popatop75

who repairs them, the eletrical and motors?? I know all bike shops tune up ect but the serious stuff who does if needed? i'm not a mechanic and want to buy a rad ebike but not sure if bike shops can repair the hard parts,,,, do motors just get thrown away ect thanks david

slomoshun

If you have a broken mail-order bike, don't expect to be pleasantly welcomed by a local bike shop. That story was told years ago with the Nashbar branded bikes. You might want to study up and be your own mechanic. Thinking positive, the odds are good that you won't have any serious trouble with the RAD system.

2old

+1; well stated; if you're going mail order find dealers who have a reputation of excellent product. AIR, RAD Power is respected highly.

Nelson37

Rad is a good product. BUT, unless you have some inexpensive way of shipping to China, you are mostly on your own. Many bike shops will not touch an ebike, period.

If you have a local dealer, and you want service there, then buy your product there. Buying online and expecting local service is generally not a good idea.

Most simple maintenance you can do yourself, advanced jobs your LBS is often happier if you remove the battery first, internal motor or battery issues are a matter for an electrician and not a bikeshop mechanic, and if you buy any of the proprietary systems out there, like Bionx, Bosch, many, many others, there are ZERO maintenance or repair options for much of the equipment other than total replacement, for truly staggering prices. Some are even specifically designed to make repair impossible, or that was their intent.

veganbikes

Generally those cheap e-bikes with various random hub drive or kit bb mounted ones need quite a bit more service then most regular e-bikes with Bosch, Brose or Shimano motors. It generally costs so much to repair and replace parts they aren't worth it in the end. FInd an e-bike dealer with a good reputation and selection and test ride some good stuff. Don't waste money on some online junk. Radpower is cheap for a reason and while it might be the less crappy online option they certainly aren't of much quality. If you only look at initial cost you will generally spend way more on down the line but if you buy something quality you are more likely to spend less on down the line and not have to bring it to a shop often for electrical service and likely also regular bike service (since the parts all around will be of better quality and likely be more durable or better put together).

If you need service and the shop is willing to do online e-bikes make sure you come out of the gate saying you are happy to pay a lot extra to get the work done and do all the leg work to find parts if they aren't easy to get and give them time to do the work. Working on those kit/online bikes is a time consuming process and takes time from helping our own customers.

erileykc

Spoken like a LBS stalwart which is certainly not a bad thing. I am curious if you've had some actual hands on with a Rad bike or if you're dissing the class of brown box off the UPS truck marketing model? I ask because I'm while I'm looking askance at the something for nothing element of the mail order bikes on the one hand at the same time I tried a Benno Boost electric short frame cargo at my LBS and was pretty underwhelmed. If aluminum frame short cargo bikes are going to require a lot of fussing with to get them usable ( the ride on the Benno was really stiff and the gear shifting clanked and clunked in unencouraging ways ) I'd rather have the $2k headstart that the Radwagon has over the Benno. No other bikes in that class that I've found.

2old

BTW, I based my recommendation on personal experience with a friend who has a Rad Power bike, reading reviews on this and other forums from individuals who own them and independent examination of the bikes by others. There is nothing esoteric about them since they use well-known motors and batteries. I doubt the detractor has any information except personal bias.

veganbikes

I do work in a shop where we do service and sales. I have put actual hands on a few RadPower bikes as have my mechanics and other folks in the shop. We have seen various issues with them from motor/wheel issues to simply not being assembled correctly. Also they use the less efficient hub drive motor on a cargo bike where you are loading down the rear wheel even more. A bad combination which leads to broken spokes. Also the shifting and braking is poor due to using cheaper components. Who would put cable actuated brakes on a bike designed to haul cargo and kids with a motor on it?

Over all the bike looks cheap and it looks like what it is a China e-bike kit slapped on a Yuba clone.

But hey, what do I know, I just work in an e-bike shop that has seen its share of RadPower and other quite similar kit bikes (and for a short dark time we even sold them) and have been in the bike industry for a while and am a bike nerd. Reading an online review is way better than actually seeing them in person and talking with riders of them and working on those bikes.

