Is the Flying Flea C6 really a motorbike or just an e-bike with benefits?

Hi, I'm Dan, the Saturday Night Life Crisis motorcyclist, and if electric motorbikes have had a problem thus far, it's the fact that they just look too damn expensive compared with equivalent combustion bikes. Enter this Flying Flea C6, which boasts some very cool designs, some very nifty tech, but costs just a little bit over five grand. It's also got perhaps one of the... coolest origin stories in the whole of motorcycling, given that the inspiration, the original Flying Flea, was designed as a lightweight motorbike to be dropped out of aircraft in support of paratroopers. Now, no need to jump out of any aeroplanes for this, but I'm still very excited to ride it. Now, for context, just as Livewire is to Harley-Davidson, so Flying Flea is to Royal Enfield, a brand better known for its rose-tinted retro approach to life. Now, there's nothing old-fashioned about the Flying Flea. You can get that Just by looking at it in terms of the design and the engineering it's got very cool exoskeleton forged aluminium frame, it's got a finned magnesium casing for the battery there, it's got these really cool girder forks, it's got a wireless charging pad in what would be the fuel tank, it's even got cornering abs and traction control all on a basically a five grand electric Now the motor powering it has 11 horsepower continuous and 60 newton meters of torque. That means it's good to ride on an A1 license, CBT and L-Plate, so it's very accessible. The relatively small four kilowatt hour battery is apparently good for just over 50 miles on what's called the extra urban cycle, but I guess we'll find out about that. And the whole thing looks very impressive indeed. Now, in terms of other bikes I've ridden like this, the one that springs to mind as a comparison is obviously the Maving, which I think kind of riffs on a similar sort of retro vibe and is probably designed to appeal to a similar sort of young urban hipster audience. Now, there are some important technical differences, which I'll get to in due course. But I think what Maving has been very clever at is not trying to go for direct comparisons with motorcycles and instead positioning itself as a kind of cool urban mobility solution, which sounds a bit pretentious, but you get what I mean. And I think that's probably quite clever given the fact that the Maving costs seven and a half grand, or at least it does by RRP. There are some discounts around at the moment. Seemingly though, the Flying Flea moves the game on quite considerably both in terms of tech and value for money. Does it though? Well, let's go for a ride and find out. Right, so welcome to a quiet suburb outside Paris for this press ride on the Flying Flea C6. I'm surrounded by the journalists here in a bit of a gaggle. And what's it like to ride? Well, I think with bikes like this and the Maving, we've got to think of them as less replacements for motorbikes motorbikes and kind of judging them by those criteria As a step up from e-bikes and Lime bikes and e-scooters and things like that which is really the kind of demographic that Royal Enfield is going for with this this bike it's looking at kind of a younger generation who don't have hang-ups about internal combustion engines and noise and all that kind of romance of petrol-powered bikes and instead of just looking at mobility which sounds like a pretentious statement but that's that's what people are after isn't it and if we judge the Flying Flea by those those criteria instead of... how does it compare to a more conventional Royal Enfield with a petrol engine and that's probably a safer place to look at it isn't it and certainly when you jump on it it feels more like an e-bike than it does a motorbike just in terms of the size and like the Maving in the controls so brakes for a start i like a bicycle so left lever is back brake so if you're coming from riding bicycles or e-bikes that's going to feel a lot more natural the size It's really approachable as well, so it's small, seat's low, it's relatively compact, it's quite light as well, so 124 kilos, thanks to that magnesium battery casing and the forged aluminium frame and things like that. That is, I think, 20 kilos or so less than the Maving, which is somewhat more basic in its construction, despite being more expensive. So yeah, if you're new to powered two-wheelers, it feels very, very confidence-inspiring, very easy to ride it's just twist and go and to help that transition if you're coming instead from say scooters there are two peg positions to choose from so you can have a more feet forward position which is more like being on a scooter or you can have it as i've got it set up now in a more kind of motorbike peg position so pegs are more rearward it's more of a kind of motorcycle riding position but it's compact without feeling kind of like a toy bike it's nice and chuckable And very easy to ride now. In terms of performance as I've said before with electric bikes there's a strange way about that they're they're rated in terms of power output so they're legislated by their continuous power which on the Flying Flea is 11 horsepower which doesn't sound much does it? They can actually develop quite a bit more so peak power is 21 horsepower which is still pretty modest but it's more than what you could legally ride on an A1 license or a CBT ticket. on a petrol bike and 60 newton meter torque is a lot more than you get on a equivalent petrol powered bike a 125 or something like that so and one of the interesting things about the Flying Flea is it's got a lot of tech it's a really sophisticated bike so the rider modes and rider controls and all that kind of thing are really very sophisticated so we've got a lot of rider modes we've got city mode rain mode sports mode all that kind of thing and then a fully configurable one where you can set up throttle response regen throttle map ABS, traction control, all that kind of stuff. So this is kind of big bike tech on a on the five grand electric bike So you adjust the rider mode just by turning this BMW style mode switch here So if I go to, what am I in now? There we go city So if I go to city and I twist the throttle, you'll see there's not a lot there really So probably what you want or what I've been riding most while we were riding through town is This one is... Normal mode there so the road mode so gives you a bit more grunt off the line which is important with electric bikes it's one of the great attractions so when the lights go green you've got instant go off the line and I was finding it just a little bit lethargic in the in the city mode so you didn't quite have that burst of acceleration away from the lights that makes riding an electric bike so effective in the city. So yeah there's a lot of tech so you've got all that configurability in the rider modes you've got that lean sensitive ABS and traction control which again on a bike of this level is really impressive technology isn't it and that's the thing I think Royal Enfield through its Flying Flea sub-brand is really going hard on the tech and that kind of speaks to the audience or the demographic that it's going for with this bike because it's all it's all done through phones so there's no key unlock and start the bike with the phone which lives here in this compartment here wireless charging for that as well So you just pop your phone in there. Lots of kind of app control and stuff like that which again fits with the kind of the age group of rider that this is aimed at. It's younger people who uh live their life on the phones and are totally happy with the idea that that's how you access and fire up your bike and where the Maving is perhaps a kind of old school and basic bike this Flying Flea feels very sophisticated and modern. Because it is! It might kind of riff on that. Second World War. Paratrooper's bike, but pretty much everything else on it is bang up to date. And what about the ride quality? Well, it feels pretty good. Those linkage forks look really cool. It's kind of easy to get distracted by watching them soak up the bumps, but they're a really cool visual feature as well as being an effective means of suspension and ride quality from the back again is pretty decent. It feels a very... Well engineered product, there's no kind of rattles or squeaks. That's one of the problems with electric bikes is because there's no engine noise. You quite often hear the kind of rattles and squeaks you wouldn't necessarily hear on a petrol bike. But this feels very, very solidly engineered. And again, it's very, very easy to ride. So regen is important on an electric bike because that's both your engine braking effectively and putting energy back into the battery. So that varies according to the different rider modes. So in the city mode you've got more regen than... in the sportier modes and then like some of the other electric bikes I've ridden you've got a kind of manual regen by rocking the throttle forwards. Now you can adjust that into different modes again it doesn't feel as strong as some of the other bikes I've ridden so if I just check my mirrors here if I go to yeah they see that that's the full regen from rocking the throttle forwards it's not it's not as dramatic as it is on the LiveWire that I was riding for instance so it's not your kind of brakeless riding but it adds a bit of interaction to the riding. And in terms of range and batteries, that's another interesting factor with electric bikes, and it's always the talking point. So the official range is a little over 50 miles on a kind of mixed riding. The first section of the ride that we've done today, I used one kilowatt hour of the battery. It's just shy of four kilowatt hours in total capacity, and that got me about 12 miles. So, yeah, that looks about right, doesn't it? That should have... The way I was riding there was not particularly sympathetic I will say so yeah I think a safe kind of 40 miles at a kind of fairly brisk riding pace so potentially quite a bit more if you're taking it easy around town or using the regen and stuff like that so and that's what a proper motorbike sounds