Revv 1 E-Bike Review: Super Fun, Not Super Practical
E-Bikes
Speaker 1: This awesome monster of a bike is the rev one from Ride one up. It's an electric bike that's designed to look more like a moped. It features front and rear suspension along with a very large and comfortable seat to make riding feel smooth and this bike is just as powerful as you'd expect reaching speeds of over 30 miles per hour. The rev one is a super fun ride, but it isn't super practical for everyday use. Let me tell you why
Speaker 1: [00:00:30] The rev one is a really fun bike with a ton of cool features. It has both front and rear lights that turn on when the battery is engaged and you do that by pressing the power button on the bottom of the left handlebar. That rear light even illuminates brighter when either of the brakes are pressed. That front light can also be brighter by pressing the same power button. From there, you can then toggle the lights beam up and down using this switch over on the right side. Handlebar under that toggle is another switch that controls the turning signals placed at the front and rear [00:01:00] of the bike. Beside the front headlight and part of the rear taillight are two horizontal yellow blinking lights that can be activated by pressing this switch either left or right. I haven't tested an e-bike with turning signals, so this is pretty unique in my experience.
Speaker 1: Under that switch is a horn button that is really loud back on the left handle bar. Hidden underneath the power button is a secret USB port while the battery is on, pressing the M button will push power to this port and let you charge a device. This is super useful for those who have a phone [00:01:30] mount and want to use Google Maps or Pokemon Go while riding ride one up sent me their standard phone mount. That kind of vice grips your phone into position and while my phone does feel secure in this, the worry Wharton me wishes something was holding the top of my phone as well. Ride one UPS phone mount runs for $24. Now let's talk about that gorgeous two-tone L C D display. This is probably the nicest looking display I've seen on an e-bike. You turn it on by holding down the power button on the handlebars left side.
Speaker 1: The large number in the middle is your current speed and the left [00:02:00] side shows your current pedal assist. You can adjust those by pressing the plus and minus buttons above the power button. Holding down the minus button will enable the bike's walk mode, which helps rep propel the bike uphills. If you're not riding it under the current speed is a distance section which automatically toggles between an odometer and your trip length. Next to that is a speed section which toggles between your ride's average and max speeds. The top right corner shows remaining battery. This rev one unit is the full suspension option, so it features front and rear suspension, 24 by four [00:02:30] inch E moped fat tires. It also comes with front and rear fenders and a kickstand right on up also sells a separate $100 storage cage that fits into the center gap of the bike. This is useful for carrying extra stuff with you. Since you can't attach a standard bicycle rear rack to the rev one, it attaches to these four screws located on top of the motor. These screws are also positioned so that you can fit other accessories like a water bottle holder.
Speaker 1: The biggest question about this bike is how should you ride it. [00:03:00] The rev one is a single gear E-bike with five levels of pedal assist. A while back, my coworker Logan reviewed Segway's C 80 E moped where he figured that the inclusion of pedals allowed the C 80 to not require similar restrictions to a gas-powered moped and I think that's what's happening here. I don't find the pedals on the rev one very comfortable to use. My legs can't extend far enough for me to actually get much power out of them and as a result, pedaling feels like I'm riding a bike meant for a kid or one that's too small for me, but I know it's not an issue [00:03:30] with the bike's frame size because the height range on the rev one is five two to six foot four and I'm six feet exactly. With that said, I'm glad that the rev one comes with a throttle and that's pretty much what I use exclusively when riding this bike.
Speaker 1: By twisting the right side handlebar, the throttle is engaged and takes off quite smoothly and suddenly, so in that regard, I'm pretty much treating this bike like a moped. However, I find the pedals position my feet a little too far back, so I'm not as comfortable as I could be if my feet were more forward. The bike seat is a special cafe [00:04:00] style saddle so you can scooch back in order to straighten your legs more, but then you'll have to lean over more to reach the handlebars. There isn't a perfect option. I haven't tried it myself, but you might even be able to fit two people on this seat. Just keep in mind that ride one up says this bike's max weight load is 400 pounds. All things considered, even though I don't use the pedals that much, they're a nice backup if the battery runs out. However, pedaling, this is kind of rough since you probably won't be able to use the full force of your legs and the bike is so heavy
Speaker 1: [00:04:30] Whether you're pedaling and using the assist or just relying on the throttle. The bike has a couple different speed options. Ride one up shifts the rev one pre-programmed as a class two E-bike allowing for speeds of up to 20 miles per hour. However, the bike has an off-road class three mode that is enabled through the display and unlocks speeds of over 30 miles per hour. This is one of the reasons this bike is so fun to ride. This bike is huge and so is that battery. The rev one has a massive 52 [00:05:00] volt, 20 amp hour battery powering a 750 watt geared hub buffing motor ride one up advertises that this will get you around 30 to 60 miles on a single charge, but the range varies based on how much assist you're using. In my case, this is the longest running battery I've experienced while riding since I don't normally use the throttle as often as I do with the rev one, but it's not surprising since this is also the biggest and heaviest e-bike battery I've spent time with. You charge that battery by flipping up this cap on the side and plugging it in. On the other [00:05:30] side is the keyhole to unlock the battery from the bike. Then you can slide off this huge unit if you want to charge it elsewhere or store it separately. Near the front of that side is a battery level indicator year.
Speaker 1: The rev one sits in a weird middle ground between bike and moped. It weighs 93 pounds, which is very heavy if you live in a tiny walk up like me and you have to store your bike inside your apartment. This is a tough sell With the amount of space this guy took up while I made this review, [00:06:00] it probably owes me a month's worth of rent. However, since it is technically still a bicycle with pedals, you can't just leave it outside without chaining it to something. A standard moped won't work without the key in the ignition so you have more options on where to park it, but someone could just pedal away with the rev one whether the battery is attached or not. The size also makes locking it to standard bike stands a bit more awkward since it won't fit everywhere and takes up so much space.
Speaker 1: On top of that, the speed you can achieve on this thing almost makes using bike lanes feel unwanted since you're moving [00:06:30] so fast to them. Even if you were riding slowly, the bike still looks like a motorcycle, which should be on the road with the cars and this all gets accentuated since pedaling. This bike is uncomfortable and I prefer to just use the throttle everywhere I go. This leads to a funny visual where I try to ride mainly in the vehicle lane, but I can only go around 30 miles an hour yet I'm riding something that looks like it should be as fast as a motorcycle. Now let's talk about pricing. The Rev one retails for $2,400, which is around the higher end of standard E-bikes, but I feel like you're getting more [00:07:00] than standard features with this bike. It comes in the graphite gray I have or a Moss Green option.
Speaker 1: As mentioned before, my model has full suspension, but ride one up also sells a hard tail variant. That one retails for $1,900 and doesn't have the rear suspension. It also has slightly different tires and a slightly smaller battery. I personally feel if you're already thinking of dropping two grand on an e-bike that you splurge a bit and get the full suspension model. I've had a ton of fun riding around on the rev one and reaching speeds. I've never hit [00:07:30] on a bike or e-bike before. It has a ton of cool features in that handlebar, including the USB port, all the different lights and that gorgeous display screen. It's hard to compare this to a typical e-bike since it's so much closer to an electric moped, but even then it falls short of some of the features you'd expect from something in that category. I'm very happy I got to try this thing out and had a lot of fun zooming around, but I don't know how practical it actually is. If you're interested in more e-bike coverage, there's a playlist full of it and it's somewhere on the screen right now. [00:08:00] Thanks so much for watching.
