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RadTrike Electric Tricycle

radpowerbikes.com

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Re: RadTrike Electric Tricycle

#131

Post by stevenwoo »

dohdhdaa wrote: post #52

I am a decently experienced NYC cyclist. Not Terry Barentsen or anything, but pretty decent at biking both in fitness terms and in practical urban NYC riding. The biggest problem with e-bikers, and general e-thing riders, as a population, is that they haven’t built the bike skills equivalent to the speed that they can go at. I can ride 20mph if I want to, but it took a long time for me to be able to do that. I had to…

There was a recent case that made me think it was just inexperience with speed on an ebike, some of the canyons in southern California are pretty scary even if you are used to racing due to having to worry about a car in the wrong lane on every blind corner or cars pulling out from driveways no matter what a cyclist is doing. The company's defense is no one under the age of 18 is suppose to use these.

https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Family/parents-file-lawsuit-bike-...

Re: RadTrike Electric Tricycle

#132

Post by pimlottc »

blamazon wrote: post #32
cialowicz wrote: post #29

I recently learned about The Villages, FL, which is a sprawling retirement community, and was the fastest growing metro area in the US over the past decade [0]. This feels like the perfect bike for an aging demographic living in that sort of community. This sort of e-bike will be less intimidating to use for older people, and ultimately it feels like a good move for the company. It's hard to argue with getting more p…

Smaller than The Villages, is Peachtree City outside of Atlanta, which is notable for making off-street micromobility pathways a priority in city planning: (relative to the rest of the suburban US) https://www.peachtree-city.org/DocumentCenter/View/17110/Pat... (If the map looks a little weird, it's because there's a zillion unofficial paths to connect the dots) They've rallied around golf carts historically but it's…

Tom Scott did a nice video about Peachtree City:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcVGqtmd2wM

Re: RadTrike Electric Tricycle

#133

Post by 13of40 »

rednerrus wrote: post #94
gorgoiler wrote: post #3

My 2021 radrunner plus has some serious defects. The charging port is prone to weather corrosion. Charging is a risky action that may or may not blow some very sensitive fuses. The mechanical disc brakes suck and are very hard to balance. The discs were supplied warped. I pretty much had to suck that up because of the misery of returning a faulty machine to an online bike company. The seat is a notorious bum numbing…

I'll chime in that my battery died around 500 miles and Rad refused to replace it. Would not recommend.

My only complaint against them is I tried to buy a battery tray from them so I could swap the battery between my Rad City and my 48v homebrew bike, and they refused to sell it to me. (Edit: To be clear I went back a couple of months later, told a different story, and got one.)

I also had a battery charging issue after 1000 miles and a winter where it got unplugged from the charger for a couple of months, but I count that as my mistake. I got to take apart the old battery pack though, and one interesting thing I found was that although the power output has half a dozen electrodes on it, only the two big + and - ones were connected to anything.

Re: RadTrike Electric Tricycle

#134

Post by hackmiester »

nomel wrote: post #97
mgrthrow wrote: post #39

Electric bikes are an order of magnitude more efficient than cars and several times more efficient than bikes. (Measured as calories/electrical power). People who ride electric bikes still get the benefits of exercise (elevated heart rate, muscle use) though obviously less than regular biking. I ride mine year round in Seattle, it's incredible. I deliver cargo, go grocery shopping, visit the library. This should be t…

Where I am, it's illegal for bicyclists to ride on the sidewalk, so you're left with a couple of feet of space beyond the white line, in the unprotected shoulder, with a speed difference of around 30mph, and often a curb to make sure you eat it if you're pushed beyond. With the number of people I've seen weave into the shoulder, biking being the default would be a blood bath.

Personally, I just illegally ride on the sidewalk. It's unenforced, and it's easy to stop and walk the bike when you see a pedestrian. (Which is even more rare than another cyclist.)

Re: RadTrike Electric Tricycle

#135

Post by anonporridge »

steelframe wrote: post #123
nomel wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I am, it's illegal for bicyclists to ride on the sidewalk, so you're left with a couple of feet of space beyond the white line, in the unprotected shoulder, with a speed difference of around 30mph, and often a curb to make sure you eat it if you're pushed beyond. With the number of people I've seen weave into the shoulder, biking being the default would be a blood bath.

> biking being the default would be a blood bath The theory I've heard is that cyclists being on the road is only a problem when it's the exception. When it's rare, motorists aren't expecting it and are driving in a way that doesn't accommodate it. If cycling were "the default," motorist behavior would be very different because everyone would be expecting it.

The problem is that the main way to change this is for a critical mass of self sacrificing individuals to choose to put themselves in harms way in order to shift the expectations of drivers.

Re: RadTrike Electric Tricycle

#137

Post by ralusek »

I have a Rad Mini 4. Would not recommend. The chain popped off on my first ride on flat ground, had to be fixed by a technician. More recently, the bike just turns off (pretty frequently) mid ride with nearly full battery.

Re: RadTrike Electric Tricycle

#138

Post by nomel »

hackmiester wrote: post #134
nomel wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I am, it's illegal for bicyclists to ride on the sidewalk, so you're left with a couple of feet of space beyond the white line, in the unprotected shoulder, with a speed difference of around 30mph, and often a curb to make sure you eat it if you're pushed beyond. With the number of people I've seen weave into the shoulder, biking being the default would be a blood bath.

Personally, I just illegally ride on the sidewalk. It's unenforced, and it's easy to stop and walk the bike when you see a pedestrian. (Which is even more rare than another cyclist.)

> It's unenforced

This is false, depending on the region.

Re: RadTrike Electric Tricycle

#139

Post by brandall10 »

Gigachad wrote: post #108
mgrthrow wrote: post #39

Electric bikes are an order of magnitude more efficient than cars and several times more efficient than bikes. (Measured as calories/electrical power). People who ride electric bikes still get the benefits of exercise (elevated heart rate, muscle use) though obviously less than regular biking. I ride mine year round in Seattle, it's incredible. I deliver cargo, go grocery shopping, visit the library. This should be t…

The problem with ebikes is they cost several thousand dollars and are impossible to secure against battery powered grinders. Cars are relatively hard to steal, and regular bikes are relatively cheap to replace. Escooters are so popular probably because it's so much easier to bring them inside and on elevators unlike this clunky trike.

I've put 250 miles in Manhattan on my E-TWow Booster V over the past 3 months... even lock it up outside with little worry. No one cares, it looks like nothing (yes, I tested this out in sketchy areas watching with a careful eye in cafes I was working out of, not a single person gave it a glance).

Cost $850... goes 23mph, weighs 25 lbs, has about 12 miles of range. Aside from not being usable in the rain, it's the perfect vehicle.

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