Interestingly they both cost the same amount to buy, but there are differences.
LHS = left hand side
RHS = right hand side
- LHS is a month old and has under 700km on it, RHS is 13 years old and has 128,706km on it (almost comical isn't it), I anticipate at least another 40,000km while I seriously doubt that the LHS will ever mange 10,000km
- RHS one lives outside rain hail or shine, LHS would be dead soon if expected to do that
- LHS doesn't work well in the rain, RHS been ridden plenty of times in pouring rain
- LHS has a top legal speed of 24kmh and a top speed of 55kmh, RHS has a top legal speed of 100kmh and a top speed of 160kmh
- LHS really only good for short around town trips while RHS does everything from long highway hauls to nip up to the shops
- LHS has questionable insurance cover for personal injuries RHS has full and proper insurance for that
- operating costs of LHS unknown expect depreciation to by the killer, doubt that it'd do 10,000. Meanwhile RHS has oil changes every 5000km (costs me about $40), oil filter changes every 10,000km (adds $15 to oil change cost), belt change every 40,000km
- RHS I could ride 2,000km tomorrow if I chose to, LHS its not even a laughing matter to consider that without a steady stream of stops to recharge every 50km (assuming I only do 27kmh (taking 10 hours, so overnight) so LHS is not even remotely a long distance touring machine
- recharge LHS costs 1c per km RHS = 7c per km
- recharge time for LHS is over 12 hours (with standard charger), which might be able to come down to 6 with a high amp charger, RHS is about 5 minutes at the servo
A quick demo of the T-Max
Some years ago I wrote this post: Do electric scooters dream of being petrol powered?
things are perhaps a bit better now ... but not by much.
If I have to go to the next town I know which one I'll take ... heck if I was still living in Brisbane and I wanted to go to the next suburb I know I'd take the T-Max.
If I have to go to the next town I know which one I'll take ... heck if I was still living in Brisbane and I wanted to go to the next suburb I know I'd take the T-Max.
Motorcycles are simply safer in traffic with cars than scooters are, don't let your fantasies give you injuries.
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11 comments:
LHS is Mercane MX60?
Dear Obakesan,
For the last two or three weeks I have followed your Mercane MX60 YouTube videos and blogs. As a prospective buyer of the MX60 I relished on how well you seem to know me, that is, the putative pussy that rides an electric scooter dork-style, much like a statue with his feet parallel to each other and whom applies a considerable amount of force on the handlebars. My e-scooter experience is very limited but significant as I have done 650 Km on a Zoom Stryder EX. I have truly enjoyed your MX60 footage and laughed many times, especially when you refer to the pussy or pensioner mode of riding an electric scooter. I find you a genuinely funny guy and this is a sincere compliment (not to mention the English Auto-translated subtitles of when you say “I wish I had a longer deck”, lol!). Until this morning, before clicking on the ‘grief’ label, I mainly felt that your MX60 videos and the MX60 itself were custom made to me, excluding the bloody weight of the scooter (which I would need to carry down and up a flight of stairs every time I take it out), and have identified with that pleasurable essence relating to being alive riding an electric scooter within that Aussie scenery and at serene cruising speeds of under 30 Km/h.
Anyway, after clicking on the ‘grief’ label and spending a couple of hours reading through your blogs of 2012, I felt it no longer made sense to contact you about the exact weight of the MX60 or any advice on pussy protective gear galore, because I am not a dickhead, and thus I am honestly afraid of getting seriously injured or dying while riding an electric scooter, not in the UK, where I lived for the last 16 years, but in Portugal’s Lisbon region area, where I am living for the foreseeable future taking care of my elderly mum due to Covid-19. Portugal has been ranked as the third safest country in the world after Iceland and New Zealand but it is beyond me why they presumably left dickhead road accidents out of the equation. I just wanted to ride to the funky beach, my spiritual home, about 12 km away from my mum’s but it is so bloody complicated: the two long-winded insurances I’d need to take, the necessary ‘sad bastard’ protective gear, the challenge of going up and down very steep hills and cruising through immensely dusty dirt roads, the hassle of securing the scooter… So why not buy a funky car instead or get a ride from a friend?
Obakesan, I was deeply touched by reading the blogs on your grief from the loss of your beloved wife. It brought me to see the human soul in you beyond the skilled biker in you. There are further bridges of identification beyond the shared biochemistry background. Perhaps the identification, or empathetic projection, that strikes me the most, is the ongoing life journey of dealing with such a traumatic event as the one you have endured. So I have mentioned the unpopular and often misunderstood word: trauma. As a nearly certified Somatic Experiencing (SE) Practitioner I am finding body-mind integration tools and support from the SE community to help me heal my own wounds deriving from the early stages of my development. This is my reality but I often do get distracted by stuff like scoots. Today it certainly made me question what or who does really matter and how to be (more) with it or with them, or how to get closer to it or them? Definitely, to live in the here and now, to have hope and to look forward to the gifts that tomorrow will bring me if I engage with life and other human beings. Surely, your generous sharings of nearly eight years ago have left me more enriched and connected: to you, myself and to life. Thus I am grateful for your kindness, so I would like to say: thank you mate. You put a lot of care and labour of love in your videos and blog postings, and I recognise it as care to your receivers – including the self-styled pussies like me :) - but also as a gesture of self-care, so I hope you keep on with it, with care, safe ridings and a lust for life, as the ones you also showcase when downhill blasting on the MX60, so there you go.
Thanks.
Indeed the here and now is all we have. To eschew it for the possibility of future is a gamble which (in my view) seldom pays off.
I have walked away from everything solid many times in my life, always in pursuit of broadening experience. In 2006 I walked away from everything here to pursue a life with the woman who captivated me. There isn't a day go by where I don't think of her, and how we enriched eachother.
