E-Bikes & Bikes Customised to You
Hey, guys. Dustin here, CEO of sixthreezero. Want to talk to you today about the best eBikes for beginners. There's a lot of talks out there right now about electric bikes, and I know it can be daunting figuring out what's right for me, what to look for, so let's talk about that today, and I'll help you out, do the best I can.
With eBikes, there are lots of different motor sizes, battery sizes, different types of frames, lots of things that exist, so it can be confusing. Best eBikes for beginners. I'm not going to talk to you necessarily about a specific eBike that's best for beginners, but I'm going to talk to you about the features, components, frame styles that I think are best for a beginner in the eBike market.
Number one, let's talk about the motor. Looking at the eBike motors, you've got three types of motors. You have a front hub, you have a mid-drive, and you have a rear hub motor. My suggestion for beginners in eBikes would be to go with either a rear hub drive motor or a front hub motor. The reason I suggest this is because they're going to be a little less torque than a mid-drive, meaning that pulling capacity, or a mid-drive just has a little more torque, meaning it can get up hills a little bit better, but it's a little extra power that I don't think is necessary for a beginner on an eBike. In addition, a mid-drive motor is going to be more expensive, so if you're just jumping into the market and you're looking at eBikes and you're really excited to buy them, I don't recommend a mid-drive. It's going to cost a lot more money, and quite honestly, you may not even know if it's something you're going to like.
Looking at the rear hub and the front hub motors, the front hub motors typically come in smaller watt power capacity than the other, than the mid-drive in the rear, and so for the front hub, it's really more of a pedal assist. Usually, you see about a 250-watt or a 350-watt on the front, max, and so it's a good option if you're just looking to get a little assistance while you pedal, you're not going super far distances, and you're comfortable powering the bike under your own power. If you're someone that doesn't need a lot of power, the front hub's a good option.
Now, I really like the rear hub. They work great. They come in different wattages, so for beginners, I would suggest a rear hub 250-watt motor, and this is going to give you enough power so in pedal assist mode, you could hit top speeds of 22, 24 miles an hour with relative ease, and then in full throttle mode, if you're not doing pedal assist with a 250-watt rear motor, you're going to hit about 15, 16 miles an hour, which that's already going to be a lot faster than most average riders are traveling on a bicycle in general, so if you're a beginner on an eBike, you don't need to get on there with a 500-watt mid-drive motor and be zipping around. It could potentially be dangerous. My recommendation is just to make sure that you're comfortable on that bike.
My second thought around best bikes for beginners is, find a bike that has easy on and off, something where the frame is low enough and the rider can be low enough to the ground where you can basically get on and off the bike easily. I wouldn't suggest a mountain bike, just because the frame is a little higher. It's harder to get on and off. My thought is, something with a step-through frame or, if you're comfortable enough, still like a step-through or cruiser frame is a really good idea.
There are lots of different eBikes out there now that have sloping frames with low step-through for men and women. We have our EVRYjourney in electric, which has a step-through frame, which I think is great for on and off, so if you're a beginner, you're not used to having power attached to two wheels before, it's really, really smart to use, have a frame where you could stop, put your feet down and get on and off easy. Make sure you can balance it.
That's another suggestion why I'm saying a smaller motor because smaller motors will also have smaller batteries. What this is going to mean is, it's going to mean less weight on the bike, so my suggestion around the step-through frame, the easy on and off, ties into the battery, because depending on where the battery is located, if it's located in the rear, on the rear rack or in the middle of the frame, that battery's going to make it harder to balance that bike, because it's going to be heavier. The batteries typically weigh anywhere from 15 to 25 pounds, depending on capacity, so if you're not necessarily used to balancing that kind of weight, when you talk about an eBike, you're talking about 50 pounds to about 80 pounds for the bike, depending on the model you're going with. Again, 15 to 25 pounds of that is in the battery.
Try to use a smaller motor and smaller battery. It'll get you comfortable balancing that kind of weight, making sure it doesn't tip you over when you stop, just turning it and steering it, things like that. Now, if you've ridden a motorcycle before or you've got, you've done other things on two wheels that are heavier, no need to worry about it, but for beginners, smaller motor, smaller battery. In addition to that, I would make sure you have disc brakes. Now, generally speaking, disc brakes are pretty common amongst a lot of eBikes. The reason I recommend them is because they're going to give you a higher level of stopping power, so if you're cruising along, let's say you're on an eBike and you've never gone 15 miles an hour on a bike before, you may not be comfortable stopping the bike or know how to stop the bike because you haven't had to stop a bike at that speed before.
Disc brakes are going to stop a lot quicker. They're not going to glide as much. They're going to be more instantly gripping and stopping versus brake pads on the rims, they're not going to really provide enough power to stop a bike traveling at those kinds of speeds. If you're a beginner and you want to make sure you can stop the bike, look for an eBike with disc brakes.
Those are really my four tips for beginners buying an eBike. I would say whatever model you look for, trying to look out for those features, and it'd be a good fit for you to get comfortable with riding eBikes, and then maybe later you could change or upgrade or really find something different that if you need more power or you want a different frame, things like that. Please check out our eBikes on the top nav. You can find eBikes up there. You can look at our EVRYjourney or our AroundtheBlock, available in men's and women's, and also please enter your height and weight into our BodyFit calculator. That will tell you, thumbs up thumbs down, what bikes are the right fit for you. If you have any additional questions, please reach out. Call us on the phone, 310-982-2877, or by email. The team at sixthreezero.com, we're here to answer all of your questions, and it's our goal to find the right bike for you.
