Started as a ride1up roadster v2, I went a little crazy. The brand had genuinely amazing customer service and their tech guys even recommended modifications and replaced the one thing that failed out of warranty with next day overnight shipping, and were willing to sell me a new motor core at-cost for like $90 when I thought I might have burnt it out swapping the belt system. When they recommended what I use to ream the seat tube for that titanium post, they told me "all this voids is the warranty for the seat tube. We'll still cover everything else" and they also gave me a nice 10% discount for being a first responder and a $100 gift card for jokingly mentioning in an email that I'd accidentally sold them two more roadsters to fellow commuters, and let me save it for almost 2 years before using. Good folks. I switched to urtopia for a carbon frame and I kinda regret it. Great bike, shady company
Everything steel I could replace with titanium I did because the bike got hung off the back of a Seattle fast ferry every day. That and boeshield t9 and this is what it looked like after two years of spending an hour a day basically dunked in salt water.
Knockoff Brooks real leather saddle, tito titanium (also shout out to those guys, amazing customer service) post. Tito titanium stem, pedals, alt bars, Kool stop pads and tektro levers, sks fenders to fit the ferry racks (it first had a handmade hammered copper read fender I made for about a year but it cracked because I forgot to anneal it after I made it) and I converted it from a kinda no-name belt system to a gates myself.
It was a super fun build. Final weight was 29lbs, with about 18 miles of practical range. Kinda wish I had put it back to stock and kept a lot of the titanium parts but I eventually switched to a core 5 from the company that served me like a tank too until I moved for med school and the wife took it when she left.
Overall I loved it to death but my commute had a horrible, awful 19% hill and a single speed 350w was just not enough. I would totally go for the new model with a normal cassette, disks and torque sensor though. It rode like a normal bike with motor off, but single speed around Seattle is for fitness I ain't ever reaching.
by Gobbelcoque
29 Comments
This is not xbiking. This is consumerist e waste . Op glad you like your bike, maybe find an e bike forum
This is sick!
I generally love the idea of e bikes, but looks wise they lack far behind bio bikes imo.
But not this one Everything looks so fitting.
Really good balance between functionalism, minimalism and talismanic parts.
Had one of these that I used for a ~2mile work commute in the city. Served me great and never had any issues! Made me fall in love with belt drives. Had a front basket on it that held a six pack perfectly lol
Bought it used for $550 and sold it three years later for $500 w/ a new belt.
Genuine question: how is a bike with an 18 mile practical range at all practical? Especially as an “x-bike”. How hard is it to pedal without the motor? 29 pound bike on a single speed with extra resistance sounds miserable.
Your build looks sweet! Love that swept-back seatpost, your pedals and those bars.
What bars are those!?!?… drop us a link. They appear like a flat-bar version of Surly Corner Bars with 0 rise? I want them.
*Your story illustrates the conundrum I see with ebikes: they’re generally not built for a lifetime of repairability compared to 80’s and 90’s ATBs due to difficult support scenarios and throw-away proprietary parts (motors, controllers, frames, lights, batteries) from companies that don’t tend to stick around. I’m more of a fan of Bosch mid-drive stuff since those parts are from a known entity and are well-supported.*
Gates open, come on in. If a little motor assist is what it takes to have folks commuting more by bike than car, that’s a win in my book.
Teens doing tricks on their e-motos, riding in opposite direction of traffic, etc. is a self-correcting problem, unfortunately.
This looks great and it’s nice to hear that maybe their customer service is better now. I bought an e-bike from them a few years ago and had the worst customer service experience I’ve had in 43yrs of being alive. The owner specifically was absolutely insane. I made a post about it on Reddit and him and multiple employees commented, lying about what happened. I found out that there were tons of other customers with similar experiences to mine. The owner of the company also would reply to posts on some of the Ride1up owners groups on Facebook. He would never answer when people would ask him if he had some kind of affiliation with the company and just acted like he was some random person. It was incredibly shady. He was really unhinged, at one point threatening to sue me in small claims court because I was trying to get a full refund on a defective bike. Absolute scumbag
I was going to convert a Smegma Petscare since I’ve scrapped a few ebikes and have spare motors/batteries, but the Smegma thing was a scam lol
https://preview.redd.it/ngyc02wmth7h1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=235f3d524282926841949f42d21354a49c013c00
Here’s my build! Don’t understand the hate on e-bikes. They’re a tool. Beats a car
I dig it. Any bike that makes you want to reach for it rather than a vehicle is a win in my book.
You mean motorcycles? As in cycles with motors 😄
4 wheels bad 2 wheels good
Sick bars! What are those bars?!?!
Love this. I’m thinking my next build will be an ebike. Trying to figure out the best way to conceal a battery. You said knockoff brooks saddle, what saddle do you have and how do you like it?
If they look that good, I love it because – to be clear – that looks fantastic!
I like to see people get out and enjoy, so it’s whatever. A lot of the fast group rides in my area welcome e-bikes to be part of the ride to get the person that normally wouldn’t be able to keep up out there and riding. They also teach trail etiquette which is the only true problem I have with the DUI cruisers in my area, which is all just lack of education and has literally nothing to do with the bike itself.
I personally wouldn’t own an e-bike, but I’ll never talk shit about someone that’s enjoying themselves outside and being active. Nobody else should either.
Love them, more please
Looks like a well loved single-speed conversion, which is a good vibe. Is this E-xbiking?
I prefer acoustic bikes, but this is looking pretty fly
Modded bikes are awesome, electric or not!
*
Yes more. Mine was stolen and returned, but the customer never came back to get it so it was free. Better brakes w/adapters, dropper post, front wheel, rack, bigger tires, straightened out the dropouts and voilà. Most of the parts were free/traded or on major discount so I’ve only put about 100 bucks into it. I’m thinking of putting a front fork on it just for shits and giggles.
looks sweet, just carry on!
r/exbiking
Obligatory
What brand model handlebar is that?
https://preview.redd.it/35h14zsqti7h1.jpeg?width=5712&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7e9fb6008f21467e4a8bcefe755ba8bea4c98472
Surly open bars, dropper post for city riding, Ultradynamico mars up front, MKS pedals.
Cool mobility scooter ya got there.
I agree with hill assist function of them, not so much the nyooming. But it’s a clean job, not a battery with a mess of wires, so I like it.