The last item on the agenda before shuttering my motorcycle for the winter was to do a tour through the Black Forest. And the long weekend with the public holiday came in handy.

As assurance I kept to bigger cities where there’s plenty of chargers of varying providers. The first few stops were spaced comfortably apart, so that there wouldn’t be any need for charging on the road. While the way back home, I tried to stretch the legs far apart to get a feel for long-distance reach.

Karlsruhe

Rainy, 10-14 degrees Celcius. Started the trip with 100% charge, reached Karlsruhe with a little below 50%. That is when the run-around started.

ZKM Parking

Parking Garage where you pay 1,30€ per hour, charging is free. Number plate scanner that at the barrier also works for motorcycles. The one charger they had was occupied. Had to pay 1€ to check that the charger wasn’t available.

ChargeOne - Amalienstraße

Had 17 of 20 chargers unoccupied, but the barrier wouldn’t open because they had switched from paper tickets on entry to a number plate scanner that only works for front-mounted plates. Because of the public holiday no personell was present to manually open the barrier. Oh well.

ChargeOne - Kreuzstraße

Haven’t seen the barrier, leads down below ground and the tunnel entrance had a sign posted that said: no entry for motorcycles. I didn’t want to find out if it would have opened for me, if that meant having to push the heavy bike back up the hill in reverse if it didn’t. On to the next one.

EnBW - Hans Thoma Straße

Depending on which App you use there is either, one, two or no charging station here, but I had to check for myself because one of the apps had to be correct. It does exist and has two charging ports, one of which is working and was already occupied.

The second it seems was disabled via configuration because there wasn’t enough space to park another car next to it.

Down to 44% battery.

Stadtwerke Rastatt - Lammstraße

Did not find anything there. The coordinates pointed to a pedestrian zone. Couldn’t see any chargers or signage, but unlikely for 20 chargers to be located roadside in a pedestrian zone anyways.

EnBW - Yorckstraße

This one was initially occupied, but since it had taken me over an hour to drive from charging station to charging station, it was free again. Plugged in with less than 40%.

I don’t want to know how tedious this must have been ten years ago. Trying the available charging poles one by one, while on low battery.

Offenburg

After a nice breakfast (Menemen) I rode south along the Rhine river towards Offenburg. The day before I had filled the bike to 100% even though I knew it wouldn’t be needed.

The ride went smoothly, dry roads, no rain and a cool 12-14 degrees Celsius throughout. I arrived with a bit more than 60% charge. And decided to top for 20 minutes to 80% for the next day, which would be light on the consumption as well.

ComfortCharge - Okenstraße

Didn’t know that Deutsche Telekom also provides charging stations. But everybody seems to have them now, and it worked.

I used the Mobility+ App to remotely unlock the charger. There probably would have been a cheaper option, but I wanted to test it out and also didn’t have the need to fill it up completely.

Freiburg

I started the day the right way with a Butterbrezel, Coissant and a pot of Coffee, and then continued the journey with just over 70% charge and reached Freiburg with approximately 45% left.

Has To Be - Hansjakobstraße

The charging socket is initially locked until you unlock it using a 67€ deposit payable via either Credit Card or PayPal. I set the bike to fully charge because the way back up will be a long stretch.

Trip conclusion

Reach anxiety isn’t warranted at all. Not with the fast charger, nor would it be without. The bike makes 200km without a sweat, a quick recharge and another 150km is more than what is needed for a day trip.

When I initially test drove the bike I was weirded out by the fact that the Zero has a cruise control built in. I couldn’t imagine who would need that. Combined with the fact that I had to figure out how to operate it while driving. Let’s say I wasn’t convinced. But now after having used the cruise control extensively I can say I have warmed up to it. It is annoying when approaching tighter corners, but really nice when driving through a town.

By the numbers

500 KMs in 4 days, gained lots of knowledge, spent 17,37€ for charging (including the ZKM parking fee)