Maiden Voyage(s): First Impressions of my Riide Electric Bike

That’s right, friends. My Riide has arrived! I had to rush home from work in the middle of the day to catch the FedEx delivery guy – and it was totally worth it to get this beauty in my hands right away.

When he pulled it out of the truck, I was quite happy to see the large size of the box because that indicated that the back wheel was probably already attached – and that was an accurate assumption.

I had it out of the box in no time at all and got to work on the minor assembly required. All the parts, frame and charging components were meticulously wrapped with foam wrap and cardboard to protect everything during shipping. The unwrapping of all the protective accoutrement actually took longer than the assembly – which says a lot for how easy it was to put together.

All the tools I needed to do the assembly were right there in the box, so I didn’t have to go digging around for my bicycle multi-tool or wrenches. I attached the handlebars and put in the seatpost in just a few minutes, then flipped the bike over to attach the front wheel. I have to say again how nice it was that the back wheel came bolted on so I didn’t have to mess with the chain, the motor hub or any of dat bizness. The front wheel slid into the dropouts easily. This is my first bike to have disc brakes, so I did have to make a few adjustments to get everything straight and to where the tire spun freely without the rotor rubbing the brake pad. Once I got that set, I screwed on the pedals and was ready to roll.

You’ll notice the title of this post indicates multiple excursions. And that’s exactly what happened. After a brief ride in the early evening, I went for a late night ride too. What follows is sort of review-y, and I probably won’t often do that on this blog, but I can’t resist giving my first impressions of my Riide electric bicycle.

1. LOOKS

Let’s start with the superficial: it looks awesome. And tough. The matte blacked-out frame, oversized downtube (where the battery resides), no-nonsense handlebars and thick tires make it look like a beast of a ride. I also really like that it’s incredibly stripped-down looking for an electric bike (will talk more about that in the Stealth section).

2. BUILD

It’s a tank (in all the good ways). The tires are serious business – 26 x 1.75 inch Schwalbe Energizer Plus. They give a solid foundation with great grip on the road and absorb some vibration from rough roads. And they look like they could roll over just about anything. At one point during my first test ride, I needed to go off a pretty big curb. I was hesitant at first but figured it would be a good test. I went off the curb slowly, and the bike was completely solid – no rattles, nothing. Even my Specialized cyclocross bike doesn’t feel this stout.

3. RIDE

The Riide has a stance similar to a mountain bike or urban commuter – just aggressive enough to feel in control but still comfortable positioning. The frame is stiff and responsive, easy to control and maneuver. The pedals are nice and wide and provide a good bit of grip to keep your feet from sliding off.

I know one big difference about this ebike is that it’s a single speed (freewheel, so you can coast too, obviously). And it turns out that’s a huge strength of the bike. I find the gear ratio to be optimal, and not having gears makes riding smooth and intuitive. If you’re a senior citizen, it’s probably not for you. Between the weight of the bike and the gear ratio, it does require some leg power to get going…but you ride bikes, right? You should have sufficient leg muscles! I know I might sound like a “Do you even lift, bro?” bro with that statement, but you get the point. 

Since the bike weighs around 40 pounds, and because you can get going pretty fast on it, the disc brakes are an essential feature. They were a bit squeaky the first few times I braked – but my experienced mountain biking friend said that’s normal right out of the box. After four or five hard stops, the noise stopped, and the disc brakes do a great job of getting you stopped quickly, even when at high speeds.

4. STEALTH

I really can’t emphasize this enough: the motor is virtually silent. From what I’ve seen, most other ebikes have a very distinctive whine from the motor. Riide does not. Even cruising around my very quiet neighborhood at night, I couldn’t hear it. For perspective, the spinning of the freewheel is all that’s audible when the motor is engaged and you’re not pedaling.

I’ve heard a lot of people say that electric bikes “flatten out the road.” I’d take it one step further about my Riide and say it makes all roads feel like they’re downhill. It blows my mind how quickly I can get across town and up hills on my Riide without even coming close to breaking a sweat.

As I’ve taken it out more, I’ve found that I usually only use the throttle for quick boosts when needed but mostly just rely on my own pedal power.  The bike requires surprisingly little effort to get going and keep going. Every now and then I’ll go on throttle-only power because it’s fun…and because I can.

