I am usually disenchanted with chunk of electrical kick scooters I take a look at. A lot of them simply haven’t got a variety that satisfies my wants. I ceaselessly trek from Mattress-Stuy, Brooklyn, into decrease Manhattan for a gathering, round 15 miles in whole. Hopping on a scooter is far sooner and much more nice than the subway (particularly in the summertime), nevertheless it’s not all the time assured that I am going to have sufficient juice to get house.
However the Apollo Phantom V3 has by no means disenchanted me with its vary. I as soon as rode it in a single stretch from my house in Brooklyn into Manhattan, as much as 179th Avenue, and over the George Washington Bridge to a espresso store in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and the Phantom had 43 p.c left within the tank—22 miles. It took me about an hour and a half! It is the final word commuter scooter.
Phantom Woes
Here is the rub. The vary on an electrical scooter is not solely primarily based on the scale of the battery however on a myriad of things, like rider weight. I’m a 6’4″ man who’s 240 kilos—lots of people can typically eke out a number of extra miles than me on the identical scooter. People like me want one thing that may deal with additional weight with out sacrificing vary.
The Phantom V3 is rated to help as much as 300 kilos and had no hassle climbing even the steepest slopes on my method up the George Washington Bridge’s bike path. The compromise to get this sort of vary lies within the weight of the scooter itself. Alas, this factor is a whopping 77 kilos. Seventy-seven.
I can carry it, sure, nevertheless it’s not simple. I actually want Apollo would make handlebars that fold down, as a result of they continuously hit the wall in my slender stairwell or get caught within the rails—not useful if you’re carrying one thing so heavy. Fortunately, the stem is slender so my hand can really grasp it comfortably, and the extra deal with on the finish of the deck is a pleasant contact. Some lighter scooters have super-thick stems that really harm my fingers when attempting to tote them round, a lot in order that I might reasonably carry the Phantom V3.
You may want a hand pulling this escooter out of the massive field it arrives in. Setup additionally required a number of steps greater than regular; mounting the handlebars is extra of an concerned course of, with extra screws and elements than its friends. Weirdly, not one of the wires across the handlebars have been plugged into one another, and this step wasn’t listed within the directions. For a couple of minutes, I sat confused questioning why the Phantom wasn’t turning on. I figured it out and plugged all of them in, nevertheless it’s odd that this is not talked about within the guide.
As regular, you’ll be able to pair the scooter with Apollo’s companion app on iOS or Android, which is far more secure than my prior experiences with different Apollo scooters. It related rapidly too. You will must enter your scooter’s serial quantity throughout setup, which is annoyingly on the underside of the deck. That is my solely gripe. You will should run by way of loads of security movies, nevertheless it’s useful and essential info.
The app helps you to see your scooter’s experience info, just like the odometer, however you can too tweak quite a lot of settings, from the pace and the acceleration to the extent of the regenerative brake. The latter nets you a modest quantity of cost if you use the regen brake thumb throttle as a substitute of the usual disc brakes. Talking of, I might have favored hydraulic brakes on a scooter this costly as a substitute of disc brakes, however the fact is, I hardly ever used them. I caught to the regen brake more often than not, and it was completely able to bringing me to a fast halt.
{Photograph}: Apollo