3 Things You MUST KNOW If Assembling an E Bike! Electric Bike Maintenance and Assembly Info

Are you assembling your e-bike that you bought online? Three things you must know while you do your assembly. Stick around.

Hey everyone. I'm Dustin. I have nearly 20 years of experience in the bike and e-bike industry, and today I'm going to tell you three things, three really important things you must know while assembling your e-bike. But before I get into it, hit the subscribe button below. Stay in touch with us here at sixthreezero and be the first to know about all the new content we're putting out, giveaways we're doing, and of course, new product releases.

All right, a lot of direct-to-consumer e-bike companies are in existence right now, and sixthreezero is one of them. A lot of people order e-bikes online and have them shipped to their house. Buying online is great. There's a big selection, you can choose from different varieties. When it comes to your house, you're going to either choose to assemble it yourself, have a friend assemble it, take it to a bike shop, or have a mobile mechanic come and assemble it.

Now, if you are going to do the assembly yourself, there are a few things I want to let you know, and then three very important elements of an electric bike that you need to know exactly how to tighten and tune those three things. I'm going to tell you which three are the most important. Now before we get into it, if you order an e-bike online, most e-bikes are going to come with what's considered 80% assembled. Now, 80% assembled means the front wheel will not be on, the handlebars will not be on, and the seat will not be on, nor will the pedals. But most times the chain will be on, the rear wheel will be on, the chain rings up here will be on, and all the wiring will be connected. So you'll need to put on the front wheel, seat, pedals, and handlebars. Now a lot of the gears will also come pre-tuned. The brakes should be pre-tuned, but you may need to tune those, so you may have to watch a video on the tuning of the brakes, all of which can be done at home. It's completely doable.

Now, in terms of the electrical things, there's nothing you will need to do at home. The only thing you may need to do is plug in two connections that would have two arrows on it. It's a very simple connection. Now on the sixthreezero e-bikes, there's nothing you need to do other than charge your battery. The battery will come in the bike on most. Now for the electric trikes, it's a little bit different. But for the two-wheel standard bike, there's no electrical assembly required. So assembling an e-bike is not really any different than assembling a regular bike because of the fact that all the electrical stuff, it's already done, right? It'd be like if you opened up a TV that you bought online and they're having you plug things into the back of the TV. It doesn't work that way at all. All the wires are already here, it's inside the frame. Again, just plug the battery in.

Typically, if things go wrong with the wiring at any point in the ownership of an e-bike, you're not going inside of it and fixing nodes or cells or things like that. You would just get replacement parts that are plug-and-play. Now, there are some e-bike companies that ship 100% assembled. In those situations though, you'll probably notice the cost of the bike is a little bit more. Freights of an e-bike. Fully assembled can range anywhere from $250 to $500 depending on how it's being shipped, what carrier, where you live, and the distance it's traveling. So it just gets to be more expensive to ship a bike or e-bike fully assembled versus when you ship it with a few parts off of it reduces the cost of shipping a lot of times under 150 bucks, if not less, depending on how small or compact the e-bike is that you bought.

Now, if you are doing the assembly at home yourself, there are three bolts and three things that are the most important you need to know about. Now, number one, the pedals. The pedals both tighten forward on bicycles. So what that means is the left pedal is a reverse thread. It means you're going to thread it forward to tighten it. Now, the other thing about that is you need to make sure you put a wrench in here and you crank that pedal down and make sure it's tight. I have seen in my 20 years of experience, countless times people have not tightened that pedal on and then they strip, the pedal comes out, and it causes damage to inside the crank, at which point you would need to replace the crank, which becomes more difficult and more complicated than if you just were to have to replace the actual pedal itself. So make sure that's all the way tightened on.

Both pedals on any bike or e-bike you buy should be able to be hand-tightened 95% of the way there. At any point, if you're struggling to hand tighten it on, the threading is probably misaligned or something isn't right, don't force it because if you force that pedal in there and you strip those threads out, now you've also damaged the crank as well. So number one thing, pedals, absolutely have to be tight.

