LEANING WITH THE TIMES

The idea of an electric motorcycle seemed absurd at first, but after riding the Ultraviolette F77 - not so much...

- DHRUV PALIWAL

I am not going to lie to you. Going into the Ultraviolette F77 ride, I was thinking - there's going to be no clutch or transmission to speak of, so exactly how much am I going to enjoy riding an electric motorcycle? The short answer to that question is quite a bit. You see, while Ultraviolette is getting ready to deliver the F77 to customers, as a company, it has existed since 2016. That's close to seven years of existence, which means that a lot of time and effort has gone into making the F77 what it is. And what exactly is it? In my opinion, it's a motorcycle first and an EV second. Now before I tell you why, here's something you need to know. The version of the F77 that we rode is called the Recon, and it originally sat in the middle of the lineup. It gets the same battery pack as the more expensive "Limited" variant, but is slightly down when it comes to the electric motor's output. Even on the price front, the Ultraviolette F77 Recon is priced in between the base "Original" variant and the top-spec "Limited" variant. However, the top-spec "Limited" variant is no longer available as true to its name, its production run was limited to 77 units, all of which are accounted for. That means, technically, the Recon is now the new top-spec variant of the F77. And with that variant hierarchy structure out of the way, here's what this motorcycle is like to ride.

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