I’ve always thought that bikes are things which you love first with your heart, then with your head. A form of transport which brings a large dollop of danger, while freezing you in winter and baking you in summer might not make much sense to all the Mr Logics out there.
But the emotions engendered by powered two-wheelers, of all sorts, outweighs the practical concerns for most of us. Put simply, most of us ride bikes because we love ‘em, not because they’re the technically ideal answer to our transport needs.
And that dilemma is a big part of the problem for electric motorbikes, because, for some reason, they don’t quite move the soul in the same way as petrol bikes. That’s purely subjective in some ways: we all grew up with roaring, hot, vibrating internal combustion powerplants, with all their multifaceted characters.
From single-cylinder two-stroke learner bikes, through lightweight twin-cylinder sportsbikes, up to litre four-cylinder superbikes, grunty twin and triple adventure bikes, six-cylinder tourers, thumping big four-stroke singles, booming V-twins – there’s a veritable marching band of visceral motors out there.
Replacing all of those with cold, efficient, silent, industrial ‘motive power units’ was always going to take a cultural shift, which is always tough for older people (bikers are, broadly, old people nowadays).
It’s different for smaller machinery: moped and 125-level urban bikes work well with battery tech these days, where the lower range, modest power outputs and charging schedules are eminently manageable. Cities like London are full of fleet delivery riders on silent, efficient, cheap electric scooters – and they’re certainly not bothered about the cultural heft of petrol power versus batteries…
But bigger bikes come up against big problems on the practical side as well as the passion side. If you want to do more than about 125 miles at motorway speeds in one hit, there’s no battery-powered bike that’s really capable. And refuelling stops on a full-power bike are much slower than topping up a gas tank of course.
It’s not impossible: plenty of electric enthusiasts manage long trips, even continent-crossing adventures. But for most riders, sticking with petrol is still very much the best option.
So, what about this battery-powered bike which the nice delivery man is wheeling out of his van and onto my drive in early December? It’s an S2 Alpinista; the latest machine from the electric brand Livewire, and I’ve got it for a quick ten-day loan, my last test bike of 2025. I get a quick run-down of the controls, the keyless ‘ignition’ and charging setup, handed a 13-amp UK charging cable, and wished good luck. I wheel it into the garage, and have a look round.
Livewire calls it a ‘sport standard’ bike (which is a new one on us) and the press release says the Alpinista blends sport, street and even hyper-tourer characteristics. But to my simple Scottish eyes, it looks a bit like a Harley Sportster that’s been put through an AI prompt to ‘make it electric’.
The finned battery case/frame dominates the sides, but from the front it’s a skinny beastie, with low, flat bars and a neat round LED headlamp. There’s decent running gear on show: Brembo brakes, Dunlop Sportsmart IV rubber in 17-inch supersport sizes, Showa USD front forks and rear monoshock, with a neat cast aluminium swingarm. It looks lithe, purposeful and classy, accentuated by a premium all-black finish.
The Alpinista has arrived almost fully-charged, but I top it up anyway, plugging the supplied charger unit into an outside 13 amp socket, and go to get kitted up for a quick runout. Half an hour later, I’m closing the visor on my Arai and heading out for a bit of a local run around south-west London and into Surrey.
I’ve ridden enough ‘leccy bikes now to know what to expect, and there are few surprises on the first couple of miles. The riding position is refreshingly normal, with the low seat and skinny profile again echoing something like an old Harley Sportster. You are aware that there’s a bit of mass below you, but it’s kept low down, and the Alpinista is really stable, especially trickling through a bit of traffic at walking pace.
The chassis actually feels very nice: there’s a tautness about it which seems to promise some sporty capability, even on this steady initial trundle. The suspension is firm – maybe a little too firm for urban use, though it is a little cold today and the bike itself is brand new – while the Dunlop tyres are grippy and communicative even on the cold November asphalt.