You're right, that despite my wry prose (and Australian sardonic view is almost akin to Finnish) I publish what I do for the benefits of others (as I do the INR thread here).
Best Wishes
PS:
as to gear, you see what I wear, have a read of this blog post and see that the best protection is patience, skills and avoidance. http://cjeastwd.blogspot.com/2014/06/skid-lids-aka-helmets.html
I wear full face helmets on my motorcycle but still open face helmets. You've surely seen me wearing dunlop volleys, jeans and a flanney shirt with a bicycle helmet. Why not more? Well trust me my motivation to "not come off" is high. It may not look like it but I scope things out and use the experience gained over many years of 2 wheeled things.
Best Wishes
Oh, and 34kg
Hey man, thank you kindly for your reply and safety related PS including the previous blog post link which I have read with interest.
I am starting to give up on the MX60 because I don't think I am able to get a civil liability insurance though I would get an expensive insurance for personal accidents, so if I were to hit a pedestrian with it I would be pretty much done. In addition, I would be my own personal hero to adventure myself in the car-driven ruling fascism of Portuguese roads. I prefer to keep on pussying rather than to be a bag of aching bones for the rest of my life or a bloody dead self-hero. On the other hand, to buy a dirt-cheap second-hand used car is making me lose the will to live, it is as if dealing with children playing games with a street wise charlatan mentality.
This is me being obsessive but I would please like to know your view on these chaps weighing of the Mercane MX60 with battery (35.7 Kg), at https://youtu.be/0Nh3FzhfTHo?t=1095, and the weighing of the MX60 battery itself (6.9 Kg), at https://youtu.be/0Nh3FzhfTHo?t=1115. So, if this is correct then the actual weight of Mercane MX60 without battery is 28.8 Kg, ouch! That is bloody heavy to carry it up and down a flight of stairs, beyond my up to 27 Kg limit and previous understanding of this electric scooter's weight.
Fernando, did you miss my comment directly above saying 34kg?
That is indeed bloody heavy, and I don't even like lifting it up and down two steps into my house.
Myself I don't know why you wouldn't just get a nice 4 stroke 125cc step through to get to the beach. If I didn't have my 500cc, that's what I'd get these days. Honda Dio are excellent, better brakes, you can park it outside and it doesn't care, more stable and more reliable.
Obakesan, of course I didn't miss your 34Kg comment. I did say I was being obsessive about the scooter's exact weight without the battery. It was a fixation - by the way, trauma can also be defined as a fixation of some sort, where you simply get stuck - and you have actually helped me snap out of it, so again, thank you kindly. Your Honda Dio suggestion has opened me the horizons to actually get a 'proper' scooter running on gas and I have given up on the Mercane MX60, not a realistic and safe means of transport where I live currently and temporarily. 125cc is way too ambitious for me, someone that has never ridden a motorcycle of any sort before, though I could ride a 125cc without a motorcycle license, but I am aiming at a 50cc scooter instead. I really don't want to ride faster than 40 km/h. Either way, where I am there is no used Honda Dio in sight other than one from 1995(!) with thousands of km and a hefty €700 price tag! I went to a motorcycle stand today to see this used Piaggio Liberty 50 (2T) Delivery: https://www.standvirtual.com/anuncio/piaggio-liberty-50-delivery-ID8OOnut.html?utm_source=olx.pt&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=search_results_link. This model was meant for delivery professionals, at least in Italy, but this particular scooter with nearly 6,000 km has been parked for about two years! I liked the look of it (with only a few minor scratches on the red plastic which looks much better than in the photos) and the light feel of it (about 90 Kg) but without being able to drive test the scooter I really don't know what I am buying, even though the six-month guarantee moto stand offer. The sales guy will only set it up with a battery and put it up to scratch with everything else when a sale is agreed upon, as the scooter is not insured, so he said. I didn't entirely buy the reason why it hasn't been sold in two years that the sales guy pointed out, that is, not putting it up in the sort of sites as the one the aforementioned link refers to. Even so, I might put up an offer in the amount of €700 and ask them to fit in some mirrors. It could be a good first 'motorbike' to learn how to drive one to start with, though not too confident it will do well on the 3 km dirt-road stretch on my 24 km round trip to the beach with those tyres and suspension. Anyway, I am planning to take some motorbike lessons and even would do the full motorbike driving license path if I didn't have to wait about one month to get started with the driving lessons. At the end of the day I could lose my head and buy a spanking new Peugeot Kisbee 50 RS 4T at €1,600, a spanking new Piaggio Typhoon 50 (2T) for €2,250, a spanking new Niu UQi GT 1.5 kW (2 hp) electric scooter for £2,000 - a proper pussy scooter - or worst of all, a used Honda Zoomer (Ruckus) for €2,500 to indulge in and finally give expression to the closet biker in me!
Hi
well don't let the cc capacity scare you off, the 110 is a safer bike than a 50cc for a number of reasons, but I understand the appeal of the 50cc for licence restrictions.
Either way I reckon that a decent 50cc scooter will be a more practical transport than a MX60
I'd work on the licence however as an opportunity not an obstacle. You'll get (need) training and they'll help you with things like:
* traffic observation skills
* balance and confidence
* braking and how to do it right
* cornering and how to do it right
* freshening up your skills (no matter how long you've held a drivers licence)
Best Wishes on your new journey
PS: for 900 euro that scooter is a better buy than an MX60 for actual transport ... you could travel 100km in 2 hours on that and not regret it
Thank you for writing such an interesting article. Your articles are consistently excellent. Continue to post!
Gas Street Legal Scooter
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