This month, our adventures on the Torrot Motocross One took us back to our local park where Jax could spin laps without pissing anyone off. Not even the kids playing on the slide and swings right next to him really cared or even noticed, that’s how quiet the Torrot Motocross One is. I decided to channel my inner moto-dad and do some testing with my three-year-old.

After about 15 minutes of riding, I signalled for Jaxon to come over to me. Don’t forget, he can’t touch the ground so to stop he needs to ride right up to me. He rode over and hopped off the bike and I said “Son, we’re going to do a little testing and play with the maps today”.

I felt like a factory mechanic. Being able to adjust the engine mapping with my phone via the Torrot app is so easy and lets you control so many characteristics. I asked Jax if he knew what a map was. He looked at me and suggested a map is what I look at on my phone when I don’t know where I’m going.

I tried to explain to him what engine mapping is but he had no idea what I was talking about. While the engineering detail may have been lost on him, he did recognise that I could change how fast and slow the bike felt to him, simply by doing something with my phone.

I put a fast map in his bike and told him to hold on. He took off and was a little frightened so he raced back over and asked if I could make it slower. I was impressed he knew I could make is slower with my phone, seriously, we’ve had adult testers on ADB with less idea of the direction they want to go in when testing a bike for the first time.

I inserted a slow map and he took off again. This time I had the throttle response, power, top speed and regenerative brake on the slowest they could go and he almost couldn’t take off without falling over. I gestured for him to come back in and I opted for 40 per cent power, top speed and throttle response and half the regenerative brake.

He went back out and loved the engine characteristics. It was about the same speed as a slow jog and the throttle response and power meant he could still get up little hills and when taking off, he didn’t wobble from side to side.

I tried again to explain to him that I was changing the power in his engine. He turned to me and said “Is that what a map is dad?” I guess for kids in 2023, it is!

Mitch Lees