Andy Leisner Talks About The New Rawwr Mantis

Sep 20, 2023

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In a world where so many things are going electric, like cars, buses, lawnmowers, and now kids' bikes, where does that leave the adult motorcycle enthusiast? Last week Rawrr launched their new bike, the Rawrr Mantis, and our Kellen Brauer got to ride it and sit down with CEO Andy Leisner. Andy was quick to point out that these bikes are not meant to replace the current combustion engine motocross bike, but that they are in a category all their own. Their goal is to not only bring new riders into the sport, but to also give current riders another toy to add to their collection. After all, we all know you can’t own just one bike. Here's what Andy had to say.

Racer X: So first of all, give me a little bit of the back story of where the idea came from, the concept, and then when the company started, what the vision was like and maybe how much it even changed to where it is now?Andy Leisner: The company started back in 2020. Our lead designer and a group of investors saw the Surron and Talaria lightweight electric space blowing up. But those bikes were really never designed to be hardcore off-road bikes or moto bikes. They sort of created the category by accident. And our engineers who had a background in off road and racing motocross, they wanted to build a lightweight electric that was more dedicated towards offroad and motocross. And that's what they set out to do. So, it took them three years and then early this year in 2023 we launched the Rawrr Mantis.

So, in terms of building up to this point where you're at now and having this machine, what sort of steps along the way did you come across that were like, 'Okay let's change this, or let's go this route,' or was it always just the idea that you had from day one is now where you're at now? Yeah, I think the overall idea was, they had big issues with the design of some of the existing bikes in this lightweight electric space. You know, if you look at those bikes, footpegs are behind the swingarm pivot, the seat is behind the swingarm pivot. You basically sit on them like a chopper and anybody who knows motorcycle design knows that's not great for handling. Their big goal, was just really good, neutral balance in corners and in the air, and the rider is sort of more forward on the bike. The rider sort of feels more of a part of it instead of sitting perched on top of the rear wheel. So, I think that's the biggest thing. Instead of the battery on top of the motor, like most bikes in this category have, they put the battery in front of the motor. And that basically greatly increased our ground clearance, and lowered our seat height at the same time. And it just put the center gravity like when you're on the pegs, the Rawrr Mantis feels like it's centered between your calves or your knees like it's way down there.

In terms of you saysing you go for more of like a motocross-y type feel than what the Surron did, in the feedback that you have received from it so far, what are people saying about the position of the footpegs, and the gyro point of the motorcycle being different than maybe what most people are used to on a motocross bike?The feedback that we're getting from our dealers and our consumers is just that there's a wide group of people that ride this motorcycle. A lot of people ride single track up in the mountains. A lot of people who ride moto on a vet track or a mini-track and everybody has that same feeling of just feeling lower center gravity, more connected with a motorcycle. Knowing exactly where the front wheel is. When you're sitting back over the rear wheel, that front wheel is just sort of distant. You know, you don't know what rut it's in, it's just sort of out there, you're in complete contact with our front wheel at any given time. But at the same time, so we're making this off-road motocross bike, but this segment of motorcycling is also a perfect point to bring new riders into our sport. So, we had to focus on something that was really, really, unlike a Cake, which is super, super tall and very expensive. We needed something that was easy to ride and an easy price point, $4999 and so that we could leverage this to bring new people into off road.

So, in regard to the new people, you have the three maps, Eco one, two and three and then the sport mode. Just talk a little bit about the decision process of making it so that it's not really as fast as a motocross bike. It can do things like a motocross bike, but it's still not that speed and it limits it so you can't like wheelie and loop out and things like that.So, we have four modes, and the lowest mode is what we call Eco one. Some fast riders get on this, and they think, “Oh, this is stupid. Why would you ever need Eco one?” But Eco one was designed for someone who's never ridden a motorcycle before. Because they hop on, if they whack the throttle open, it just slowly pulls away from a stop. It's limited to 20 miles per hour, top speed. So that was designed that way. In all the years I've been riding a motorcycle, I've seen so many people try motorcycling for the first time, and they hop on a faster bike and they whack open the throttle and the thing squirts away from them and that's it. They never want to touch a motorcycle ever again in their life. You know, 'It's not for me.' So, we wanted to prevent that. So, yeah, Eco one in 10 seconds can be a motorcyclist and then you go through Eco two, it gets a little faster, a little more aggressive throttle. Eco three, you get the top speed of the bike, but you get a very soft throttle and then sport, it's everything, full power all the time.

