The Rayvolt Cruzer V3 is a gorgeous machine and about as bulky as a motorcycle… There’s just one nagging question, though: what is it for?
Rayvolt Cruzer V3
From £3,260 rayvoltbike.co.uk
I’m mature enough to admit that, sometimes, the whole point of a gadget is the attention you get from using it in public.
Sure enough, five minutes after I’d lugged the Rayvolt Cruzer V3 on to a suitably quiet piece of road, a wide-eyed man approached and said: ‘It looks like a Harley… is it speed-limited?’
I informed him that yes, it is speed-limited (due to the strict laws on e-bikes on British roads). But you are perfectly free to open the paired Rayvolt app and switch off the limit, at which point it’ll reach an alarming 28mph.
Five minutes after I’d lugged the Rayvolt Cruzer V3 on to a suitably quiet piece of road, a wide-eyed man approached and said: ‘It looks like a Harley… is it speed-limited?’
This is, of course, illegal unless you’re on private land, and inadvisable on a machine where everyone is staring at you trying to work out why the motorbike isn’t making any noise.
Push the pedals and there’s a sensation of god-like power as the motor injects power into each stroke. Pull the brake levers and the energy is harvested and put back into the huge Li-ion battery. It has a range of 50 miles.
You really don’t want to be pushing it along the pavement, as it’s about as bulky as a motorcycle.
It’s a gorgeous machine. There’s just one nagging question, though: what is it for? If you tried to wheel this on to a train as part of a commute, you would probably get lynched, and it’s a rather pricey way to make passers-by say: ‘Ooh…’