Six Things Every eBike Rider Should Know

with this new bike boom there's been a lot of new e-bike riders and there's some common mistakes that people make when they first get an e-bike or when they first ride their e-bike and i just wanted to just put some tips out there to help people address them and you know some things to consider i know a lot of people that are subscribed to this channel probably familiar with all these things already and hopefully you find it to be helpful and if there's something i missed or something you have personal experience with please share below in the comments because i know a lot of people appreciate that and i enjoy reading that as well so let's get into it so probably one of the more common things i see is that people just don't pump up their tires and i guess people have the expectation similar to a car that you have to pump up the tires maybe once a year twice a year or every so often with a bike or electric bike for that matter you should really be pumping them up more often as a general rule the higher the pressure the more often that they need to be replenished with air if you will even though some people might say this you don't have to change the air in your tires if anybody ever told you that it was a joke not necessary but on a serious note some people will pump up their tires every time they ride but i think if you pump up your tires about every week or so you're probably in pretty decent shape how often do you pump up your tires every three days yeah how about you tara never yeah are we recording this just a quick note here so we have two people here asia who rides a non-electric bike with narrow tires it's a fixed gear bike and it's high pressure low volume that tire takes upwards of a hundred psi i asked her how often she pump up her tires she said every couple days and i asked tara who has a turn gsd with a larger tire it's a low pressure high volume tire she probably doesn't have the best practice because i don't think she pumps it up much at all and you know what it's okay i mean the bike can handle it but actually what happens is you're not going to be as efficient the tire's going to be more susceptible to a flat because you have more surface area on the ground and case in point tara's a newer rider and i guess i should take some responsibility because i didn't tell her so sorry tara i'm telling you guys and she's listening so i think i'm covered here let's move on to the next topic okay next topic saddle height i've been told that i'm kind of a bad influence here because sometimes i just hop on a bike and i don't properly adjust the saddle height i'm sorry guys i'm sorry if you've been impacted by my bad saddle height setting but let's talk about for a second i'm sorry i'm i'm gonna try to do better now okay we're gonna also try to be serious here because these people here are laughing i'm trying to like just do this thing you know okay whatever the most common thing is people set the saddle height too low from my perspective this is not necessarily a bad thing for somebody starting out if that's gonna make you feel more comfortable more safe and more stable that you can easily put your feet down on the ground when you come to a stop that's okay but you should know what the appropriate saddle height is and as a good rule of thumb what i generally recommend is you take the heel of your foot and you put it on the spindle of the pedal like the actual center of the pedal and you put the pedal at its lowest position at that point your leg should be relatively locked out like just completely locked out picture this is my knee here and you're just completely locked out when you put the ball of your foot on the pedal which is the appropriate part to put on the pedal you're going to have a slight bend to your knee you don't want to have a huge bend that would generally mean that it's too low you don't want it to be stretching as apparently i do sometimes asia said that i look like an elf with my foot waving around there i don't know but we all you know do things that we're not proud of i guess i don't know that's a good place to start sometimes you know you want to be a little lower a little higher that's okay start at that point if you need to start a little lower because you feel safe that's okay don't let anyone judge you they might make comments on your youtube videos but it's okay now i think this next one probably was more in the battle for a second but it's shipped in gears people are not so great at this one if you don't have much experience it i guess it takes a little bit to get used to now i don't know if it's something if you are raised riding a bike with gears it makes it easier that you can remember and are able to do it later in life or maybe if you've driven a manual transmission car it's going to make it easier but basically the idea is if you have a bike with gears you're going to consistently change the gears you're going to start out in a lower gear which means it's easier to pedal and as you get going you have to shift up and as you slow down again you shift down and you want to maintain a reasonable pedal cadence cadence just basically means how fast you're pedaling it's measured in rpm like revolutions per minute there's a wide range of what cadence somebody might be comfortable with it all depends on what you're into and some people like to pedal slower some people like to pedal faster as a general rule you're going to be a little bit more efficient you're going to generate more power if you're pedaling faster this like struggling along to push yourself through it's not a very efficient way to ride a bicycle and it's not recommended you're going to put a lot of stress on your drivetrain even though the motor might be able to assist you through that experience