All good then – so with the rubber warmed up a little, and a favourite section of country road opening up ahead, I give the Livewire a bit of an ‘andful, and blast past a line of cars like they’re parked up. Because the Alpinista is genuinely quick: it has that mad ‘roller coaster’ feel, with brutal, unfeasible urge instantly on tap. I’ve felt it before, on the even-faster Zero SR/F supernaked, but it still makes you cackle every time.
I’m (of course) in the full-performance sport mode, which is already smashing the battery range, but it’s too tempting to ignore (and I know I’m only about ten miles from home…) The twist-and-go transmission, smooth belt drive, lack of noise and low-slung chassis makes the Alpinista a real traffic light hoodlum as well.
You can pull alongside almost anything at a red light, sitting quietly like a nice green eco-warrior, then smash virtually anything on four or two wheels when the amber bulb illuminates.
The factory claim for 0-60 is a ‘standard motorcycle’ three seconds, but the instant delivery means the early part of the acceleration definitely feels much quicker than a typical sub-150bhp bike. Where even a big, powerful petrol bike is clearing its throat while its clutch plates grab, the Alpinista already has its electrons moving at light speed from battery to motor, with maximum torque available from zero rpm.
The throttle response is also very good throughout the speed range: there’s a really precise connection between your wrist and the drive from the rear tyre.
The Alpinista chassis is more than up to the job when you speed up too. There’s a real ‘on rails’ feeling through fast corners, and you get plenty of feedback from the front end. The Brembo front brake is a little bit of a let-down though: there’s a lack of feel through the lever, as if the pads have a touch of glazing, and the power is a bit down on what I’d like.
The feel issue may be down to being on a new bike, with matters improving as the disc beds in, but on the power front, I’d like (as always) dual front discs please. That suspension, which is a little firm over speed humps in town, is planted and secure, and the Alpinista really does strike a great balance between stable, solid handling and a nimble, agile attitude.
Great stuff then, but there is one big niggle that takes me a while to adjust to. The underslung bar-end mirrors are a bit of a faff to use I reckon, with a rather un-natural position, that takes your eyes away from the road when you look behind. I get used to them as the miles rack up, but they never feel as natural to me as conventional bar mirrors.
While we’re on practicalities, there’s nothing in the way of wind protection or storage on the stock bike, so we’d definitely be looking to get some of the official accessories thrown in: side bags, top box, flyscreen. There is a handy USB-C charging socket mind.
A couple of days later, I’ve topped the battery up once more, and head out for a photoshoot ride with my old mate and top snapper John Goodman. He’s a proper old school biker, with his roots in drag racing, big Japanese fours and two-stroke triples, but even he makes appreciative noises about the Alpinista’s styling. A couple of hours taking pics round our local bends underlines the fun nature of the new Livewire.
If you set aside all the practical nonsense about charging times, range, CO2 emissions and green taxes, it’s simply a hoot to ride. The shoulder-shredding acceleration is addictive, and you sometimes find yourself hoping that upcoming traffic lights will change to red so you can sample the pure G-forces over and over again.
So – is the Alpinista that elusive thing: a battery-powered bike you could fall in love with? I’m amazed to say this, but I think it just might be. The styling, handling and acceleration are all really attractive, and it’s also a bit of a bargain (relatively speaking) at the moment, with a discount in the UK of around a third, dropping the original £17k RRP to a current cost of £11,690.
It’s a really fun machine, which could easily take on a 50 mile commute each day, and also manage the odd longer weekend blast, with judicious recharge planning. It’s also very different from the crowd, which is something quite interesting in these days of identikit parallel twin middleweight roadsters. Can you adapt to the necessary range limits and charging regime? Then I’d definitely recommend a test ride: you might even find your heart overruling your head on this one…
Livewire Alpinista S2 tech highlights
POWERTRAIN
The Alpinista is based on Livewire’s S2 platform, shared with the Del Mar flat-tracker and Mulholland cruiser models, using the ‘Arrow’ liquid-cooled mid-mount synchronous permanent magnet motor. It makes a peak power output of 84bhp, and a beefy 194ft lb of torque.
