It has been a busy few weeks but I figured I would add some comments on the my new E-Joe Epik SE bike now that I have ridden it for a while. To get the details on the Epik SE you can read the first day review I posted earlier. I am still very happy with the bike. It rides wonderfully and is working out exactly the way I hoped.
I have now done several rides of 5-7 miles. These have been on hard packed soil bike trails. The bike has handled this environment great! I was a little concerned since this is not a mountain bike but no issues. Soft soil would be another matter and riding in the grass is a little much for the narrow tires.
The longest ride so far has been 7 miles. It would have been 14 but I got a flat tire and had to get rescued by my wife.
I generally have been riding the bike using peddle assist 1. I have been changing the gears to make it easy to peddle and not place any pressure on my feet and ankles. I have some major issues with my feet and normal bike riding is out of the question.
The Epik SE has a huge amount of power and it has taken these several rides to get use to it. On flat asphalt, peddle assist 1 is too powerful and I have to take great care. Very little peddling is necessary. I like to move my legs so in these conditions I have been turning off peddle assist and just using the thumb throttle to give a kick when needed.
On the hills here in Tallahassee, peddle assist 1 is perfect. Big hills that would have caused me to dismount 20 years ago are just handled and no effort is involved.
I mostly have been riding on the Miccosukee Greenway Trail here in Tallahassee (details). I wanted to build up my experience and wanted to build up distances to see how far the battery would take me. I have been very concerned about getting stranded so I have been building up slowly.
My last ride was to be 14 miles. It was going great but about 7 miles into it and about 100 yards from my turn around point I got a flat tire. I had just come off a bridge and am pretty sure I caught a nail in the tire. The air came out as fast as it went in.
The good part was at 7 miles the battery was still reading full. This was after a ride that was half up and half down decent hills. I feel very confident that it should be able to do 20-30 miles on this type of terrain without killing the battery.
A couple of points:
- With an e-bike you do need to make sure you get the feel of the bike. It is different from a normal bike and can get away from you fast.
- I am still not comfortable enough to ride it in traffic. After a couple more rides I probably will be.
- The bike can go 20mph. This is too fast for me.
- The breaks work great. I have had to use them on the hills to keep from going too fast.
- I brought my bike to my local bike shop to take a look over it. I had been planning to do this and the flat tire moved the schedule up. They checked it out and everything was in good shape other than a few loose screws. I asked them to do a tune up and since it did not need one they just charged me a few dollars for labor over the cost for fixing the tire. Local bike shops are great.
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