It’s a big day for Electra, who is announcing its first electric moped-style utility bike. Thehe new e-bike is known as the Electra Ponto Go! model.
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Wisconsin-based bicycle maker Trek has just launched its latest two electric bikes, which are both designed as kid and cargo movers. The new Trek Fetch Plus 2 and Trek Fetch Plus 4 mark Trek’s deepest dive into the cargo e-bike segment yet.
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If you’ve ever explored Trek’s electric bike families before, you’ll know that the companies offers nicely made yet high-priced e-bikes. You get what you pay for, though you pay handsomely. But now Trek has just released two e-bikes – the Dual Sport+ and the FX+ – that are helping bring down prices for everyday riders.
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As a heavyweight contender in the bicycle industry, Trek rarely seems to rest on its laurels when it comes to electric bicycles. This year they’ve added an entirely new line of e-bikes under the Allant+ group and are taking advantage of Bosch’s brand new powertrain updates to do so.
I’m in Wisconsin visiting with in-laws this week but when I heard that Trek announced its new CrossRip+ ebike, I knew it would be a great opportunity to visit the headquarters/factory in nearby Waterloo. I was neither disappointed by the factory, bike celebrities wandering the halls during the World Cup event, nor the CrossRip+ electric cyclocross which Trek let me take on a 10 mile on and off road test ride…
“Goodbye car,” is what it says on the Trek website and that was our initial question: Can this bike replace a car for a meaningful percentage of commuters?
Clearly, Trek is positioning the Trek Super Commuter +8S bicycle as a viable alternative to a car for your daily commute. As far as the price of this bike goes that comparison is a fair one. For the $4,999.99 that you have to shell out for this bike, you could buy a used car! But let’s not talk money yet, could this bike replace a (preferably electric) car for your daily commute? Is the bike good enough and practical enough to replace the car for your drive to and from the office? I rode the Trek Super Commuter +8S from Croton-on-Hudson, NY to New York City to find out. Along the 40+ miles I rode on this bike, I encountered backroads, muddy single tracks, gravel roads, bike paths and the busy city streets of Manhattan. Granted, I don’t expect people to use this bike for a daily 40 miles commute each way, but the point was to put the Trek through its paces and see how it would stack up. How good of an electric bike is it really?
I had the pleasure of joining the Trek team in New York City this morning for a small briefing and a ride over the Williamsburg Bridge to Brooklyn on the new Trek Super Commuter 8S which due for consumers in the US later this Spring. What got us interested in this event wasn’t so much the Bosch 350W motor/500Wh battery technology but the marketing Trek was using in its campaign to sell this $5000 bike…
