Like your brake fluid and intertubes, your motorcycle battery is one of those things that you don’t think about until it’s too late. Fewer and fewer of us are fortunate enough to have stone starters these days, so an expired battery or leaving the fire on for a few hours can really put you in a predicament. Recently we had a chance to test New Anti-Gravity Battery Micro-Start XP-20-HD pack hopping, and since we’re coming out of a long midwest winter, there’s no shortage of dead batteries around.
To get some quick specs on paper, the XP-20-HD is Antigravity’s most powerful lithium jumper to date, delivering 930 Amperes starting and 4,650 Amps peak. It is compact at 9.5” x 4” and includes a lot of convenient features like 240 Lumen LED flashlight, USB-A and USB-C outputs, dead battery bypass, etc.
The XP-20 feels really well built and has a nice display, and it’s really simple to use with just two buttons and full instructions on the back. It’s actually a pretty compact and handy system for charging electronics and starting the car, but that’s all the information you can find on the web, let’s go out into the real world and apply some voltage.
While I’d love to hook this up to my diesel pickup right away, it’s a Bike EXIF, so I did a thorough research on the XP-20-HD for two-wheel purpose first. . So let’s talk logistics. Again, this is quite compact and stowed away neatly with all its accessories in the included carrying case. You’ll have no problem stowing it in a saddle bag or backpack, and the ability to charge your electronics can make it worthwhile—even if you don’t need a jump rope. In my experience, it charges quickly and doesn’t drain the battery much, even if I leave it in a 40 degree garage over the weekend.
It’s worth mentioning that the XP-20 and XP-20-HD come with sturdier starter clamps, which aren’t convenient in tight areas where your motorcycle’s battery lies. For this, the smaller clamps of XP-10 would be more appropriate, but with that said, I didn’t have a battery issue that kept the XP-20 out of action. And I definitely tried.
For the first round of testing, I connected the jumper to an older TW 200 and XT 250, both with low but still usable batteries. While these older Yamahas were notoriously hard to start in the spring, the XP-20 provided a lot of power for the lengthy spin to fire them up. Next up is a Polaris Sportsman four-wheeler, which requires pressing a ‘skip’ button, allowing the device to send water to a completely dead battery. Again, the engine fires easily. Several other bikes deliver similar results without sacrificing battery life, most notably a 40-year-old Harley Shovelhead with a 0.9 Volt tested battery.
So obviously you can do this over and over again, even without a full charge, as most of the bikes I’ve tested don’t reduce the battery life by one percent. . It’s the same story when charging your electronics, and turning my phone off from 70% battery only reduced the battery by 2% of the pack. But to really see what the XP-20 HD can do, I have more than enough low-powered car batteries at my disposal.
The XP-20 HD has more than enough power to start cars and trucks with serviceable batteries, and it won’t take more than 5 to 10% of battery life with extended shooting. However, you must remember that it is a jump starter and not a battery charger. The instructions tell you to disconnect the jumper within 30 seconds of starting the battery, and if your battery is running low, this may not be long enough to keep it going. An internal temperature sensor is also placed for safety, and if you try to jump a dead battery more than once or twice within 10 minutes, it may prevent you from being able to jump again until the battery cools down. However, I suppose that’s better than an exploding jump pack — ask me how I know.
Here’s my experience with an older Audi and Toyota 4Runner that’s been sitting all winter. The Audi’s battery wasn’t completely drained, and the jump pack got it back up and running with ease, but the 4Runner has gone too far. A quick trickle charge brought that battery back from the grave, and Micro-Start provided it with enough juice to spin normally. And that really speaks to the design intent of a device like this. It’s there to help you accelerate in slow-motion, not to completely replace the vehicle’s battery.
I have to award points for the built-in reverse polarity protection, which keeps me from kicking the 4Runner back in the dark. The built-in flashlight helped prevent that mistake in the future, and I must say it’s an extremely handy feature when you’re constantly running out of battery in the dark. Which always seems to be the case in my experience.
To sum this up, I’m very pleased with the Micro-Start and it’s definitely become a standard item in my road trip toolkit. The XP-20-HD Kit on sale for $249.99, complete with all the cables, charging cords, etc. And if you think that’s too expensive, think about the last time you were stuck in the middle of nowhere after dark with a dead battery. Bet it seems like cheap insurance now!