The motor provides a reverse mode for parking up, and there’s also a ‘reverse throttle’ regen mode: if you close the throttle and turn it the ‘wrong’ way, it starts to slow down using regenerative braking, which also recharges the battery.
The motor is powered by a 10.5kW/h lithium-ion battery with an IEC 62196-2 type 2 charging socket. Livewire claims charging times of 5.9 hours for 20-80% at Level 1 charging rates, or 78 minutes for a 20-80% charge using a high-powered Level 2 charger.
FRAME
The S2 platform uses the smart technique of utilising the necessarily-large aluminium battery casings as part of the main frame. That makes sense: big empty metal castings can form a really stiff light frame design: a monocoque arrangement. We’ve seen that in the past on bikes like the Kawasaki ZX-12R, and Ducati does the same thing with its current models.
Stuffing 21700 lithium ion cells inside said hollow members reduces the space needed for a separate battery housing, and if done right, makes for a lighter, more powerful bike with improved range. External finning improves the battery air-cooling during charging and when using a lot of power, and the motor system is also integrated into the main chassis.
It’s maybe not a super-attractive design at first glance, but it did grow on me over the time I had it.
FRONT SUSPENSION
Livewire has fitted a solid setup: a Showa USD front fork with 43mm stanchions and full adjustability. The suspension is apparently by Hitachi-Astemo, which is part of the same firm as Showa – so Showa suspension then!
REAR SUSPENSION
Showa/Hitachi-Astemo free-piston monoshock with preload and rebound adjustability.
BRAKES
Beefy 320mm floating front disc and M4.32 monobloc radial-mount caliper by Brembo up front, matched to a 260mm rear disc with single-piston PF34 Brembo caliper. There’s a proper cornering-sensitive ABS setup too.
Rider aids
IMU-assisted lean-sensitive traction control, cornering ABS, and four rider power modes: sport, road, rain and range (eco), plus custom settings. 4” round TFT LCD dash, Bluetooth connectivity, cruise control, reverse drive.
Accessories
Livewire says the Alpinista can do duty as a light tourer, so has rustled up some suitable accessories: a medium-sized flyscreen, rear rack, hand guards and both hard and soft luggage options from German firm SW-Motech. There’s little in the way of storage or wind protection as standard, so we’d be looking at these for sure.
Who is Livewire?
Livewire is one of the major players in big electric bikes, alongside Zero, and was set up originally as a Harley-Davidson product line, with the original Livewire battery-powered bike appearing as a Harley-branded machine in 2014. The history since then has been a little bit messy: Harley spun off the Livewire name into a separate company, which it owned, in 2021.
Since then, that firm has gone through some complex financial engineering, including a deal with Kymco, which took it out of Harley’s sole ownership – though the Milwaukee firm is still very much involved with Livewire. Indeed, the bikes are manufactured at Harley-Davidson factories in the US, benefitting from H-D’s supply chain, purchasing power and engineering know-how.
2026 Livewire Alpinista S2 specifications
Price: £11,690
Engine: 400v permanent magnet liquid-cooled motor, Livewire S2 mid-mount platform. 10.5kW/h battery pack
Max power (claimed) 84bhp
Max torque (claimed) 194ft lb
Transmission: single speed, belt final drive
Frame: cast aluminium, integrated battery casings, two-piece subframe
Front suspension: 43mm fully adjustable Showa/Hitachi Astemo USD fork, 135mm travel
Rear suspension: cast aluminium swingarm, preload/rebound adjustable Showa/Hitachi Astemo monoshock, 99mm travel
Brakes: single 320mm disc, four-piston radial-mount Brembo M4.32 caliper (front), 260mm disc, single-piston Brembo caliper (rear)
Wheels/tyres: cast aluminium wheels, Dunlop Sportsmart IV 120/70 17 front, 180/55 17 rear
Rake/trail: 24.5°/92mm
Wheelbase: 1,443mm
Seat height: 791mm (unladen)
Weight: 196.8kg