How Fast Do Electric Bikes Go | E-Bike Questions

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All right, so let's jump in. How fast do electric bikes go? Now, this is actually a pretty complex question or there's a lot of answers that we could give to this question. So I'm going to try to make as good a response as possible. Now, there are lots of different electric bikes in the market, lots of different motor sizes. You're going to see motor sizes ranging from about 250 Watts to 1000 Watts, or even over 1000 Watts, depending on the use cases. You can see sometimes bikes that have a front and a rear motor, maybe both powered at 750 Watts for a combined power of 1500 Watts. Those are going to go much faster than 250 Watt motors.

So the first thing I'll say is generally there's actually laws out there that prohibit electric bikes from going over a certain speed and that actually is a state-by-state thing. Now, I can speak to California what I know. In California, if you're using an electric bike and you're just using the throttle, the max speed you're supposed to go is 20 miles an hour. If you're doing pedal assist, the max speed you're supposed to go is 28 miles an hour. So that's the laws.

Now, let's talk about how fast can they go, and the other reality is you can always take your electric bike off-road where the rules of the road wouldn't apply. So in a lot of situations, you're going to see e-bikes that are made for off-roading have a lot larger motors because they're not being inhibited by the laws of the road, so to speak. So let's start at the bottom and I'll kind of give you a general spectrum of how fast can electric bikes go.

The other thing I'll say really quickly is how to measure speed on an electric bike is really gauged in two ways. You've got the full throttle and you've got the pedal assist. And I think the interesting thing when we talk about the top speed with a pedal-assist is the reality of normal bicycles is some people can pedal a bicycle 30, 40, 50 miles an hour, depending on if they're on flat ground or downhill. So it's interesting that on a pedal-assist electric bike is limited at 28 miles an hour when there are road cyclists out there that are hitting 30, 35 miles hour and downhill north of 50 miles an hour, if not more, which is really, really fast.

Now, again on thicker tired sort of hybrid cruisers, like our bikes, hitting 50 miles an hour isn't going to be possible, but again on road bikes, it is possible and it's happening today. So top speeds we're going to talk about are based on pedal-assist and full throttle. Now, if we're talking about 250 Watts and you're doing a full-throttle, I've actually taken the full-throttle 250 Watts to 20 miles an hour. Now, full throttle at on a 250 watt, 20 miles an hour is not good for that motor. It's putting a lot of torque on that motor. Generally, a 250 Watt should top out full throttle about 17 miles an hour and pedal assist, again, if you're able to generate the kind of power, you could hit 28 miles an hour or north of it. I would say comfortably, you're going to be getting to about 20, 21 miles an hour.

Moving up to a 500 Watt motor full throttle, you're going to comfortably go 20, even 21 miles an hour. Now, the other thing I didn't speak about is the speed of the e-bike is obviously going to be limited by the conditions, so where you're riding, the weather, the wind, and also the size of the rider, both the height and the weight. Obviously the taller the rider, the more wind resistance, the lighter the rider, the less resistance on the bike. So those two things are going to definitely play a factor in how fast an e-bike can go. So again, I'm just speaking in generalizations.

So 500 Watt is going to easily get you to 20 miles an hour with full throttle. The pedal assists on a 500 Watt, I've gone north of 30 miles an hour. I've hit about 32, that's working really hard. I would say you can be at 25 miles an hour without super exerting yourself, but you're definitely moving your legs at a fast pace in a higher gear. So it's not easy to achieve those speeds, but it can be done.

Now as we move into 750 Watt motors, if that's something that's full throttle, I think it's fair to say you could hit 23, 25 miles an hour, depending on the size of the rider. And I would say pedal assist, you're going to be easy getting into that 28-30 mile an hour range. Going above that 750 Watt, 1000 Watt, 1000 Watt motor is going to take you potentially 30 miles an hour with full throttle. Pedal-assist, again, you're probably going to be at about the same, 30 miles an hour, 35, because eventually, the motor is going to be moving the bike faster than your legs can even move depending on again, the type of rider, the resistance, what kind of gears you have.

I know on seven speeds, a lot of times if you're at 28, 30 miles an hour, the motor starts to move faster than you can even pedal. So at that point, you're pedaling isn't even helping the motor for the bike to go faster. So that's the general range. Again, conditions play a part in it. Is your battery fully charged? Are the tires properly inflated all play a role in it? And again, 750 Watt motors, generally speaking at full throttle should not be allowed on the roads unless they're classified as a scooter or something of that nature.

You will see 750 Watt motors a lot of times for passenger-style bikes, or they also can be limited with the controller to limit the actual speed. So that's something you want to look into is if the bike you purchased had a limit on it, programmed into the controller. A lot of times you can change that at home. Now, I'm not recommending that if you're riding on the road because they're limited for a reason for safety purposes, to make sure they comply with laws and whatnot, but a 750 Watt motor, in reality, can probably go a lot faster than the way it's programmed to be from the factory.

And if you do have a 750 Watt motor on say a tricycle or a cargo bike or some kind of passenger bike, that's because once you add the additional weight onto the bike, the motor is going to have to work a lot harder and you're not going to be able to hit the speeds that you would be able to if it was a single rider. So I see that a lot on the cargo bikes and particularly 750 Watt makes complete sense for those.

All right. So I hope that helps. If you have more specific questions about e-bikes and how fast they can go, please reach out, comment below. We're happy to answer them or reach us by email at theteam@sixthreezero.com or call us at (310) 982-2877. And don't forget if you're in the market for an electric bike, go to sixthreezero.com. Check out our e-bikes. We've got 500 Watts, 250 Watts, and electric tricycles. They all can hit about a top speed of 28 pedal assist and 20 miles an hour with full throttle.

Also, go to our website and take our body fit quiz. We have a proprietary algorithm that will answer, take questions you answer about your body, your life, and fits you to the perfect bike. It's a proprietary system. It's cool. Check it out. And the bonus, we have a 365-day return policy. So if you don't love your bike within 365 days, send it back, no questions asked, no money out of your pocket.

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