like isn't it? Just as a little reminder. So yeah the range looks pretty good. Charging is one aspect where I think the Maving still has an advantage because It's both got a bigger battery, I think just over five kilowatt hours, and of course you can remove the battery. So that's quite a big factor because to charge this bike, the only way you can do it is off a main socket with a conventional kettle lead, which is very convenient perhaps at home or if you've got a garage or an office or somewhere like that, you can plug it in and charge. But in public, unless you can just kind of blag your way onto a three pin socket somewhere where you park. You're not going to be able to recharge it out and about, which is, I think, a bit less convenient than the Maving with its removable batteries. So I think that's maybe something that counts against the Flying Flea as a kind of an ownership proposition. Because if you ride the Maving, you can ride it into the office, take the battery out, plug it in under your desk or at the cafe or wherever you happen to be, and then stick it back in the bike and you're good to go. Whereas this, you're going to have to find a plug socket. But apart from that... I think this feels a much more substantial motorbike than the Maving which definitely feels closer to being an e-bike with benefits as it were but they're both cool and fun to ride and stylish to look at so I think in conclusion it's that thing you just as I said at the start don't think of them as replacements or alternatives to combustion powered motorcycles that we've known and loved think of them as something different they're a means of getting And the Flying Flea is a very stylish, affordable and fun way of getting about. And if you think I sound impressed, I very much am. So there we go, that was the Flying Flea C6. And as you probably gathered from the onboard there, I really enjoyed riding it. It is a lot of fun, but I also appreciate it as a piece of engineering and styling. I think the way that those two elements have been brought together is really, really compelling. So the fact that we've got this exposed forged aluminium frame and the magnesium battery casing the girder forks all that kind of stuff they're kind of functional elements but they've been made into an aesthetic feature all part of the bike look and it means you can appreciate some of the quality of the work that's gone into this bike it's really really impressive especially given the price point of just over five grand so yeah i really like the looks of it and the way that yeah that all tells a story about the bike it's an interesting comparison with the Maving on that part as well, because the Maving has a similar kind of vibe about it, but it looks, in terms of just the way it's been built, kind of cheaper than the Flying Flea, even though it's actually more expensive. So I think that's going to be a very interesting comparison down the line. There are some other comparisons with the Maving as well. So I think the fact that the Maving's got removable batteries is something in its favour. I think if there's one issue with the Flying Flea, it's the fact that the fixed battery means you can only charge it from a three-pin socket. That does limit your options somewhat when you're out and about. So in that sense, the Maving does definitely have an advantage. But in all other respects, I think the Flying Flea is a much more complete motorbike, a much more complete... product the technology backing up the riding experience for instance is way more sophisticated you've got all that configurability in the rider modes you've got the variable regen you can set it up via the app all that kind of thing i think that's absolutely spot on for the kind of target demographic of younger riders that flying flea is going for with this bike so i think they're going to really really appreciate that it just generally feels a lot a lot more sophisticated than the Maving, despite being... ostensibly similar to ride in terms of performance and intent and all that kind of thing so yeah very very impressed on that score were there any niggles well yeah i think the little indicator switch was a bit fiddly on the move it was not like a conventional rocker switch you get on most motorbikes it was too easy to leave on when you have to done the junction and then get it mixed up with some of the other buttons that was a bit of a muddle but generally i think the rest of the bike is really really good If you want more than just a single seat as well, there is a two seat conversion. So that's something to factor in as well. There's a lot of adaptability in the base package. And yeah, I think it's a very, very impressive product. But what do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts. There's obviously plenty to talk about. So let's have a chat about that in the comments thread below. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed the video. If you did, please hit like, subscribe to the channel if you haven't already. And for now, I say goodbye. Thanks for watching and ride safe.