brendan halpin

I saw someone mention that Ocean State Job Lot, where I go for bargain priced seltzer, jam, and nuts, was selling a Bird ebike for 800 bucks with a 400 dollar coupon. (400 bucks buys a lot of seltzer! 50 cases at current prices!) So I went for it.

Now, this was a gamble because Bird (you may know them from the annoying electric scooters people leave scattered on the sidewalk) got out of the ebike business a couple years ago. So this is surplus inventory with zero customer support. But I’ve been researching ebikes for a while, and I knew I was never going to see this kind of bargain again. (Or so I thought! Ocean State Job Lot now has an even better deal on Huffy ebikes!)

I’ve learned a lot about what I do and do not want in an ebike from having one, and a lot of this stuff isn’t really covered in reviews (literally every YouTube review of an ebike is the same), so I’d like to share what I’ve learned.

First, my situation. I live in the city of Boston. My work is 2 and a half miles from home, and a regular (or, as some people call them, “acoustic,” which I love) bike works just fine for this purpose.

Except that I live about ¾ of the way up a very steep hill. It’s doable, but it’s never fun. And so I often don’t take my bike for errands around the neighborhood because I can’t face the prospect of taking on that hill, especially if I’ve already done it once that day.

So the biggest reason I got an ebike was to try to replace some car trips with bike trips. I figured if the hill wasn’t a big deal, I’d be more likely to take the bike instead of the car. I was right! The hill is a breeze! Even in low levels of pedal assist, when I’m still working to move the bike, I’m moving at 10mph instead of 3! Game changer! But there’s more.

This thing is SO FUN. It’s so fun to ride I want to ride it all the time. I’d be on it right now if I could.

On my first day with the ebike, my daughter forgot her lunch. I was working from home, so I said I would take it to her. Her workplace is about six miles away, and so I’d normally take the car even though I hate driving. But I took the bike and it a) was fun and not horribly exhausting even though it was a very hot day and b) got me there in the same amount of time it would have taken me in the car. So I just feel like the ebike has given me much more freedom. Now I can not only do errands in my neighborhood, but I also have a fun and fast way to get to things between 5 and 10 miles away, which I normally wouldn’t do on a bike. I can’t totally give up the car, but I can now use it a lot less. Good for the planet, good for my bank account!

Some specifics about this model that might be helpful to you when thinking about your own bike. It weighs 51 pounds. And I have 35 steps from my house to the street. This is about the upper weight limit for me. It’s a very heavy bike, and, like I said, it’s lightweight by ebike standards. Something to be aware of if you’ve gotta carry a bike up stairs.

It has a Gates belt drive, which means no chain grease. This is especially helpful when I’m hauling it up or down the stairs because I don’t have to worry about getting grease on my clothes! It also means no gears (though you can get bikes with a belt drive an internal hub gearing). This was a positive for me because derailleurs are fiddly and have caused me a lot of problems over the years, so I’m happy to not deal with this maintenance issue. This is fine for hills because I can just increase or decrease the pedal assist. It’s not great on flat areas because the bike is geared in such a way that I can’t pedal fast enough to actually do any of the work. Even in pedal assist 1, the bike is doing 100% of the work on flat terrain. I’m just moving the pedals to keep the motor engaged.

This bike has a 500watt rear hub motor. That is plenty powerful to move me and this heavy ass bike. It’s got a cadence sensor, which means there’s a slight lag from when I start pedaling to when the motor kicks in. It also sometimes feels like the bike is in charge at low speeds. It takes some getting used to. I assume a torque sensor and a mid-drive motor would be smoother and better, but this setup really isn’t bad once you get used to it, especially for the price.

This is a class 2 ebike, which means it tops out at 20 miles per hour. This may be a hot take, but I don’t think you should be riding a class 3 (which goes to 28mph) in the city anyway. Especially in bike lanes. Even at 20mph, I’ve got less time to react to something like a little kid toddling off the sidewalk and into the bike lane. I think 28mph is going to shorten your reaction time so much as to actually be dangerous in an urban environment. If you live out in the country and want to power through ten miles of rural roads to get to town, a class 3 is probably preferable, but I just don’t think they’re safe in the city. Unless, I guess, you’re riding in the middle of the street all the time.

Now, there’s the exercise question. I’m definitely getting way less exercise on the ebike than on my regular bike. BUT because of the aforementioned fun factor and ease of getting up hills, I’m using it more often. I suspect it might be a wash in terms of actual number of calories burned, but I think it’s helpful to think of this as a solution to a transportation problem rather than a solution to a “I need more exercise” problem. It’s nice that regular bikes can do both, but the fact that it can be a lot of work riding a bike means that most people won’t ride a regular bike as much as they will ride an ebike.

One note—this particular bike makes a kind of annoying noise when you pedal. Something having to do with the bottom bracket or something. Apparently it’s pretty common in Bird bikes. I can tune it out, in part because the bike was so cheap, but it’s just something to be aware of. It’s a small annoyance that would have infurated me if I’d paid the original price of $2k (!) for this bike, but something I can totally live with for 800 bucks with 50 cases of seltzer included.

Here’s the bike I got. I got the step-thru because short. For you taller folks, there’s a diamond frame model too. You’ve gotta pick it up at Ocean State Job Lot, so if you’re not in New England, New Jersey, New York, or Pennsylvania, you’re out of luck, though I think Wal-Mart sells these too.