review

As much fun as e-bikes are for getting around the city, I love taking them off-road and onto trails. That’s where fat tires really come alive, and the Denago Fat Tire Step-Thru electric bike showcases just what I love about e-bikes with big honkin’ tires.

It’s not that we haven’t seen our fair share of some weirdly named e-bikes before, but there’s something confusing about an electric bike named after an engine. I know that technically motors and engines can be the same thing, but it still feels weird to associate engines with e-bikes in American English. I’ll give Engwe a pass on the confusing and barely pronounceable name for the Engwe Engine Pro electric bike for the sole reason that it’s actually quite a good deal when you consider the performance to dollar ratio here.

Aventon significantly expanded its market reach when the company rolled out its first Aventure e-bike in 2021. Now the brand has updated the hot-selling e-bike with key upgrades. And of course we made sure to get an early look at the bike to tell you exactly how it looks, feels, and rides. Check out my complete review of the Aventon Aventure.2 below.

The RadTrike is the first consumer-focused electric three-wheeler from Rad Power Bikes, the largest e-bike company in North America. It’s designed to make e-biking more accessible to a wider range of riders, especially older riders, and it sure fits that bill. After testing the trike I can tell you that there’s a lot to like here, though I’ve also got a few critiques in areas I would have liked to have seen changed.

HeyBike has built a name for itself over the last year or two with a growing number of low-cost electric bikes. And while the brand can’t hope to compete on reputation with the US market’s major players, it sure can compete on price. Meet the $1,299 HeyBike Cityrun electric bike.

This year was jam-packed with all sorts of fun electric bikes, e-scooters, electric four-wheelers, and other hard-to-classify electric vehicles.

While many e-bikes and other light electric vehicles follow a familiar formula, these are some of the weirdest and most out-of-the-box personal electric vehicles that I had the opportunity to test this year.

If you’re between the ages of 25 to 50, the name “Razor scooter” likely brings with it a certain nostalgia, the flavor of which may depend on whether you associate it with the childhood freedom of cruising the neighborhood or the unforgettable sound of aluminum on ankle bone. But now both are possible again with a modern twist thanks to Razor’s introduction of an electric scooter based on its classic design. I’ve had some fun by riding, testing, and crashing the new Razor Icon electric scooter over the last few weeks, and now it’s time to tell you what I think.

The FREY CC Fat is the latest evolution of FREY Bike’s popular CC model. What started out as a full-suspension commuter bike gained fat tires earlier this year to turn into a dual-use commuter and trail bike. But this is no ordinary full-suspension fat-tire bike. Instead, it comes loaded with high-quality parts and a ridiculously powerful motor.

The Eunorau G30 Cargo may not stand out that much from many of the other cargo e-bikes on the market, at least not at first glance. But check out just how many nice little hidden features you get here for the price!

The lowest-priced EV in the US is somehow also one of the best. Now in its sixth year, the Bolt EV is also seasoned, having worked through a battery fiasco/recall and significant lapses by GM’s decision-makers while receiving modest but significant updates.

With a clean bill of health, the Bolt is now a huge outlier in bang-for-buck. But the 2023 Bolt is also quick, fun to drive, useful, and often more so than cars twice its price. In fact, I think we should be looking to the diminutive Bolt as the future of transportation.

Prices for full-suspension electric moped-style e-bikes have been dropping over the last few years, but the Fucare Libra is now pushing them to all-time lows. At just $1,299, does this full-suspension e-bike have what it takes?

That’s exactly what I wanted to find out, so I tested one myself.

I’ll just come out and say it: I love full-suspension electric scooters. They take a fairly small and compact EV form factor and make it possible to travel at faster speeds over rougher terrain without shaking your teeth out, and the Evolv Terra electric scooter from Urban Machina is another great addition to this rapidly growing market. While the scooter isn’t perfect, it packs in a lot of great features for a fair price.

Electric skateboards are often overlooked in the broader micromobility ecosystem, but they’re tons of fun as both commuter EVs and recreational rides. The Tynee Mini 2 brings affordable electric shortboards to the masses, and is even more convenient than a bulky electric longboard.

Electric motorcycles are my jam. If I’m on two wheels and it’s not a bicycle, then odds are I’m on an electric motorcycle. I don’t ride them because they’re clean or green, though those are nice side benefits – I ride them because they’re fun and enjoyable. They’re infinitely better than sitting in a car watching the world go by through glass. And the ownership experience is so much nicer than gas motorcycles due to their greatly reduced maintenance, lower cost of ownership, lack of vibrating cacophony, and a laundry list of other reasons.

My love of these awesome e-motos has put me in a unique position of having ridden pretty much every one of them out there.

Yeah, I thought the same that you did when I first started covering the Babymaker 2. Here’s a new e-bike from some bike bros that’s got more of a provocative name than actual substance.

But I was wrong. Because after getting the chance to spin the pedals on the Babymaker 2 and put some good honest miles on the bike, I realized that this is actually a very nice e-bike for a certain segment of the population. And not just the keg stand segment.

Black Friday update: it is now priced at $1,499!

The Himiway Big Dog is a new “cargo” bike from Himiway, a popular electric bike brand that has expanded its product line considerably over the last year. While I’m not sure this bike qualifies as a true cargo bike by most definitions, it’s definitely a fun little utility e-bike that cruises more like a mini-moped.

Fat tire electric bikes are all over the place these days. Full-suspension fat tire e-bikes are a bit rarer. But full-suspension fatties that can hit 30 mph (48 km/h) on throttle-only riding – that’s a unicorn right there. But that’s exactly what the KKBike K26S offers.

The electric unicycle crowd is a pretty passionate one. It’s not rare to see you folks in my comment section, lecturing me about how your EUC goes farther and faster than whatever e-bike I’m covering that day, all for a fraction of the price. And I’ll admit, the ability to ride an electric vehicle to your destination and then just pick it up to carry it inside like a briefcase does have its appeal. So I figured I’d give the InMotion V5 a test, as it’s supposed to be a very beginner friendly wheel.

There are so many electric scooters these days that it’s becoming hard to keep them straight, so let’s complicate things even more by throwing another one into the mix! It’s time to take a deep dive into the Kugoo Kirin G3 electric scooter and see how it stacks up against the rest of the market.

The Morfuns Eole X is a folding e-bike that offers a bit more than you’d expect from most barebones options. Instead, the Eole X has better parts like hydraulic disc brakes, throttle-enabled riding, and even rear suspension. Actually, make that psuedo-suspension.

Phoenix-based electric bicycle brand Lectric eBikes has just unveiled its newest model, the Lectric XP 3.0. Full of new features and updated components, it’s set to likely become one of the best-selling electric bikes in the country.