Another thing is the weight as well, which is kind of in that mid-range. Talk about what was the target weight that you're trying to go for, to make it still feel motocross-y and not BMX-y but also light enough that for an E-bike that feels really smooth and easy to control. We try not to use the word E-bike because everybody associates an E-bike with pedals, and we always say pegs not pedals. So, we weigh 165 pounds. We're about 15 to 20 pounds heavier than Surron or Talaria. And that was the result of upgraded suspension, more durable suspension, a bigger and beefier frame and a battery that has a different casing that is more durable and fire resistant. So, we wanted to be in that zone of around 150 pounds. Like, that's a really easy motorcycle to ride. We have people that are in their seventies that just couldn't pick up a 450 if they tipped over anymore. They get a Rawrr Mantis and if they tip the thing over, it's easy to pick up. And then again, just for that feeling for the new rider sitting on a really tall, 250-pound motorcycle, it's difficult. So, we were targeting around 150 but with the durability that we have, the slightly larger size than a Surron or Talaria, we come in at 165.

In terms of also maybe targeting more of the motocross side of the market as well. What is kind of the thing that you tell people that maybe want to take it on a motocross track. Like, what are the must knows about this machine before you go jump it or before you go, try to ride it really hard on like a vet track or something. Yeah, it's basically easy to ride. It's got a really predictable power. It has power everywhere. You know, it never really hits hard, smooth power delivery. It works best on a somewhat flat motocross track. If we were running up the hills at Glen Helen, I have to be honest, it's essentially a CRF 150 as far as peak horsepower. So, we're not going to go up those hills very fast. But you get a flat, fun, somewhat jumpy track like we were riding today, it's a blast, it's an absolute blast and sand, you know, electric power plant, it'll get through sand fine, but sand saps a lot of energy. So, battery life goes down in the sand.

And another thing you said, getting new riders involved and getting more people interested in riding motorcycles. And the price point is another thing that kind of shines for people being below the $5000 mark, right? How important was it for you to make sure that you stayed there and got it to a point where you could manufacture it and keep it below that price point for you guys. Extremely important. And it was difficult, very, very difficult to build a really high-quality, durable performance, lightweight electric that stays under, with the 72-volt battery, which is expensive. It was difficult to stay under that price point. But we, at this point in the life cycle of the category, that's a ceiling, that's a pretty hard ceiling that we want to stay under. And it's one that, you know, $5000 is a lot of money don't get me wrong, but something below $5000 is a lot easier to do than something above $5000.

We keep talking about getting new people into the sport and we're seeing this kind of thing, especially in California, this changeover of a lot of riding areas and tracks going away where electric motorcycles are presenting more opportunities for that. So, personally, even for you, what would be your goal for these machines? Would it be like tracks almost in cities or things like that?Yeah, you know there's three people ripping over there on the track right now. It's about 150 yards from us and we don't even know they're there, we can't hear them. It makes very little sound; a little chain noise is about all you hear. And, yeah what I would love to see is that we can run these anywhere. My dream, we were talking about it earlier; my dream is that cities, municipalities give us a place for people for recreation on this type of product. It's not out of the question, just like a city, builds a skate park for a city to build a little motocross track at a county park right in the middle of the city.

I'm sure a little bit for you too, one of the hurdles is the old school motocross fans. They love combustion engines. They love the noise side of it. And you know, it's not that, that’s necessarily is going away, but they feel that the electric movement might take away from that. What is kind of your response to that, like, 'Hey, you know, there're other options out there still.'Exactly. It's options. You know, we're not trying to be a 250F or a full-size gas-powered motorcycle. That's not us. We're just, you know, we're not an E-bike, we're above that. We're not a motorcycle. We're in this interesting space in between. And the majority of people the customers that our dealers tell us about, they have a Husqvarna 450 in their garage, and they just add this to their collection because this is something they can hop on. Maybe sneak up the street and jump on the trails and they don't have to load up and drive out to the desert. So, we’re not trying to replace anything that's out there right now. This is just another cool little bike for a backyard motocross track. We got folks that they live, you know, they've got not a lot of land, like a decent little backyard and they built backyard moto tracks and are ripping on a bike with their neighbors right next door.

For people wanting to check this out, where do you recommend going to maybe learn a little bit more about this, and to see if it's something they're interested in?Yeah, we try to explain, not just the motorcycle, but explain the category and what it's all about and sort of show what we can do at riderawrr.com. That's where we live. And then obviously through all of our social channels as well, and we try to show it all. Like today we had former motocross pros ripping on these things, but there's such a wide group of people that ride them for many different reasons, and so we try to showcase that on our social and it's just super fun to see people… I haven't seen anybody take a ride on this and come back again, whether they're a pro or someone who's never ridden a motorcycle before, I've never seen them come back without a smile on their face.