How To/Not To Weigh Your Electric Motorcycle

A conversation regarding weight distribution with a co-worker motorcyclist left me concerned that I might have too much weight too far forward. With the lightweight pancake motor replacing a transmission, and dangling SLA batteries where a radiator should be made me shudder when Chris used words like "high-side" and "rapid stop" and "if it goes over jump and get the hell away". Yikes. The theory goes, under hard braking the rear might not have enough weight and could begin skidding if weight is too far forward.

Anyway, how then to weigh a very big motorcycle? Using Google, suggestions from using scales at the dump, to horse scales and then long debates about the accuracy of using bathroom scales for the purpose. Not having a dump or horse handy, I went to the bathroom tonight to grab the trusty old scale.

Getting the bike onto the scale was the next trick. I decided to try front wheel first, putting the rear in the swingarm stand for stability (I could just visualize this thing rolling over with a part of me under it). I then put the scale down and tried shoving the whole bike on it.

The scale did not appreciate this technique - the top literally flew off, upsetting and dislodging the internal mechanism so it didn't work any more. Because it was of the highest quality Chinese metal, I took a crack at fixing it, and to my surprise and relief, did so successfully. The secret is to unhook the springs, then re-thread them through for the needle nose pliers to pick up.

SO back to the weighing. I decided to get the wheel up on some 2x4 chunks about the height of the scale, then rolled it from the sturdy wood to the ricketty scale. Front - a mere 225 lbs.

After trying to lower the back wheel onto the scale for the rear weight (unsuccessfully), I repeated the 2x4 rolling trick but this time without the security of a stand. It wasn't bad to my surprise, and once on the 2x4's rolled it back onto the scale. Rear - a solid 232 lbs.

SO the total weight, assuming we were flat enough overall, 458 lbs. This is about 100lbs less than I expected, and nearly 100 lbs less than stock. And to know the rear is actually HEAVIER than the front is an even bigger shocker. Given that 200 lbs of the weight is batteries, that leaves only 258 lbs of wheels, chassis, chargers and fairings. Now that the chargers are removable, some hacksaw dieting could get the bike to 400 lbs pretty quickly, and a total weight with me as pilot under 600.

I posted to the ZX-11 forum asking about what the weight distribution should be, I'll go check my manual too in case its something for mechanics to worry about.

Some followup:
Stock Dry Weight: 502 lbs (http://www.zx11.info/zx11/specs.htm)
Stock Wet Weight: 581 lbs (http://www.mcreports.com/Pages/Indivbikes/Kawasaki/ZX11C.html)