Brammo Owners Forum

In the continuing series of short videos I make about people and the EV experience, my latest stemmed from a conversation I had with Jackson Browne at a dinner party of a mutual friend. He and I started started talking about electric cars and he said he had a Volt so I asked if he'd be the subject of one of my videos and he was kind enough to say yes.

Editing soon, but here is a screen grab from the shoot yesterday.

Well, not the kind of blonde you were hoping but it got you to look

Some of you may have seen the video I made called Brammo Stories Episode One. I was planning on doing one a month but there was only one other Enertia owner that I could find in the Los Angeles area and he was camera shy.

I really would rather focus on Brammo bikes since I really like these bikes and the company but with no subjects there can be no videos.

A little over a year ago I met Fabio when he did a cameo in one of our Plug In America's PSAs about the advantages of EVs. He did it as a favor to our casting director but had no previous contact with any electric vehicles. I interviewed him for a documentary I was making about the making of the PSAs and coached him about EVs and what to say.

Our PSAs and the little doc I shot got a lot of coverage and the major news outlets picked up his involvement and they wanted to interview him about EVs.

He kind of became a new spokes person for the EV world, which was weird since he didn't know anything about EVs until he spent time on the set and I gave him some talking points.

Zero motorcycles saw this and gave him an electric motorcycle (and they are giving him 3 more 2012's when they come out) and all he has to do is ride it around and talk about it. I wanted to do a follow up about this strange turn of events and his new electric bike. I went to his house and shot a bunch of stuff with him about his life and e-bikes.

He is a major gear head, with a 950 hp Porsche, a tricked out Mercedes and a Lamborghini. But the kicker is he has 211 motorcycles, all of them at his house.

I did tell him about the Empulse and he was VERY interested. He asked me to ride with him when my Enertia + arrived, which seems like it would be an interesting experience.

Here is just a screen grab from the shoot.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=321750697848122&set=a.150945468261980.29093.140503792639481&type=1&theater

Here's a 90 second sequence of a short film I'm making about the Nissan Leaf. This segment is about places an owner will never have to take it.

Quote from a Tweet on Craig's page.

"@BrammoCraig Do you make an E-bike for short people like me? Keeping both feet on the ground while stationary helps me stay balanced. Thx!" ElectricCarMuse

@ElectricCarMuse We are working on a different seat for the Enertia, but also have something else in mind! Thanks!     4:31 PM Jan 7th  via TweetDeck  in reply to ElectricCarMuse"

http://twitter.com/BrammoCraig

Hope they really don't make the seat lower unless it is adjustable. I'm 6 feet 4 inches. But if they do change the seat I hope that that they make it with supports so a trunk can be fitted on the back to store a helmet and other stuff.

I've started a film series called Brammo Stories. It's short profiles of Brammo Enertia owners and there story about buying and owning the bike. I just completed Episode One featuring Jeff Calimlim, aka Werm Works. He was really great and I am including a link to his Brammo story here.

I'm ready to start Episode Two and am looking for the next victim, I mean subject. The only requirement is owning an Enertia and being in Southern California since this is where I am. I'm easy to work with, just ask Jeff, and it will be fun. Take a look at the video and step up to be next.

And let me know what you think of it.

I stopped at the West Los Angeles Best Buy, which is one of the larger stores and was displaying the Brammo Enertia as well as several other electric bike and scooters, and all the two wheeled electric machines were gone from the floor. The entire section that had the bikes and accessories like helmets, gloves, locks, had disappeared.

I asked three people about the Brammo and none had any idea what a Brammo was, so I said "big electric motorcycle" and one guy said "oh, there is one in the stereo installation garage," which was closed at 3:30 in the afternoon.

Two other sales people said they never heard of a Brammo Enertia and when I explained what it was one still didn't know anything about it and the other one said that they might have one in their smaller Westwood store a few miles away or maybe the El Segundo store. I asked if he could check and instead he said I could go to the computer department and try to get online and go to the Best Buy website. I went to the computer department but was unable to get to the internet with any computer.

I just checked the Best Buy website from home and it lists the Enertia as a "pick up in store only" at the West Los Angeles and El Segundo stores. So, it looks like you can order and pick it up from these two stores, but you can't look at one, at least at the W.L.A. store. Maybe there is one in the garage where they install stereos as one person claimed, and maybe you can test ride it, but they have odd hours in that garage.

I was just going through the California DMV Motorcycle Handbook to study for the motorcycle license test and I came across the following:

Motorcycle Skills Test

Basic vehicle control skills are in-cluded in the motorcycle skills test to determine your ability to maneuver in normal traffic situations. You will be asked to identify nine items on your motorcycle before the actual riding portion of the test. The items you will be asked to identify are the:• Starter• Kill switch• Clutch• Throttle• Gear selector• Dimmer switch• Brakes• Turn signals• Horn.

Gear Shift Ride – Ride in a straight path, shifting gears up, then down, complete a U-turn and return, shifting gears up, then down and end in a smooth stop at the starting point.

Going to be hard to point out the clutch and then shift gears on an e-bike. In fact, not hard, more like impossible. I can already see the DMV worker saying that the test requires you to do these things and that you must fulfill the test requirements because that is what the rules say. You know how they are about rules.

Should never have let my motorcycle rating lapse. But at some point they are going to have to acknowledge e-bikes when there gets to be more of them on the road and either change the rules for the test to allow for e-bikes or make two types of licenses.