Now, number two, moving up here to the axle bolt on the front wheel. In this situation, this bike has a quick release on it. sixthreezero has now moved to getting rid of the quick release, and all of our bikes moving forward are going to have axle bolts on the front wheel here. We believe that's just a better way to keep the wheel more secure and to make sure that if anyone is not removing the wheel in between rides, it creates a loose connection here. So you want to make sure this bolt on the front wheel is tight. You need to make sure on both sides, Come here with your wrench, and press down hard so you cannot tighten it anymore. You do not want that bolt falling off in any circumstance in any possible situation.

Okay, now the third and final bolt that is most important. There are two. It's the handlebar bolts. Now, these seem like obvious things that I'm pointing out, but in my experience in being in a lot of forums, I see a lot of accidents happening. And then people that build bikes at home, I'll see that they, "Oh, I forgot to tighten the handlebar bolt." So if you don't tighten this, you're not going to have any steering up here. What happens is if it comes loose on a sharp turn, somebody tries to turn, the bars don't turn the wheel, they go loose, and now all of a sudden you're going straight either into a curb or something worse, maybe a tree.

Typically, depending on the type of stem you have, some are fixed stems, so there's no adjustment bolt right here. And then there's also a bolt up here to allow the tilting of handlebars. Sometimes there are two bolts here, sometimes there are four bolts up here. Again, depends on your specs and your e-bike. You need to make sure, without a doubt, that these bolts are 100% tight before getting out and riding. You want to take the bike between your legs, maybe do like this, just see. You want to also push down like this a little bit and then make sure. These bolts should be tightened to the point where you cannot get them any more tight. Now, you don't want to kick it or do anything above human strength because we don't want to beat it with a hammer and get it excessively tight, but you do not want to be able to tighten these anymore, and you need to test these before getting out and riding. It is imperative that you make sure those bolts are tight.

Okay. Those are the three most important things that you need to be aware of when doing the assembly. Now, of course, the fourth bonus tip is the brakes. The brakes on e-bikes are essential. Most people are traveling at speeds far greater than what they traveled on a standard bike. So if you're not comfortable adjusting your brakes, take it to a local mechanic or have a mobile mechanic come and do it. But it's something you need to make sure that when you pull your calipers, the brakes clamp down. You can see here the wheels are not moving at all, which means I have a good strong connection. Sometimes with the rotor, you might have a little bit of rub on the brake pads inside of there. If it's a very minute amount, it's not going to be a big deal. Eventually, the pad will wear back just a little bit. It'll create a nice space there.

And every time you get out and ride, you're going to want to check your brakes. I would say every 50 to 100 miles, Also you want to check all these bolts and connections. So if you've ridden 100 miles, just make sure the handlebars are still tight. Make sure that the axle nut is still tight. These aren't necessarily things that you just set and forget. It's like a car, right? You're going to take your car in for maintenance every 3,000, 5,000, 8,000 miles, whatever you feel best with, that's what's going to keep your e-bike safest and that's what's going to keep you safe on your rides.

So if you have any other questions at all about assembling an e-bike, please put them below or reach out to us, at theteam@sixthreezero.com or give us a call, at 310-9822-877. You can find all of our e-bikes on our website, sixthreezero.com. And if you're in the market for an e-bike, and don't know what you're looking for, take our proprietary body fit quiz on our website. Answer a few questions about your body and your life, and we'll recommend the perfect e-bike for you. We also have a 30-day test drive for your e-bike policy. If you don't love it in 30 days, send it back, no questions asked, no money out of your pocket. Also, full one-year warranty on everything. If anything goes wrong in the first year, send it back, no questions asked, no money out of your pocket.

Lastly, we have a Facebook Pedalers group and an app that has thousands of riders in it already from sixthreezero. If you want to talk to them about purchasing an e-bike before you jump in, you can ask questions, get answers, and make friends. It's a great place to find out more about sixthreezero bikes before you go ahead and make a purchase. Then once you have your e-bike, post in the group, make new friends, and track rides on the app. It's tons of fun. So thanks for sticking around and don't forget, it's your journey, your experience, enjoy the ride.