I have also ridden both Yuba Spicy Curries (the older TranzX motor and the superior Bosch one) and I have to say if I was going for a long tail, it would be that. However I might consider going for the Riese and Muller Load because I kind of dig the full suspension front loader idea and having ridden one of those I can say it rides quite well even with a fully grown adult in it (I have also ridden their larger Packster and an Urban Arrow and several Virtues). Anything with a Bosch motor is generally going to be super reliable and low maintenance at least concerning e-bike parts and the beauty is most shops will take in a Bosch motor whereas some of these kit bikes shops won't service because you cannot get parts easily and they are just trouble more often then not.

unterhausen

One of the reasons that mail order bikes are cheaper is because you are the one that does the support. It might be worth it to you to save that money. I would make sure there are people online that will help with issues for a brand I was interested in.

BiciMan

I've purchased all but one of my bikes form LBSs. The shop that sold me my BH electric closed in about a year, so where I got my bike mattered NOT. Fortunately, the main things have worked great and lasted on the bike, and the less-main things are standard things that I've learned/been able to do, or one or another good shop/mechanic has. Bleeding brakes and tubeless maintenance are the most complicated things I've needed, and that hasn't been hard, although removing the rear wheel is relatively complicated and expensive. I figure that the biggest challenge I'll face is replacing a battery, which will be as hard and expensive for any shop as it will be for me. With electrics, one challenge is that there still aren't many dealers around in most of the world, so if you like a particular make and model, who knows what your options are going to be, and in any event, how experienced that or any shop is going to be anyway.

BTW, that one online-purchased bike is my current favorite and I got it on ebay last year. It was a custom build that I couldn't have found elsewhere for a reasonable price. I took it to a shop I'd never been to -the only shop in the area that sold the brand, to have them unbox, "assemble", and examine it. They did it gladly for a very reasonable fee, and now they happily service it.

drowling23

I live in Russia so all the bikes are mail-order by definition. Generally there are two options for fixing these: you either do it yourself, which is easy for everything non-electrical; or, if your electrical parts are problematic, this really depends on what's going on. My Bosch 2nd gen motor developed a noisy bearing and I simply bought the bearings and the tools to replace them. But for anything complicated I'd have to go to another country to get it fixed.

nfmisso

I purchased my e-bike conversion kit and battery from Amazon, for my 1992 Trek 950. It is a 500W 36V front hub motor. I added a torque arm.

During the conversion, I also change to Avid SD5 V-brakes, replaced the rear wheel with one I had built earlier (Wheelmaster 40H MT1110 cartridge bearing cassette hub, Wheelsmith DB spokes and Velocity Areoheat rim), Schwalbe Big Ben 50-559 tires, Kenda TR tubes, USAMade 48T narrow-wide chain ring, Sunrace 8 speed 11-40 cassette, SRAM X7 RD. It was a 3x7 with Shimano components, now a 1x8.

I am using it as my primary commuting vehicle, 10 miles each way.

Planned upgrades: larger diameter wires for the battery to controller and controller to motor, shorten all the wires so that there is no excess, move controller to the front rack (Sunlite) and out of my rear panniers.

The hub motor is extremely simple, the bearings are the only moving parts, and they are a standard industrial cartridge bearing. Also in the hub are three Hall Effect Sensor; they either work or they don't, and the three phase wiring on the stator. If you dumped 100A into the phase wiring, it might burnout.

As far as the controller goes; a replacement is less than $40- on Amazon. It would cost far more than that to even open it up and look in side at bike shop rates.

The throttle is $15-, not repairable.

Nothing else is required, the power interrupting brake levers are nice, but not required. I did not even attach the PAS sensor, as I prefer to control by throttle only.

I had a very bad experience with a LBS selling me the wrong sized bike and not standing behind it when the rear wheel failed when I got back into biking after moving to CA almost ten years, and haven't been back since.

chalex

I purchased my Juiced CrossCurrent Air online and put it together myself (easy peasy) and then took it to the LBS for a tuneup a couple of weeks in. They didn't bat an eye; they have plenty of experience with various e-bikes; they sell several models. It's been in for a couple of more tuneups since. At my LBS the tuneup price is the same for most bikes; and the parts are mostly standard.

I had a brake lever failure and because it has the extra electrical cables; I contacted Juiced and they sent me the part and I replaced it myself. Certainly if something goes wrong with the motor or the battery or the torque sensor, the LBS will not be able to help much. But most of the rest of the bicycle is totally standard.

nfmisso

The person you see in the mirror when you are alone in the bathroom.

2old

Personally, I haven't had the opportunity to learn about repairing ebikes because there have been no problems with my direct-drive rear hub (YESCOM - some posters on endless sphere report in excess of 15,000 miles on the $200 kit) system used for errands or the BBS02 that my wife and I ride offroad.