After you crank it on (okay, there’s no cranking involved — just a button press), you’ll feel it kick in after maybe five seconds. It’s a bit jarring the first time or two, but that’s par for the course, and you’ll warm up to it quickly. Once the electric’s on, there are three modes of assistance to choose from on that left control panel — flat, downhill, and hill climbing. We’re not saying it’s without effort, but it’s a greatly reduced effort.
Before we get into the e-bike itself, I want to take a moment to talk about e-bike ownership and what it has meant for me. I mentioned the shunning of my trusty Trek bike in lieu of my e-bikes this summer, but the reason for that has been life-changing for me. I’ve been using an electric bike and a shoulder bag for most of my shopping “can you grab me XYZ from Target” runs.
Scroll through the carousel to learn about the unique features of our e-bikes. I didn’t have the opportunity to try out the Monroe before it arrived, so I went on faith. I was also sent the medium frame version, which turned out to be slightly small for me but fortunately, schwinn road bike the build ended up being just right for how I like to ride. There I could add some pedal effort without getting tired, leaving me feeling satisfied with my exercise level but not so overly exerted that I couldn’t enjoy the beautiful trails around me.
One downside to a front mounted hub motor is that it increases the steering weight and changes the ride quality a little bit but the impact is minimized here due to the smaller size of the motor. I did notice some speed wobbles at higher speeds when riding with no-hands (be careful not to let this get out of control or you may crash). One upside to a front hub motor is that it reduces the complexity of the rear wheel which usually has cogs and a derailleur already crowding the space.
The panel displays your speed and power level, plus you can cycle through other functions like an odometer, tripometer, and other stats like average speed, max speed, and total ride time. When you think about EVs, you probably (rightly) think of cars. But there’s another class of EV that might schwinn road bike have slipped below your radar, but which has transformed my summer in very unexpected ways. The bike was provided by Schwinn for the purposes of the review. We have a video that details electric bike assembly and with a few basic tools you’ll be out and about in a matter of minutes.