Peachoid, plug into a charger with a little more oomph and be on my way. I always loved seeing the Peachoid on road trips as a kid, although I will admit I remember it being bigger. Probably because I was smaller. Unfortunately for me, but lucky for you, Gaffney is also where things started to really go wrong for me.

You see, I’d planned this trip the way I usually plan things — barely. I made several assumptions, and one of those assumptions was that the Zero would charge faster on a faster charger. I was wrong. You can add faster charging to your Zero, but to help keep the cost of an already-expensive bike down, faster charging isn’t included. That way, if you don’t plan to go on any road trips, you don’t have to pay for a feature you won’t use. I also would have known this if I’d actually read all the materials that go along with the bike, but I had a bike with 97 lb-ft of torque at my disposal, and I didn’t want to read the instructions. I wanted to ride.

Anyway, the way the press bike was set up — the “not planning to take any road trips” setup — it charged at roughly 3.3 kW. With a 14.4-kWh battery, you can do the math. The fast-charger option would have tripled that charge speed, but without it, I was going to be stuck in Gaffney for a long time. Thankfully, you can usually find a decent coffee shop in any town these days, so I ordered a large cold brew and got to waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

I couldn’t even be mad at the bike. The bike hadn’t done anything wrong. Naked bikes aren’t really road trip bikes, and I knew that going in, but it was still far more comfortable than I’d expected, and the electric powertrain made it the smoothest bike I’d ever road tripped. You don’t realize how many vibrations there are on a gas bike until you’ve ridden an electric one. It may not be worth the extra money to you, but let me tell you, riding on the highway without all those vibrations is a nice upgrade. No, the problem is that I hadn’t read the instructions, and because of my own laziness, I was suffering. Because I’d just assumed everything would work out for me, I was stuck in Gaffney, SC, inside a combination coffee shop and bookstore that still hadn’t taken down its Christmas decorations, waiting for my bike to take its sweet time charging. If I hadn’t been trapped there, I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more, but when you can’t leave, even a nice coffee shop starts to feel like a prison.

At that point, I also knew I was committed. I’d ridden way too far to turn back, and the only option was to continue onto Charlotte. As long as I could make it, I could spend the next couple days pretending I didn’t have to ride home. Besides, the hotel had EV charging, so at least I wouldn’t have to worry about that. Once I had enough juice to at least make it to the hotel, I rode on.

Between Ingles and Gaffney I’d been listening to music, but for the last stretch, I wanted something to keep my mind off how stupid I’d been, so I started the Reacher audiobook. Would it be quality literature? Of course not. No one gets into Reacher because they think it’s quality literature. They like Reacher because they like a big man solving everyone’s problems by punching stuff. Sadly, the one downside of the Ruroc audio system is that it couldn’t quite go loud enough to hear spoken words clearly on the highway. I don’t know if louder speakers would have damaged my hearing, but it’s at least something to be aware of. I did think it was fine for music, though. Just not an audiobook.

As I approached my final destination the Zero’s range was getting scarily low, but I was mentally exhausted and just wanted to lie down. According to the GPS, I had almost exactly as many miles to go as I had miles of range, so I decided to push it. And thankfully, rush hour traffic slowed everything down, allowing me to make it no problem. I even had 16 miles to spare by the time I got to the hotel. Once the bike was on a charger, I collapsed on my bed, wondering how in the hell I’d turned a sub-four-hour ride into an eight-hour trip.

Maybe it was more. Maybe it was less. At that point, the entire day was a blur.

Fast forward to Sunday, and I had to make the whole trip again, this time with the knowledge that it would take far longer than anyone would reasonably be willing to tolerate. I’m not a reasonable person, though, so off I went, this time looking forward to that little coffee shop slash bookstore in Gaffney.

Except when I got to Gaffney, they were closed, along with almost every other place of business in the downtown area. After walking around, the only place I could find that was actually open was a spot with a bunch of Harleys in front and the promise that Guy Fieri had once given it his seal of approval. I’d tried to find a spot that looked more inviting, but when that’s all that’s open, what other choice do you have?

Thankfully, by the time I gave up on finding somewhere else to camp until I could ride to the Ingles, the Harley Men had left. And being no stranger to diners, drive-ins and dives, I ordered a Cheerwine and a chili dog plate, then found a corner of the bar where I could charge my phone.

Thankfully, no one gave me too much trouble while I was there, even if I very clearly didn’t belong. And believe it or not, the chili didn’t, either. The hot dogs themselves weren’t great, but the chili on top of the dogs was solid. Eventually, though, the regulars started talking about politics, and it probably isn’t hard to guess where a bunch of drunk guys in a small-town bar on a Sunday fall on the political spectrum (hint: they wanted a lot of my friends and some of my family members dead).

I decided to finish waiting on a bench near the charger.

Once the bike was charged enough it was time to hit the road again, heading right for Ingles. Thankfully, Ingles wasn’t full of vocal bigots, so my stay there was a little less memorable than the one with the racists. I bought some food and a drink, messed around on my laptop, charged my phone and counted down the minutes until the bike would be charged enough to start on the final leg of my journey.

Not long after I hit the road for the final time, I had a choice to make. I could go a slightly longer way that had more chargers, or I could go the shorter, faster way with no chargers. Maybe it was dumb, but I chose the latter. I’d been on the road for so long, and I just wanted it to be over. It paid off, too, because I made it to my girlfriend’s house with multiple miles of range left. Multiple!

Was my decision to road trip the Zero stupid? Absolutely. Except it didn’t make me hate the bike. I may have hated myself for not reading the instructions before heading out, but price aside, I loved the bike, and I fully get the argument that making faster charging an option helps keep the MSRP down. If you’re interested in a Zero and want to take it on short road trips, the faster charging is definitely a requirement, though. You very much do not want to get stuck in a racist bar for several hours while you wait for it to charge enough to get to your next stop.

Even with the volume issue, the Ruroc helmet test went much better. Everyone is going to have their own personal preferences for comfort, but odds are, if a helmet is comfortable on my weird head, it’ll probably be even more comfortable for you. It also feels high enough quality that I don’t think you’ll regret buying a helmet with a fun superhero or Star Wars design. $475 still buys plenty of helmets, but if you like the designs and have the cash, it gets my stamp of approval.

Surprisingly, though, all the chargers I stopped at worked perfectly, and I didn’t run into any problems there. If you want to hear about charger drama, you’ll just have to wait to read about my next road trip, where I took another 150-mile EV to North Carolina: my 2024 Fiat 500e. Thankfully, I didn’t get stranded, but let’s just say the drive to Oak Island somehow went even worse.