it's not a good way to go you want to be consistently shifting the gears and in a urban setting you could think you come to a stoplight you want to shift down as you're coming to stoplight to prepare yourself to start out again a common thing that happens is people will come to a stop and they don't shift down they forgot to shift down and then they're struggling to get started again and keep in mind if you have normal external gears you can't just shift when the bike is at a stop now i'm not trying to scold anyone here i just here to inform you that that's not the way to shift that type of bike you do have to be pedaling because the way it works is it actually moves as you're pedaling and the derailleur it actually pulls the chain off of the individual gear and moves it to the next one now there are certain types of gear systems that you can shift from a stop and i find that actually a lot of people have an easier time with them or more specifically there's one type that i find people have the easiest time with and it's called a continually variable transmission and with that there's no indexes it's no like individual gears you just shift away from you to easier gear and towards you towards a harder gear generally speaking from putting somebody on a bike or electric bike for the first time if they can start out on that they're gonna have a much easier time than the traditional gears that's just been my personal experience with i'm interested to know what your experience has been with this gears and that sort of stuff okay next topic clothing i'm not gonna say that you gotta wear tights or anything like that although some people are into that and that works well for them i think with electric bikes you can generally ride with any type of clothing you want i guess that's one of the appeals of riding an electric bike that's one of the things that i like about it it kind of offers more utility in that way because i don't have to wear anything special i'm not as concerned about getting sweaty or whatever okay so let's start with the shoes i guess technically you could ride with whatever you want you could ride barefoot if you want but it's probably not the safest thing to do it's also probably not necessarily the most comfortable thing to do there's a couple reasons for this now if you're pedaling a bike you're generally going to want a shoe that has a pretty solid sole to it because what happens is if you don't have like a really rigid sole on your shoe your foot can flex a lot i personally have had this experience in riding for an extended period with shoes that don't have much support and and they're not really too rigid in their soul my foot starts to get pain because it's kind of like being flexed in different ways and i don't think it's something people always think about they say oh my foot hurts i don't know why it hurts but it's probably your shoots it could also be your pedal position some other things like that but probably your shoes you definitely want to think about open toe shoes and stuff like that i'd probably try to avoid it if possible you know i know there are certain scenarios somebody wants to ride to the beach it's hot out i get it just be careful that's all then thinking about pants now i gotta tell you interesting story well actually i don't know if i want to talk about this but basically if you know cyclists you know people that ride bikes a lot a lot of times they have holes in their crotch it's a weird thing but it happens it really does and i don't know you know it's you're stretching your leg over the saddle pedaling with friction in that area i've had a terrible time like trying to find pants that just don't get holes in the crotch and i've went to different tailors gotten them reinforced i found one pair of pants that i wear all the time i have seven pairs of them right i'm just really getting a little too personal here but it's a thing it's really a thing maybe that's the case to have a throttle so you don't have to pedal maybe your pants won't rip i don't know i don't really generally ride bikes with throttles but that's a whole other topic people that bike a lot will generally wear clothing that's a little bit more tight fitting it could be beneficial for a variety of reasons one i think maybe you might be less likely to have this ripping scenario going on i don't know but outside of that one of the big concerns is actually getting your pants caught in the chain or even the belt potentially even getting dirty on the chain for example you know if you have your pants kind of waving in the wind and you got a greasy chain there it's probably pretty likely to you know get caught and get dirty and that sort of thing so people will roll their pant leg up i generally do that just to force a habit and it's kind of become part of my style i guess it can really ruin your day if your pants get stuck in the chain especially if they're your favorite pants you know but i could probably make a whole video about clothing and apparel you know riding your bike some people will say to wear layers i think that's a helpful thing because your temperature can change you know if you're sweating if you're not sweating you're getting cold or maybe you might end up getting caught out in the rain or something like that so being prepared for that that's one way that you can prepare yourself and really make sure that you're going to have an enjoyable experience now let's talk about safety and you could probably imagine when thinking about bike safety the first thing we probably talk about is bike helmets i guess really what i see people oftentimes just make mistakes about like the way their helmet fits or it's on their head and generally speaking you want it relatively low on your head not like way up top or like sitting back that you