How to Choose an E-Bike | REI

the question i want to ask you is how do you tell somebody on an e-bike from somebody who's not on an e-bike you can't because that audience is exactly the same [Applause] all right one more time with that i'm valerie from rei and we're going to talk about how to choose an e-bike by the way have i said i love e-bikes the person who rides an e-bike is virtually anybody it could be you it could be you it's definitely been me there is virtually every style of bike available in the form of an e-bike e-bikes are great for people who are trying to give up their cars who might be commuting just long enough distances that it makes more sense for them to have some pedal assist versus doing that riding completely under their own power it's great for people who might be carrying a lot of cargo and that could include their kiddos e-bikes are for people who want to go faster further and carry more weight there are four main decision points in choosing an e-bike class motor battery and features let's talk about e-bike classes there are three basic classes of bike class one is pedal assist to 20 miles per hour class 2 is actually a throttle assist meaning that you are going to have a motorized bike for all intensive purposes not sold at rei and they are more restrictive in their use class 3 is pedal assist up to 28 miles per hour the clear difference between class 1 and class 3 is where that pedal assist stops and that just means that class 1 is generally more accepted everywhere on more and more trails whereas class 3 you might still have some restrictions primarily in mountain biking but not exclusively so so you'll want to check in with your local authorities to make sure that your bike is permitted on those trails now let's talk about motors motors generally come in two types either placed in that bottom bracket called a mid-drive motor or they'll be located in either the front or the rear hub so a hub drive motor the difference between these generally is that a mid-drive is going to feel a little bit more balanced and mirror your natural pedal stroke and hub drive motors depending on where they're located will tend to feel either more push or pull when you're considering whether or not you might want a mid-drive motor the things to consider are again the placement of the motor and the fact that it frees your wheels up to make them easier to maintain so that if you have flats for example a lot easier to pull your wheels off and change the flats yourself in addition mid-drive motors work with your gearing system which allows for more efficient use of your battery the other two major considerations in what a motor does for an e-bike are torque and wattage so torque is the force that helps move that bike forward and the wattage is the amount of electricity or power or juice that's required to move that bike wattage speaks to how quickly or not quickly the battery will drain typically any e-bike that you're going to purchase in most bike stores is either going to have 250 watts or 500 watts in some occasions you might find 750 watts everything is a trade-off and the trade-off will be whether or not you want more battery life or more power and typically you're going to concede one or the other depending on how you're pedaling and what type of terrain you're on let's talk about the differences between lower wattage lower torque and higher wattage higher torque and where one or the other might be more useful to your riding style when we are talking lower torque lower wattage the bike typically will be more efficient and you might be doing a little bit more of that work on your own with just light pedal assist the upside of this is longer range where you might want higher wattage and higher torque is if you're looking for that workhorse of a bike you need the bike to provide more power under load and you might be carrying more load so you need bigger power and you might need less range overall it's also great for very hilly terrain and a lot of varied train where that extra power is super useful there are two primary things that you want to know about batteries the first is where is that battery placed and typically you're going to have either an internal but removable battery or an internal non-removable battery and then the third option is an external battery the pros and cons of these are that clearly in an internal battery whether it is removable or not it just makes for cleaner lines on the bike makes everything feel a little bit more like a regular bike would look like and it allows you also the option for in this case some raisons where you can actually still attach a water bottle cage for example in the case of an external battery as you see behind me here on a couple of these bikes they will be more easily removable and typically more easily exchangeable and they can live in a lot of different areas on the bike the second consideration of a battery is the capacity of the battery typically you're going to find that batteries and e-bikes range from about 250 watt hours to about 500 watt hours and you might find some numbers in between that depending on the brand of the bike this really just reflects how much capacity the battery has the thing i want to address now is the question that everybody asks when they are looking at e-bikes and that is how far will this bike take me what's the range of the bike and the easiest most simplest way to answer that is it depends on how much pedal assist you're using the more pedal assist you use the lower the range the less pedal assistance you use the longer the range when you're considering what the range of the bike is do consider that manufacturers will a post what that range can be it might be 20 to 40 miles it might be 40 to 50 or 50 to 70 miles and also know that that range is based on the least amount of pedal assist being used in that bike there are a couple of final considerations that you might want to think about when you are choosing your bike e-bikes start to have a lot of other really cool integrated features like built-in lights and built-in security and locks if you want those things incorporated into the bike that is something also to think about when you're shopping for a bike one of the most important tools on the bike for most riders is going to be this guy the controller the controller is the thing that actually powers the bike on and off and it will also allow you to choose the level of assist that you want the other things that it may show you depending on the level of sophistication of the controller would be battery life speed and where you are in your total range some controllers have more information than others so if it's important to you to have more information at your fingertips you might want to think about that when you're choosing the bike the last thing is the weight on these guys can vary quite a lot they can be anywhere from 25 pounds to 65 pounds so keep in mind how you're planning on transporting the bikes and storing the bikes so that this bike will fit into your particular lifestyle this should give you a lot of information to start the process for shopping for an e-bike as always size and fit are really important so check out my video on that and i'll see you on the trail [Music] you can put a motor on any of these yes you can

Channel: REI

Views: 128,618

Keywords: rei, outdoors, sporting goods, adventure, bikes, cycling, e-bikes, electric bikes, ebikes, e bikes

Id: ovd4q6GIm8g

Length: 7min 31sec (451 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 14 2021