I Rented a LiveWire & Here's What I Learned (Good & Bad)

LiveWire vs. Gas-Engine Motorcycles

This bike should’ve been called the Lightning or Tornado or F-16—that would’ve given us a better idea of its true ferociously rapid nature.

However, the name is LiveWire and whatever moniker it goes by it’s definitely causing problems. Problems for so many experienced riders, who have had the pleasure of experiencing this electric machine, because they find themselves fumbling around trying to compare it to a “normal” gas-engine motorcycle.

Big mistake. Not possible. Why? Because it’s not a “normal as we know it” motorcycle. You cannot compare a loud offensive hooligan Harley to a quiet stealth assassin like the LiveWire; it’s like comparing a big noisy cackling Crow to a sleek silent Peregrine Falcon. Yes, they are both in the bird family and both have 2 legs, wings, a beak, and a tail but they are completely different creatures.

LiveWire: Ferociously Fast

I’ve had the pleasure of riding many exotic, beautiful, ugly, fast motorcycles via Twisted Road, and I can categorically say that this is the fastest bike I have ever ridden (the caveat being it’s not the nimblest going into corners). I’ve never gone over 100 mph (I mean 65 mph, officer) so many times in a 2-hour ride through canyons as I did with this under-the-radar rocket.

It is ferociously fast—it’s all torque, torque, torque. Not from low rpm, because they don’t exist in this world, but from as low as 0 mph. Twist that fighter jet handle on the right and it catapults you almost silently (you’d better hold on tight) towards the next rapidly approaching braking/turning event. Thank goodness the Brembo brakes are up to it—just! Why just? Because when attacking corners really hard (inevitable, even if you didn’t intend to), the strain on the brakes to slow down this 500lb-plus mass can unsettle it a bit. It's nothing scary, just plain physics.

LiveWire: Good Option, Even for New Riders

It’s the easiest bike I have ever ridden—suitable for so many people—way more suitable to the masses than a normal motorcycle because it is simplicity itself. No gear changes, no clunky clutch, no rev-matching, no stalling—ever. No searching for neutral at stoplights, no loud over-revving—simply twist (smooth as silk EVERY time) to go and then pull the silver lever to stop; oh, and most of the time you don’t even need to do that when traveling at normal/reasonable speeds because the regenerative engine braking is superb.

LiveWire: Stunning & Stunningly Quiet

It’s a stunning-looking bike, lean and mean, coiled ready to explode—always without the bang.

It is the stealth characteristic that I love. This bike can’t offend anybody—it silently goes around slicing, dicing, and carving through traffic without any annoyance to drivers or quiet neighborhoods, or most importantly, the wildlife in their natural habitat. The counter to that is that noisy bikes save lives. Big noise makes motorists aware of you.

LiveWire: Different, Just Different

This bike is a whole different experience to any other bike I have ever ridden ever but its bird family commonalities stack up well against its loud internal combustion engine cackling Crow bikes.

It’s a naked sportbike—but electric, and it looks awesome. Its Brembos are superb, as they need to be with the weight. The suspension is firm, perfectly set up for the performance level. The tech is B+/A-. Sport mode is intoxicating and could easily see you in striped clothes very quickly.

LiveWire is the easiest bike to ride through the city, and on the freeways, and a joy to rip roar, and throw around in the canyons. Going into corners, the turn-in is a little slow and heavy but nailing it on exiting is so exhilarating—and because of the silky smooth throttling (EVERY time) and neck-snapping torque you just know that nobody will ever catch you with those newly stolen diamonds in your backpack (yes, it's the perfect getaway machine!

I love it. I want one.

LiveWire: What I Don't Love

Cost—approximately $30k. What??? It takes 1 hr to fully charge from 0 battery at a level 3 fast charger and you get 13 battery mikes per hour of charge on a domestic outlet.

Charging stations. Mr. Biden needs to take a good chunk of his trillion-dollar infrastructure money and get a fast charger in 50% of all gas stations across the country—and do it by the end of the week, please! If that’s in place, then the150 mile range is irrelevant. If Mr. Biden doesn’t come through then you need to plan your route carefully via the ChargePoint app. It takes 1 hr to fully charge from 0 battery at a level 3 fast charger and you get 13 battery miles per hour of charge on a domestic outlet.

I still love it and I want one.

LiveWire: A Bike With a Heartbeat

This bike not only has soul, but it literally has a heartbeat too—check it out for yourself to feel what I mean.

Don’t listen to another word from me or anybody else and go and rent one from Twisted Road or go to a Harley-Davidson dealership to test ride one for yourself. My words, nor anyone else’s, can possibly give you that experience of sheer exhilaration and simplicity or an overwhelming sense of immature naughty fun when riding this beautiful stealthy hawk-like creation.

Full disclosure: I also love and want a 2022 BMW S1000R, a Harley Davidson Pan America Special (which I recently rented on Twisted Road, you can read my honest review here), a 2022 Aprilia Tuono 1100 V4 Factory—among many others. The problem is that I’m not Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, so owning all of the bikes that I love to ride is simply impossible. However, riding, experiencing, and enjoying every single one of those bikes to the full is very doable—and thanks to Twisted Road, that’s exactly what I do in my spare time. Now I just need more spare time.

Twisted Road note: Harley-Davidson has relaunched LiveWire under its new electric motorcycle brand—named LiveWire. It's also worth noting that the new MSRP is now closer to $22k. Read more here.