I spent most of my teens and twenties chasing waves up and down the West Coast. Surfing was an obsession, augmented by an untold number of days spent around the campfire when the wind wasn’t working in my favor. When everything lined up – the wind blowing out of the east, standing the swell upright, a chromatic mist peeling off the top of the waves. I’d paddled out, dropped into a crispy lefthander, set trim, and watched the entire world tighten around me.
The focus it takes to ride a wave, especially the big ones, is unlike anything else I’d experienced—a narrow portal where your mind and body can do nothing but interact and react with the natural chaos surrounding you. I chased that feeling for years and had told myself there wasn’t anything else that could compare.
Then I threw a leg over my first proper dirt bike.
Technical single track and, for lack of a better phrase, gnarly hill climbs, force you into a similar psychic state. You don’t have time to think about anything else. Your mind and body have to work effortlessly with one another. Body position is everything, and being in the correct gear, feathering the clutch, and floating your foot and finger over the brakes needs to feel like second nature. You search for traction in every way possible. Connected to the earth through two circular rubber objects, every movement, every input can disrupt the traction that you desire, and often need to clear an obstacle, clean a hill, or navigate a corner. It’s absorbing, wholly. And the closest thing I’ve found to the feeling that surfing has afforded me.
When I first visited Zero Motorcycles' headquarters in 2011, the first bike the company had built hung on the wall inside the shop. It looked like an old mountain bike with an upside-down fork and a giant battery stuffed inside the frame. Archaic, but inspiring. Little did I know that fourteen years later I would be in Burnett, Texas, to test ride Zero’s latest—and possibly its most important—offering in the company's first purpose-built dirt bike: the XE. A motorcycle that returned that feeling of surfing.
Zero Motorcycles is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. I was first introduced to the brand in 2011 during a road trip from Seattle to Los Angeles to attend the International Motorcycle Show. We stopped in Santa Cruz, California, to visit the company's headquarters. A colleague had come along for the ride, and happened to be friends with one of their engineers who had offered to give us a tour of their facility and the opportunity to ride their latest offering (and first road-legal motorcycle), the Zero S.
I’d never ridden an electric bike before and was excited to see what a motorcycle powered by kilowatts might feel like. The test ride was brief, but I’ll never forget being able to chat with my co-worker, Matt, as we rode side by side down the road at 50 miles per hour. The quiet was, well, quite interesting. Fourteen years forward and Zero Motorcycle has come a long way. They now offer a complete line of motorcycles, from full fairing sport bikes like the SR/F, naked iterations, small dual sports, and even an adventure model, the DSR/X.
But this XE, along with its smaller sibling, the XB, are set to become the brand's volume models. Motorcycles built for the masses, and youths, and not just the tech-forward EV buyers of old.
Described as a sort of throwback to the original prototype I had seen hanging from the shop wall, the XE is anything but archaic. There’s a 4.3kWh battery set low in the chassis with a 15.5kW peak power output that’s good for 20 hp and an absolutely insane 468 lb-ft torque at the rear wheel. Yes, you read that right. The XE weighs just 223 lbs and has a claimed 65-mile range at 31mph. 53 mph is the reported top speed, although I felt like it could reach highway speeds given the sheer acceleration—theory I intend to test at some point. An 800W charger running for 5.5 hours will fully charge the battery, however, you can cut that time in half with an optional 1500W charger.
The battery itself can be removed and replaced with a fully charged one in under a minute, which proved important when Zero lined up to race at the Tennessee Knockout, a grueling hard enduro that happened over the summer. Seat height is an approachable 35.4 inches. The XE comes equipped with a 21-inch front and an 18-inch rear wheel, and offers 210mm of suspension travel up front, and 248mm at the back. Both the front and rear suspension are fully adjustable, with compression and rebound dampening adjustments able to be made on the fly.
Stopping the XE comes thanks to a 240mm front rotor and dual piston caliper, partnered with a 220mm rear rotor and dual piston caliper on the rear wheel. Those are the numbers, but what did it ‘feel’ like…
Austin Moto Adventures is an all-inclusive ADV training center and resort for folks who prefer to spend their PTO in the backcountry on a bike as opposed to at the beach. They also host the annual TouraTexas Rally, an adventure motorcycle gathering put on by the crew at Touratech-USA. From the surface, the Texas Hill Country doesn’t seem like the best place for an adventure ride. Most of Texas is privately owned, which makes disappearing down a dirt road and not running into a cattle gate and a curious cowboy kind of hard. But the facility is massive, and ties into a network of dirt roads and single-track trails that will surprise even a seasoned enduro rider.
This was the backdrop for my ride aboard the Zero XE, led by TJ McWhorter, Director of Operations, instructor, and tour guide at ATX Moto Adventures.
