E-Bikes!

Apparently MANY of you ordered them too. There was month delay on the RadRover, and even longer for the RadRover Step-Thru. Delays are even longer at the time I'm posting this, but IT IS WORTH THE WAIT! Every time I take mine for a ride, I have a big grin like a kid on Christmas day.

I grew up riding my bike just about everywhere. Even after I finally got my first truck, I've always had a bike. I've hauled them on cross country trips, allowing exporation where I couldn't drive to, and too far to walk.

But, I'm getting older, and so is my body. I have osteoarthritis, foot nueropathy, and diabetes. While I'd love to be able to ride a conventional bike on 20 mile plus rides, it's no longer feasiable. But technology has advanced, and while some may consider it "cheating", I don't care! I guess the same comment could be said about a bike with gears, versus an old penny-farthing bike. I'm just keeping up with the times.

The two bikes we ordered have gears, and pedals. The onboard display allows various levels of pedal assist from 1-5. It has a twist throttle too if you run out of steam. Most people find that even with pedal assist, they get a lot of exercise. They tend to travel further and longer, and still pedal. Sure beats sitting on the couch telling yourself "I can't...". Now you can. RadRover 5. Manufacturer's webpage here. This one is for me. RadRover Step-Thru 1. Manufacturer's webpage here. This one for my wife. I actually contemplated getting me one of these too, but I'm still limber enough to use the traditional step over type.

Assembly and Solar Power

Rad Power Bikes only ships FedEx. Lots of complaints in the forums about their delivery experience. They wanted somone home for a signature, but kept changing the dates/times of when it would be delivered. But eventually it was here.	Some boxes arrive beat up, mine had minimal damage. The bike is fairly well packed and padded in the box.
Some assembly required. I used basic hand tools, including some metric wrenches, alen wrenches, and an adjustable wrench to attach the pedals. The instructions call for a pedal wrench, and a torque wrench. Honestly, not required. If you've ever assembled a kid's bike, this isn't much more complicated. Rad's online assembly videos make this an easy task for the average DIYer.	All done. Battery came with a partial charge, so of course I had to test it around the block.
A Class 2 bike must not exceed 20 MPH on flat ground. You "can" go into a hidden menu to increase the top speed to around 25 MPH, but I won't bother. Not much faster, and could get a ticket. Some places do check.	A month later, my wife's bike arrived.
I have about 1KW of solar panels on the roof. They are connected to an 800AH battery bank, and inverters to make 120VAC. The power is used in my garage/workshop, and our office. It's also tied into various critica systems when the grid goes down.	The bikes will be charged via solar exclusively when we are home. Each bike has an onboard 48V 14AH LiPo battery pack. It takes roughly 6 hours to fully charge a depleted battery with the included chargers.

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