know that your your front of your hairline is exposed any of that stuff is not okay and not the way to go having the strap adjusted correctly i know this can be a little tricky but those little details can go a long way and also make you more comfortable and i know a lot of people have different opinions about helmets but the reality is it is a good safety measure and it's something you should consider if you want to be safe other things to think about in relation to safety is wearing bright colored clothing or oftentimes like reflective clothing could be really helpful especially if you're gonna ride at night but as it's becoming more and more common that motorists are distracted wearing bright colored clothing could definitely help you stand out and then speaking about riding at night with the reflective stuff having lights is definitely a must if you're gonna ride at night now it's not always just necessarily to see because often times in an urban environment there's a lot of street lights and you might not necessarily need the light so much but for others to be able to see you it's a great measure to take to keep you safe now a little bit about etiquette i'll probably do a video just on this topic specifically because there's a lot to discuss but some of the things that come up quite a bit and just experiencing riding with other people is trying to keep a relatively consistent speed you know i see a lot of new riders that kind of go fast and then slow down really quickly and they're not really predictable i think that that's really what it is it's about being predictable like actually people being able to determine like what you're going to do this like erratic riding of different speeds or riding in different lines holding a line is a term that's often used in biking and it's important you know especially if you're riding in a bike lane or something like that if you're riding straight down the line and then you just abruptly you know ride to one side or the other there could be somebody coming up behind you and not really expecting that because it's not really a common thing that people do and you know it could create an unsafe environment so being mindful of that being mindful of your surroundings and and trying to be predictable can be really helpful but also as a general rule following the rules of the road is a good way to go as well and just so you're aware riding a bike you're responsible to maintain the same rules as a motorist would be when driving a car okay one last thing on etiquette because this comes up a lot especially with electric bikes you might be more likely to want to pass somebody and i see this a lot with new riders it can be a little bit disrespectful if you don't give somebody enough space when you're passing if you don't give them enough notice just be patient enjoy the ride and don't rush too much when you're approaching somebody take your time see are they holding a line if they're not holding a line just be careful because you could end up in a weird situation if they're going back and forth and then be mindful be patient try to give people notice and that's just talking about somebody on a bike it's probably more of a concern actually if you're passing somebody that's walking you have a bell you should have a bell sometimes you know people will say on your left that's a good thing to do but say it nicely i mean some people just shout and then they just ride by you quickly i think that that's not really the right thing to do so don't don't be like them that's all i'm saying one other thing in relation to this i know some e-bikes are now coming with horns i don't think they're really intended for people or at least if you do use it on a person they better deserve it i think it's generally for another automobile or something like that it could be nice actually to have a bell on that as well as a general rule if i'm riding a bike with a horn i try to use my voice instead of the horn because i think it's a little rude i don't know what do you think but overall i think it's really just about being prepared familiarize yourself with the bike start to learn a little bit about it learn from other people that are already riding some other details you can consider about preparing yourself as well is like you know making sure your battery's charged you never know how long a ride you might want to go for you might encounter somebody that wants to join you on the ride say hey let's go 10 miles over there i said oh no i got five miles range left here i can't go with you sorry i mean you don't you don't want to have that experience having tools on you is a good way to go preparing yourself for the different things you might encounter on the bike like a flat tire or something you know how are you going to handle that just just know what you know what you're going to do i mean i think that that's mostly it what do you think is there other things that you'd like to tell a new rider you know leave them in the comments and you know i'm sure others will read that and i'm sure they appreciate it and we'll try to incorporate those ideas in future videos as well yeah i think that's mostly it and i hope you guys enjoyed and see you soon [Music] you

Channel: Propel

Views: 250,574

Keywords: ebike, ebikes, electric bikes, electric bike, e bike, e bikes, ebike tips, electric bike tips, new riders, ebike new riders, top ebike tips, New ebike, new electric bike, new ebike rider, electronic bike, e bicycle, bike skills, how to ride an ebike, ebike new rider, ebike beginner, ebike skills, electric bike skills for beginners, e bike tips, how to ride a bike safely, e bikes for seniors, ebike tips and tricks, top ebike tips 2020

Id: khxFXhKOZmg

Length: 16min 3sec (963 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 01 2021