Best Electric Bikes For Touring

Hey guys, Dustin here, CEO of sixthreezero. Today we're going to talk about the best electric bike for touring. Let's jump in. So when I think of the word touring, I think two things. One, I think of more recreational. And secondly, I think of touring, so cruising around, checking out the scenery. I think it can be anywhere from short to medium or long-range distances. You're touring around, you want to see the city, things like that. So it could be bike rides anywhere from 5 to 20 to 30 miles. I think of a bike that wants to go more on the street, pavement, things like that. So what I'm going to talk about today is not necessarily, I'll give you some recommendations for electric bikes for touring, but I'm not necessarily going to focus product base, want to focus more feature base and what to look for in an electric bike for touring.

And so the first thing I'll say is we want to break this down into two elements. One we want to talk about, what's the actual bike element that you'd want and then what's kind of the motor and the battery component that you would want. So when you talk about what's the best bike for touring, I think about wanting an ergonomic position. You want something comfortable, something that you can be easy on your body as you're touring around and going longer distances. So what I would suggest is something that's going to keep your backup right and your arms relaxed, something that's going to put you in an easy upright position. There's a lot of electric bikes out there that take on this sort of approach. So it's really more of a comfort slash hybrid type frame.

I'd also suggest, step-through frames are good, it's not necessary for touring, but it makes the mounting and dismounting easy. In addition to the ergonomic position, I'd also recommend tires that are about 1.75 inches wide. You could go a little bit less, you could maybe go a little bit more, maybe 1.9 inches, 1.95 or 2 inches. I wouldn't go more than two inches and I probably wouldn't go less than 1.75 inches. The reason I say that is if you're touring, you're going through cities or on sidewalks, you want to make sure the tires at least thick enough to absorb some of the bumps and things like that. If you're using a super-thin road tire, you're really going to feel every bump that you go over, every rock you hit, things like that. Even if you're on flat pavement and you're a touring rider, you still want to have a thick enough tire that is going to be comfortable. The thinner go, the more rigid, the more bumps you feel, things like that. But again, you probably don't want to go bigger than a two-inch tire because you're really going to slow down the roll and it's a lot more bulk, more resistance and we don't want to have to make you or the motor work harder than it really needs to.

So those are really my two most important features on the actual bicycle is the frame upright, comfortable, ergonomic and the tires. Another thing I'll say is the seat. So for a touring bike, you're probably going to want a wider saddle. It doesn't have to be ultra-wide but something wider than a typical road seat. It's hard to show with my hands, but I may be something at the butt region maybe about that wide, something that's going to come out a little bit in the back, basically. You don't want something narrow cut like that. That's going to be very uncomfortable for the novice rider. A lot of road cyclists like that, but it takes some getting used to. So if you're just touring, riding around, use something that's a little bit wider in the back. Your butt can really sit on that and get comfortable, feel a lot nicer.

So moving onto the actual motor, and the last thing I'll say is the frame, the way it looks aesthetically, really up to you. As long as it's got the ergonomic position I talked about, it's got the seat, it's got the tires, whatever it looks like to you is totally fine with me. It could look like a mountain bike as long as it has those kinds of tires, that kind of riding position and that kind of seat, totally up to you. Now I would say typically for a touring type bike you're looking more in comfort bikes and hybrid bikes. Those are kind of the touring category if you will.

So moving onto the motor, what kind of motor and battery would be best for electric touring bikes? It really depends on the type of riding you're going to be doing. So if you're going to be doing flatland riding and you're just touring around and you just want some assistance on the pedals, 250-watt rear-drive motor is absolutely enough. That's going to allow you to go about twenty miles an hour with pedal assist. And if you do the full-throttle on a 250 watt, it's going to allow you to go nearly, it's going to go about 15 miles an hour. Now again, that also depends on some other factors like the weight of the rider and then resistance like wind and things like that. But if you're gonna be going longer distances, let's say 30, 40 miles a ride, I'd really recommend a bigger motor, but most importantly a bigger battery and that bigger battery is really going to help it last much longer. So if you plan to ride 30, 40, 50 miles a ride, it's absolutely a must to get the possible battery you can, especially if you really have the expectation to have that motor last your entire ride.

The other key, if you're going to be riding that distance, make sure you inter use the pedal assist with the full-throttle because doing full throttle for 40 miles will definitely not work on a touring bike. You're going to kill the battery. Depending on the terrain and I mean there may be batteries out there that can do it, but in my experience, hitting 50 miles full throttle on an eBike for the entire way, impossible. Especially because there's going to be hills that are going to drain the battery. There's going to be resistance, things like that. So the battery and the motor size really depends on touring, but if I'm just going to throw it out general suggestion and say I just want to cruise around touring, I would say 250 watt is really good enough. You can go 15 miles an hour full throttle. Pedal-assist you can hit 20. it's going to get you about 20 miles of juice, 20, 25 miles of juice in pedal assist. Full throttle may get you 15 to 20. Again, that varies depending on the company, the level of components, all of those different types of factors. And now if you're going to be doing touring but you want to hit higher speeds, you want to go places faster, look at a 501 watt.

Another thing I'll say though is on a touring electric bike, a rear-drive motor is just fine. Unless you're going to be doing a lot of hills, I would suggest the mid-drive. But if you're doing a lot of flat land riding, the rear-drive is totally fine. The mid-drive motor gives a little more torque, so if you're towing or going uphill, the mid-drive tends to perform a little bit better, but you're going to pay a little bit more for that motor. So that choice is yours. My recommendation, rear-drive, totally fine. I've done it. We actually did a bike ride video through Hollywood on YouTube. You guys can check it out. And we both rode 500 watt, actually I rode a 500 watt and the guy with me rode a 250 watt and it worked great. And we were touring the city. We even hit hills, worked out perfectly for us and we went about, I think we went about 18 miles round trip and it was great.

So you can go to our website, check out our electric bikes. Obviously, I'm biased, but I think our Every Journey is the ideal touring bike. Actually, we had it as a standard bicycle before. We now have an electric version and we called it our touring hybrid bike before it was electric. Now it's a touring electric hybrid bike. Comes in 250-watt rear-drive or 500-watt rear-drive, and the 250 watt is great. It's super comfortable. You guys can check it out. Check out the ergonomic position. We've got some other videos about that particular bike. It's got full throttle and pedal assist.

So if you have any questions about ebikes, other ebikes, our ebikes, please reach out to us, theteam@sixthreezero.com or call us (310) 982-2877 and go to our website. You can see the body fit quiz right below the top nav. You can take the quiz. It's going to recommend a bike for you based on all the riding that you're going to do. And if you still have questions, please reach out to us. Also, don't forget we have a 365-day test ride policy. In 365 days, if you don't love your bike, you can reach out to us and we'll take it back no questions asked. We'll pay the shipping both ways so you don't have to worry about it. Cause at sixthreezero, we want to make sure you love your bike. Enjoy the ride.