First impressions are important, and to me the XE looks like a dirt bike that didn’t reach the end of the assembly line. The neo-futuristic headlight design looks, well, unfinished, and after seeing photos of the Zero XE that raced at Tennessee Knockout - adorned with a typical number plate taken from a modern dirt bike - I couldn’t help but feel like they went too far with spaceship aesthetic. But, to each their own. There’s no exhaust, obviously, and with the battery sitting center of mass in the 6061 forged aluminum frame, there’s ample ground clearance and nothing to obstruct your ability to overcome obstacles. Overall, it’s clean.
Simple lines and subtle touches to let you know this isn’t an ICE machine.
Ergonomics were surprisingly appropriate for my five-foot, nine-inch frame. I tip the scales at about 150 pounds these days, so the stock suspension was a bit stiff, but nothing a few clicks on the adjustment knobs couldn’t sort out. The stock tires leave a lot to be desired, especially the 90/90-18 at the rear. They’re narrow, and given the fact that the XE makes such an insane amount of torque, they lacked the necessary grip I needed a lot of the time. But tires are typically the first thing you replace on your dirt bike, and after I had the opportunity to ride the XE that raced at TKO, outfitted with a set of IRC Gekkota gummy tires sized appropriately at 110/100-18, my traction concerns faded from memory.
I’ve spent the last few years riding a Beta 300 RR two-stroke enduro bike. I love the damn thing. On tight, narrow and technical single-track trails, I want for nothing. It makes plenty of power, weighs just 233-lbs and feels more like a mountain bike than a motorcycle. So, when TJ pointed us toward a tight section of single-track on their property, I was curious how the XE would feel in comparison to my Italian two-smoke.
Notably, I had come into this test ride concerned that I would miss having a rear brake beneath my right foot, or the ability to feather the clutch through corners or over obstacles. My brain turned off as soon as I turned onto the trail, though. Gone were the concerns about what gear I was in, or whether I needed to generate additional inertia to ride over some treefall. The throttle input allowed me to utilize the torque that the 15.5kW motor produces on demand, in a way I had never experienced. The magnetic motor is coupled with a constant mesh gear reduction, which means delivery of said torque is linear and smooth, but also all 478 lb-ft of it is available with the twist of a wrist, cleaning hill climbs and obstructions on the trail almost effortlessly.
The XE has three power modes: Eco, Standard, and Sport. I hit the single track in Standard mode the first time through and noted that the power delivery was more than what I needed, especially when exiting a tight corner - spinning the rear wheel before finding traction, at which point I was traveling in the desired direction much faster than I had planned. So, the next time through the trail I switched the XE into Eco, and while this cut down on the sheer acceleration of the thing, it made corner exits more manageable, and I was never left wanting for more, all things considered. In Sport mode, the XE is an absolute missile. More power than I wanted to deal with, honestly.
On the loose two-track that connected us from the ATX Moto Adventure facility to the training grounds they use for ADV classes, the bike felt more like a Super Moto on steroids than a small enduro machine. In hopes of not having a wheelchair waiting for me when I flew home to Phoenix, I switched it back into Standard for the remainder of the day.
Comparing the XE to an ICE enduro motorcycle was on my mind the entire day. With a claimed 65-mile range, I could see myself getting stranded on long day rides. But with a second battery and how easy it is to replace (literally less than a minute), I felt like range anxiety would be lessened considerably. Additionally, that 65-mile figure is based on an 31 mph average speed, which, considering most of my riding is done on technical single-track, I suspect that number might be more like 80 miles given my average speeds. That’s it, though. Range. My only concern. That seems to be the consensus of most prospective EV buyers these days, though.
But after riding for nearly five hours on the XE, from winding dirt roads and loose, rocky two-track, to narrow trails with a variety of obstacles to overcome, as well as a few laps around the Challenge Course on the property, my anxiety faded entirely.
The Zero XE is a massive step in the right direction for electric dirt bikes. It basically weighs nothing, makes more power than you’ll be able to put to the ground, can tackle all of the trails I typically ride on a Sunday afternoon, and, perhaps most importantly, is priced at $7395 ($6,495 from now through January thanks to Zero's current promotion). A spare battery will set you back another $2300, and you’ll want to upgrade the tires, but you’re still looking at a wildly capable, incredibly fun dirt bike that requires no maintenance for less than $10,000.
At this stage, range is always going to be an issue for potential EV converts. But when looking back on where Zero Motorcycles was in 2011 when I visited their garage in Santa Cruz, and where they are now, the XE might be a throwback of sorts, but it’s a huge leap forward, and exactly what the EV market needs.
