To charge the battery pack, you have to take it out of the bike. It comes out easily, but this is quite annoying, given that you charge the bike pretty much every time you ride it (or, at least, you will be, with this small a pack). By modern terms, it’s a tiny system – only about 100WH (watt-hours) of capacity.
But I wasn’t looking for a free ride; I wanted the exercise, so I didn’t plan to make much use of the throttle. Still, it would be a good help for getting home if a rider became exhausted. Schwinn includes a battery charger with the bike, which plugs into any standard wall outlet you’d have in your home, apartment, or office. To take the battery out of the bike, use the included key to release it, then plug the charger into the battery and then into the wall.
Below, we offer suggestions based on your height, including one bike made specifically for tall riders. The controller is what you use to turn the motor on/off, select your level of assistance or throttle, mongoose bmx and monitor battery level. It even controls the integrated lights on some models. After leaving the cemetery, I pedaled a county road that unrolls over five hilltops with valleys in between.
One feature I liked was a secondary tab you need to retract to remove the battery. That way, when you unlock schwinn mountain bicycles the battery it doesn’t just fall out. Some thought was put into the idea there and I appreciated it.
On the downhills, I went to 0 assist and flew down, hitting 36 mph on one of them. In each case I pedaled unassisted part way up the next climb, moving to a numbered assist level only when gravity began to bite. As mentioned above, you do have to start pedaling to engage the electric assistance though you don’t have to pedal much to approach max speeds.
For open road riding with traffic you may hit 32 km/h regularly. Then cruising city streets the higher pedal assist and gears help you get up to the 20mph pedal assist limit. It’s easy to switch through the 7 gears with the twist or grip shift.
I am 5’7″ and the bike fit me fine with the seat post in the lowest position, so it’s likely riders slightly taller could also use this size. I had my 5’3″ daughter try the bike, and she found it too tall for her. There are a few things to know about the motor itself in action. First, if you stop pedaling, after a few seconds, the pedal assist will shut down — until you begin pedaling again, which will kick it back on. Second, when you brake, same thing — the juice cuts off. These things do take some getting used to, but with repeated tests became expected, second nature behaviors of the bike.
This pack weighs around 5.7 lbs which is less than half a pound more than the smaller 11.6 amp hour pack used on the Monroe 250 model. I love how it’s positioned low and center on the frame to improve stability and provide room for the bottle cage bosses and a space for you to lift and hang the frame on some car and bus racks. However, please do be careful of the wire brake line running along the base of the top tube if you try to lift this bike, because it could get snagged or rub into the frame and scratch it over time. Many of the other wires, for the electric assist and control systems, are internally routed through the frame.
After a few minutes it’s just like riding a normal bike. The up and down are mostly for adjusting the pedal assist levels up and down. The battery is a 288 watt-hour battery built with cells which takes about 4 hours to charge. Super powerful, it takes off like you can’t imagine! Love to walk around with it and pedestrians turn when we pass by.
That’s going to be easy with either of these e-bikes because of the wide open triangle and straight top tube. The bike is very well balanced front to rear and even has enough room inside the triangle for a bottle cage mount, which could also work for a folding lock, mini-pump, or other standard accessory. This is especially true if you add a rear rack or fenders because you’ll have to swing your leg even higher.