So before getting into my opinions about the build quality, performance and value of the Light Bee and Luna Cycle’s customer service, I’m going to post a bit of my background. I’ve ridden two wheeled motorized vehicles almost all of my life. I’ve raced motocross, TT and long haul desert events. Saddleback Park (RIP), Barstow to Vegas twice, Carlsbad, and Indian Dunes were just a few of the places my dirt bike days covered. Roger De Coster, Brad Lackey, Charlie Bower were my dirt bike heroes. I owned a Yamaha DT125, a Penton 125, a Bultaco Pursang (250) and a Maico 250 with leading link front forks. On road courses I campaigned a Honda RC51 1000cc vtwin. I belonged to Keigwins at the Track and was one of their original instructors. Laguna Seca, Buttonwillow, Thunderhill and Sears Point were our venues for both track days and training racetrack tactics.
As I aged I finally surmised I’d never contend in World Superbike and felt that my reaction times had gotten to the point where I may endanger my fellow racers so I stopped racing. Chasing a mid-level AMA racer and crashing in turn three at Laguna and then a helicopter ride to the Enloe Trauma Center in Chico after crashing at Thunderhill Raceway convinced me. I still did track time for a year and a half after that chopper ride though…..
And street riding, well I loved it in the early days, but after 28,000 miles of track riding/racing it just no longer appealed to me. So I got into mountain biking because I missed the ‘offroad life’ and bought a Specialized Hard Tail with Rock Shock forks. It was sure fun, but I missed the tinkering and fabricating a ‘real’ motorized two wheeled ride offered me. So I began looking into eMTBs and bought a Haibike Fullnine RC in 2016 from Motostrano in Redwood City.
I wanted a ‘bit more’ in terms of speed and power so I started researching other ebikes. Not necessarily legal either…. I found two possible bikes, one made right here in San Francisco called The Bolt (which has now changed to Monday Motorbikes and they have moved to SoCal). At the time it was not really available for sale. I’m not sure if it is now since their website is not very clear about sales only preorders. And I could find very little non marketing material by real users of the bike. Plus the bike is really designed for street riding. And if I’m going to do that I would just use my now street legal RC51. But again, I’m not keen on street riding anymore. ESPECIALLY with all of the fuck heads who think texting is OK because they can multitask. Bullshit. Let’s play slap face texting. You text on your fucking phone while I slap your face and let’s see just how quick you can react to block my hand. Enough said.
The other bike that was VERY intriguing to me is the Neematic. A trellis frame, 50MPH top end and ‘seems’ well built. But at 8500 Euros and still vaporware I didn’t have much hope for the bike actually being produced in quantities that would actually hit US shores. And as of this blog post (July 2019) I still cannot determine if it’s being produced. And no actual user reviews of the unit…..bad. Not really much new marketing materials either…..suspicious.
I cannot recall how I happened upon the Sur Ron Firefly as it was called when I first happened upon it. But I sure as hell am glad I did! Here is a Podcast I did with Eric Hicks of Luna and Matt Richards about the Sur Ron.
On the private Facebook Sur Ron Group I was one of the Admins and went by the alias of Mark Sasaki. I hate FB and leaving it is the whole reason I started this website “Ownership is the new resistance.” I’m not about to support a company who uses my contacts and information to make money or who uses my content.