How Does E-Bike Weight Affect Your Ride? Electric Bike Weight What You Should Know

Hey everyone, I'm Dustin. I have nearly 20 years of experience in the bike and e-bike industry. Today, I'm going to talk to you about the weight of an e-bike and how the weight of an e-bike affects you in your ride. Stick around.

All right, we're going to talk about the weight of an e-bike and how it affects your ride, but before I do, hit that 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, and of course new product releases, so hit subscribe. All right, before I get into it all, these two e-bikes are on our website, Evryjourney, is 500 watts, if you like them, you can check them out, through the link in our description. All right, so you're in the market for an e-bike and you're concerned about the weight of an e-bike. Valid point, a valid concern. E-bikes are heavier than standard bikes because of the motors and the batteries. Now, typically a battery is going to add anywhere from six to 12 pounds on average to a bike, and the motor is going to be about the same, about eight to 12 pounds for the motor alone.

Between the two, you're adding anywhere from 20 to 30 pounds of extra weight, depending on the size of your battery, the size of the motor, and also what type of motor it is, whether it's a front hub motor, rear hub motor or mid-drive mount motor. Now, when you're riding an e-bike, the weight of an e-bike when you're moving doesn't have that much impact on the ride, in my opinion. Now, there are certain things you're going to have to get used to, which is turning with the different weight and stopping with the weight, and over time in practice, you will get used to that, but once you're moving and you're doing straightaways and you're not doing severe turns, you probably won't even notice the weight of the bike at all, to be honest with you. Now, when you start to make turns, if you do have added weight, if you just turn, let's say normally like you're riding a bike and you don't do anything crazy, I also don't believe you will feel the difference that much.

Now, I'm talking in general, and again, feel free to comment below if you feel like the weight has been a big adjustment for you, I would love to hear. But if you are trying to make extreme turns where maybe you're U-turning and you're going slow, then you may start to feel that weight a little bit, right? Because whether or not the battery is here or here if it's starting to pull the bike over a little bit if you're leaning a certain direction, and that's why the slower you go, the more weight will have, not more of an impact, but you will tend to feel it a little bit more, where you may, at the beginning of learning to ride an e-bike, need to be more conscious of balancing the bike.

Back to what I was saying if you're on straightaways and you're taking veering turns, but you're still staying up to speed, I really, really think most people will not feel the weight difference. You're talking about 20 pounds. Now, you also have to get a gauge on how 20 pounds feels to you, right? If 20 pounds is a lot to you, then getting that experience in the seat with different weights will be important. To me, I guess in one sense, 20 pounds doesn't necessarily feel like a lot of weight to me. I could probably add 30, or 40 pounds to a bike and it wouldn't be that drastic of a change in my opinion. Now, we start to add 40 pounds, and plus, yeah, you'll start to feel that, right? It starts to pull in different directions, and that's why sometimes when you see these cargo bikes and things like that, you're adding a lot of weight, right?

A huge front basket, 30, 40, 50, 60 pounds, it starts to feel and drive a lot differently. For the most part, an e-bike like ours, it's not going to drive really any differently, it's going to feel very similar. Now, the big thing about the weight of an e-bike that I believe has the largest impact is the starting and the stopping. The starting in particular is because it's the hardest to get going on an e-bike. Well, it's not hard to get going, but it's the point at which you have to take this bike from a stop to moving. At this point, there are a couple of options.

One, if you have a throttle on your e-bike, you can use that and you can allow the throttle to help get the bike moving, like that, so then you don't really even have to deal with the weight of the bike. But on an e-bike in particular with this added weight, it's important to get up to speed quicker, not necessarily quicker, but you want to get up to speed because if you're going too slow, you've got that added weight, there's going to be an increased risk of tipping at a slower rate. I'm just now teaching my daughter how to ride a bicycle, and I tell her, in the beginning, you have to get that push to get the bike rolling fast enough to keep the two wheels balanced. Right?

That's even more true on an e-bike, you want to make sure either on your first pedal right here or with the throttle, that you get the bike up to speed. I've seen a lot of people who get going too slow and then they start to tip a little and they try to recover and they can't do it. The weight will affect you in that way. Now, it's nothing that can't be overcome, and it's not a lot of weight, it's just the fact that it's more weight than you'd be used to riding on a typical bike without a motor and a battery. In addition... And the other thing too is if you're going uphills, if you're starting from ground level at a stop and going uphill, the weight will have a large impact on your balance because you need to get that bike going up that hill fast enough to keep it balanced, and if you don't, it catches people off guard because the weight will bring the bike down to the side quicker.

If it's lighter, it's going to be able to at least stay up a little bit more. If it's heavier on either side, it's going to pull it down. Now, the same is true for stopping as well, which is why I love step-through frames and evryjourney has a forward pedaling design so riders can get their feet flat on the ground when stopped, so it can give you better balance side to side. When you're stopping, you need to make sure that you're pulling the brake and you're getting your feet out as you slow down because the same thing is true, the weight is going to have an impact on the stopping process much sooner than without the motor, right? Because again, the added weight is going to make the bike heavier, so you want to make sure you're balanced, hit your brakes, get your feet down, and stop appropriately.

Those are really the two times, the starting and the stopping, where I feel like the weight has the largest impact when you're riding. Other than that, if you're up and moving and you're using the pedal assist, the motor is going to be doing work for you, it's not going to have that large of an impact. The other thing I guess to consider is, if you're going to be loading your e-bike on and off a bike rack, unfortunately, there are not many ways around it, e-bikes are just heavier than regular bikes. It's just the truth of it. You can take the batteries off, like on the sixthreezero, you would just pull this off, that's going to reduce it by eight pounds, but you're still going to have the motor in there, in this case, in the rear wheel, so it's not going to be light as a feather.

No e-bike is, as I said, it's going to be in the 40 to 80-pound range, no matter how many ways you spin it, so if you do want to get it on a rack, maybe look into racks that are lower off the ground or have a loading capability that makes it easy to hoist them up, or if you have to carry it upstairs or something like that. But all in all, e-bikes are heavier, but I think the benefits of an e-bike far outweigh the fact that it's a heavier product than a regular bicycle. I hope that helps. If you have any other questions about the weight of electric bikes, please comment below, or any insights, comment those below.

You can also email us at theteam@sixthreezero.com or call us at (310) 982-2877, and if you're in the market for an e-bike, check out our website, take our proprietary body fit quiz, answer a few questions about your body and your life, and we'll recommend the perfect electric bike for you, and we'll give you a 30-day test ride 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. In addition to that, be a part of our community, Facebook Pedalers group, and download our app. Talk to existing riders before you purchase, get their opinions, and see how they like their bike, then once you have your bike, post photos, make friends, and track your rides in the app. It's tons of fun. Thanks for sticking around, and don't forget, it's your journey, your experience. Enjoy the ride.