Behold - The Black Knight Rises… Quietly. Very Quietly…
Image Credit: Maeving.
Alright, settle down, grab a cuppa, or whatever lukewarm beverage you prefer, and let's talk about two wheels. Specifically, electric two wheels. I've spent more time than is probably healthy sniffing around internal combustion engines – the glorious roar, the smell of petrol, the mild fear of spontaneous combustion. Good times. But the world is changing, and putting noxious fumes into the air isn't fashionable anymore. Who knew? So, electric vehicles it is.
I believe that electric motorcycles are the group with the highest potential here. Especially in those delightfully overcrowded, traffic-choked metropolises where the average speed is roughly equivalent to a lethargic snail on sedatives. This is where electric bikes are quietly carving out a niche, becoming the sensible choice for darting through gridlock, silently judging the poor souls stuck in metal boxes around you. And leading the charge, at least for those with a penchant for looking rather dapper while doing so, is a little outfit from Coventry in the UK called Maeving.
Image Credit: Maeving.
Thankfully, Maeving isn't interested in building some futuristic, plastic-fantastic scooter that looks like it escaped from a bad sci-fi movie. These chaps are going for the classic vibe - retro cool, but without the oil leaks or the need to understand arcane rituals involving choke levers and kickstarters. They make a few bikes already, but their latest offering, the Blackout, is essentially the existing RM1S model after it's had a stern talking-to and been dressed entirely in black. Because, as we all know, black never really goes out of style, much like my preferred brand of cynicism.
So, what do you get for your hard-earned dollars with this dark and mysterious machine? Power comes from a brushless motor cunningly hidden in the rear wheel hub. Don't expect earth-shattering performance here. This isn't a land-speed record contender. The peak power output is a modest 11.1 kilowatts, which, for those of us who still measure things in proper units, is roughly 15 horsepower. Yes, fifteen. My lawnmower has more ambition. But you gotta remember this is for the city! You don't need warp speed to pop down to the corner store for a pint of milk, do you? Unless the corner store is in the next time zone, perhaps.
That little motor does churn out a rather respectable amount of torque, though. The 261 Newton-meters translates to a healthy 193 pound-feet. And torque is your best friend in the city. It's what gets you off the line quickly, leaving those poor, sputtering internal combustion engines wondering what just silently whizzed past them. It means snappy acceleration right up to the bike's top speed, which is a princely 70 miles per hour. Coincidentally, that's the legal limit on most highways before you attract unwanted attention from men in reflective jackets. So, perfectly adequate for urban sorties and perhaps even a cheeky blast down a short stretch of open road, provided it's downhill with a following wind.
Powering this exercise in understated cool are two removable battery packs supplied by LG. Each one holds 2.73 kilowatt-hours of energy. You get two of them, so that's a grand total of 5.46 kilowatt-hours. Range is always the big question mark with electric vehicles, and Maeving claims you can get up to 90 miles out of a full charge if you behave yourself and stick to "Eco" mode. Ninety miles! That's enough to get you across most decent-sized cities and maybe even back again, depending on how many wrong turns you take.
However, and there's always a however, if you decide to unleash the full, unbridled fury of that 15 horsepower in "Sport" mode – you know, for those daring overtakes of really slow bicycles – your range drops somewhat dramatically to around 52 miles. That's still enough for many urban commutes, but it does mean you need to be slightly more strategic about your electron consumption.
Image Credit: Maeving.
Charging the beast is relatively straightforward, which is a relief. You can either take the batteries out – presumably one at a time, unless you enjoy lugging around something that likely weighs more than a small elephant – and plug them into any standard wall outlet. Or, if you're feeling lazy, you can charge them while they're still in the bike using a regular cable. A full charge from zero takes about six hours. If you're just topping up, say from 20% to 80%, it takes a much quicker two and a half hours.
The chassis holding this collection of black components together is made from CrMo steel. Up front, you've got 37-millimeter forks – standard fare, nothing to write home about, but they'll do the job. At the back, things get a little fancier with K-Tech Razor Lite shocks. Apparently, they come with preload and rebound adjustment, which means you can fettle with them to suit your preferences, I suppose. Or just leave them alone like most sane people.
Image Credit: Maeving.
The seat height is a rather manageable 787 millimeters, which is about 31 inches. This means most people with legs longer than a hobbit's should be able to get their feet flat on the ground at a stoplight. Always a good thing, especially when you're trying to perform a graceful maneuver while simultaneously attempting to scratch an itch inside your helmet. And the whole contraption weighs in at 311 pounds. That's pretty light for a motorcycle, electric or otherwise. Makes it easy to wheel around the garage, or lift over an irksome curb if you misjudge your parking.
Braking is handled by a single 300-millimeter disc up front, that's nearly 12 inches across, and a smaller 180-millimeter disc at the rear, about 7 inches. They use a linked setup, which means when you hit the front brake, it applies a bit of the rear brake too, and vice versa, depending on how it's calibrated. It's supposed to help you stop in a straight line. Good idea, that. Stopping is generally preferable to not stopping, especially when there's something large and solid directly in front of you.
Image Credit: Maeving.
But where the Blackout really tries to justify its premium positioning is in the styling. It's gone heavy on the black. Matte carbon details, a blacked-out battery housing, bar-end mirrors that make you look instantly cooler, and an LED headlight that manages to look both modern and vaguely vintage at the same time. There's even a clever little storage compartment where a traditional fuel tank would be. It holds about 10 liters – enough for a small bag of groceries, perhaps, or a very large sandwich. Crucially, it has a USB-C port in there, because apparently, the most important thing on a motorcycle is the ability to charge your phone. Priorities, people.
The dashboard is a charming mix of old and new. An analog speedometer – lovely! – with a digital screen nestled inside to give you all the vital statistics like range, speed, and probably how many miles you've got left before you have to start pushing. For the particularly paranoid, or those who live in areas where things with wheels tend to mysteriously vanish, there's an optional GPS tracker. Handy for finding your bike, or simply confirming that you did, in fact, leave it parked outside the pub last night.
Right, let's talk brass tacks. Or rather, dollars and cents. This slice of black British cool will set you back just under $12,000. Twelve thousand for a city commuter with 15 horsepower is not exactly pocket change, is it? You could buy a perfectly good, slightly used internal combustion motorcycle for that, or even a half-decent car. But then, it wouldn't be a Blackout, would it? It wouldn't be silent, and it wouldn't be quite so composed.
Maeving sells these directly from their website, which bypasses the whole dealership song and dance. Delivery apparently takes 8 to 10 weeks, which gives you plenty of time to ponder the meaning of life, or perhaps figure out where you're going to install that charging point. And maintenance? They send mobile engineers out to you. Less time wasted in a grubby workshop, more time riding. Or polishing the black bits.
Image Credit: Maeving.
Ultimately, the Maeving Blackout is a rather intriguing machine. It's clean, it's quiet, and it's definitely not your average electric scooter. It's aimed squarely at the stylish urbanite who wants something a bit different, something premium, something that whispers rather than shouts. It's a fashion statement on two wheels, albeit a practical one. Is it for me? I do like things that are different. And black is a slimming color, they say. Though I might need a few more horsepower to escape my responsibilities. And sometimes, just sometimes, silence can be rather golden.