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My Bicycling Back Story

About 10 years ago, not too long after I moved to Denver, a friend of mine let me borrow his old, beat up Diamondback mountain bike. It was the first time I’d had a bicycle since junior high. On my first ride across town, I experienced a rush of sensations of riding my bike as a kid – the feeling independence a bike creates, the thrill of going fast down a hill, the wind on my face. And it quickly made me realize that being in my own private metal box (my car), isolated from other humans and the world around me sorta sucks.

For all these reasons, I decided to make a bike my primary means of transport. Back then, I lived in uptown Denver, and the crew I hung out with lived down in Platte Park. Their house and the bar we frequented were a 35-40 minute bike ride from my apartment, and I usually made that trip three or more times a week.

I quickly realized two things: One, Cap Hill is not fun to climb on a bike at 11pm when you’re worn out from your day (and/or have had multiple beers). Two, I needed to buy a better bike.

So I bought a used road bike – then sold it and got a hybrid commuter – and kept bicycling anytime and anywhere I could. I started to get in better shape, and Cap Hill became much easier to ride up. And by easier, I mean that I no longer felt like I was going to puke every time I got to the top of it. After I changed to a new friend group, I kept riding and even started a twice monthly nighttime bike ride club that did a half dozen rides or so.

I’m still not sure what happened, but my riding just sort of fell off after a while, and I wasn’t getting out on my bike much at all anymore. Other than summer riding here and there, I’ve not spent nearly as much time on a bicycle as I would like to lately.

The whole point of that story is to give a bit of background of my passion for bike riding, which is starting to surface again. You’ll notice I say “bicycling” or “biking” or “bike riding” because I do not currently and ever want to consider myself a cyclist. That usually entails a lot of spandex and cycling around Wash Park with your bros in a wannabe peloton and being jerks to anyone who gets in your way. No offense to my non-jerk cycling friends.

The other important piece of this story is that ever since I drove my granddad’s old-school (1970s?) moped as a kid, I’ve always been fascinated by powered “bikes.” I remember plenty of summer days zipping around on the roads near my granddad’s lake cabin on the moped and loving every minute of it. Well, except for when a bug would fly in my mouth or when I’d get overconfident on a gravel road and wipe out.

I never got into scooters as an adult, partly because I was a poor grad student for a long time and partly because I already had a car and didn’t want another internal combustion, exhaust spewing vehicle. When I first started riding a bike in Denver, I got very interested in electric scooters and electric bikes, but the technology at the time just wasn’t there yet.

a moped just like the one my granddad had

In fact, my friend Tom, an engineer, researched the hell out of electric scooters and bought one brand new. After it was delivered and he charged up the battery, he went to start it up and nothing happened. It would not turn on…and it never ended up working.

But the technology has come a long way since then, especially for e-bikes. My interest was piqued again when I heard about the Sondors e-bike, going for $500 on an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. It sounded too good to be true – and I’m still not sure if it was a scam or not since the sticker price and the capabilities it boasted did not line up at all. Regardless, it wasn’t a gamble I was willing to take.

Then a few months ago, I ran across Riide e-bikes. I’ve done a good amount of research on their e-bike, and it has a number of innovative features other e-bikes don’t have, especially e-bikes at its price point. This blog entry is getting long, so I’ll bullet out some of these features below.

At this point, I do want to note that I am not a paid spokesperson for Riide, and I do not receive any sort of compensation from them. They just happen to make the bike I’ve chosen for my entrée into the electric bicycle world.

Riide features I really like:

• battery built in to the frame for even distribution of weight – and isn’t visible
• “stealth” as an e-bike: quiet motor, no digital displays, wires hidden in frame
• pedal assist plus a throttle that can be used with or without pedaling (I’m not actually sure if it offers pedal assist or not – will update once I find out)
• short charge time (2-3 hours)
• manufacturer estimates that you can recharge the battery 1,800 times – which means that with daily charging, it will be good for about 5 years
• lightweight for an e-bike at 40 lbs
• incredible customer service (all my inquiry emails got responses within a few hours)

So I ordered one. Riide plans to ship me my bike in April. That’s when I’ll really get this blog going with photos, videos, more info on the bike and general bicycle-related blog posts. Hope to see you then.

Check out more about the bike in this video from TechCrunch: