Thursday, October 13, 2016

E-Joe Epik SE Review - Several Weeks In


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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