I took the WideWheel electric scooter on the ultimate off-road test

The Mercane WideWheel electric scooter has exploded in popularity this year. While most people use it as a powerful commuter scooter, I wanted to see what happens when you leave manicured asphalt paths and venture into the great outdoors. Check out my off road test video below and read on to hear how the adventure went.

The WideWheel electric scooter

I’ve had a Mercane WideWheel electric scooter for nearly six months now and have enjoyed it thoroughly. If you saw my original Mercane WideWheel review here on Electrek, then you’ll know how pleased I’ve been with it.

The dual 500 W motors and the comically wide wheels make it a great commuter scooter. And with a top speed of 25 mph (45 km/h), it will get you where you’re going quickly.

It doesn’t have the longest travel suspension I’ve seen, but it still works at smoothing out the road and prevents vibrations from traveling to your hands and feet. FluidFreeRide, the sole distributor for the WideWheel in the US, has even been working to make the fun scooter even better with recent upgrades to the Generation 2 WideWheel scooter.

As much as I’ve enjoyed the scooter, I’ve mostly only commuted on it. That has left me wondering why I was sticking to smooth bike lanes and streets all the time. With a scooter this powerful and nimble, it seemed like a shame not to give it a more intense test in the wild.

So that’s what I did.

And what I found is that even though the WideWheel isn’t really meant for the trails, it does surprisingly well when the road runs out.

The WideWheel electric scooter doesn’t have pneumatic tires like most scooters. Instead, its tires are solid rubber. While that would make the ride pretty harsh on any other scooter, the dual swingarm suspension of the WideWheel makes up for the lack of air in the tires. And that adds one huge benefit for off-road: no worries about tire punctures.

I was riding over sharp rocks, sticks, thorns, and all sorts of perils that would normally make me think twice about leaving home without a spare inner tube. But with the Mercane WideWheel, I could just laugh as I rode through a thorn bush or hit the edge of a 2×4 that would surely have caused a pinch flat in any of my other bikes or scooters.

The wide wheels also gave me plenty of traction on all sorts of different types of terrain. The tread isn’t terribly aggressive – remember that the tires are really meant for the road. But because the wheels are so wide, what the tires lack in knobs they make up for in sheer surface area. Loose dirt and gravel are both definitely doable thanks to the extra large contact patch that keep you up on top of the earth and not sinking down into it like narrower wheels would.

I took my Widewheel electric scooter over all sorts of varied terrain from forest trails to grassy fields to nature walks and boardwalks. You name it, I rode it. And so far I simply have yet to find something it can’t handle.

The power of the dual motors seems to help it get out of just about anything, though ironically the power sometimes can be an issue if you’re too throttle happy in loose conditions.

If you have a heavy foot, err… thumb, then the wheels can sometimes spin if you try to accelerate too quickly. I’m a fairly lightweight rider though, at 155 lb (70 kg) so that could make the effect more pronounced for me. But it goes to show that the scooter has more than enough power and you definitely need to modulate the throttle carefully in loose off-road conditions. This is absolutely not like a Lime or Bird electric scooter where you just mash the throttle down all the way and wait for it to accelerate. The WideWheel scooter accelerates like crazy if you give it full throttle.

So I found that the Widewheel is really a great off-road electric scooter. The Mercane WideWheel electric scooter isn’t cheap at around $1,000 and there are definitely more affordable, lower power electric scooters out there. But you aren’t going to be taking a 250 W electric scooter onto terrain like this!