Easy Electric Tricycle Troubleshooting: A Simple Guide for Non-Technical Seniors

Right here, I've got two e-trikes from sixthreezero, the EZ Transit 16-inch foldable e-trike and our Simple Glide 750-watt fat tire. These two e-trikes have two different types of throttles, and if you're not familiar with throttles on e-bikes, a lot of e-bikes now in the U.S. come with the throttle option where you can twist or press a throttle and the e-trike or e-bike can go without you pedaling at all. Now, the two types of throttles you'll find are either a twist throttle or a thumb throttle, and they work just like they sound. One of them you twist to go, and the other one you push with your thumb. With a thumb throttle or a twist throttle, when you first start pressing it, it's not going to be, initial contact is not gonna give you power. This is what I've found on every E-Trike throttle that exists out there. It's not sensitive to the point that when you touch it, it goes. There's a little bit, now you can watch. I have it in one here. So I have to, I've even got it pushed in a little bit. Okay. So now, already with it, if you can see how much I'm compressing that already, you can see even here, nothing happens. And then a little bit more, it starts going. So the other thing is, don't do a quick jerk. A lot of people like to do this, and then they tell me, Oh, it's too sensitive. Doesn't work. Well, you don't want to just go like that. You want, you have to ease into it. Right. And then fine.

The point at which it starts moving and when you feel it start moving, don't jerk your thumb back, stay with it because you're gonna get a real jerky sensation if you're just pushing like that. If you're trying to go, keep your thumb moving slowly, and when you feel it, either keep going if you wanna go faster or just stay in that position. Now, once you find the point where the acceleration happens, like I said, you can either stay there and let it go with that speed or continue to move it forward slowly if you wanna go faster. The same thing is true with twist throttles, there's a little bit of play here, okay? Not as much, but right about there, I can still twist that, and it's not going. So be prepared that you have to kinda ease and then you're gonna feel it go, okay? A lot of seniors like to use the throttle to get the bike moving. So from a stop, it's nice to push the throttle, get the bike rolling a little bit, and then start pedaling. The other thing I notice in my experience is that a lot of senior riders like to use the pedal assist more than the throttle on rides. And I think that's because many senior riders. But many of the riders I've interacted with still want the exercise. They still want their legs moving. And for anybody that says that you can't get exercise on an e-bike, or e-bike is cheating. I don't buy that for one second because you can dictate how little or much assistance you get in the pedal assist, and regardless, your legs have to keep moving to keep this bike upright.

And that's still getting your legs exercise and keeping you moving, which is a positive thing, no matter how you look at it. Another thing that I see a lot of seniors use the lowest levels of the pedal assist. When you talk about being at level five of a pedal-assist e-bike, you're talking about getting a lot of power. You're talking about getting enough power to propel you up to 28 miles an hour in some situations. On all these e-bikes, you're talking about 22 miles an hour. For many seniors, that's just too much power in any given situation. Now, the caveat is that if you're climbing big hills, a lot of seniors may like to have that additional power. But what I've noticed, I find myself wanting to use a higher level of assistance, and many of the senior riders would rather be in levels one, two, or three. And I think that's just because they enjoy the feeling on their legs, and they still want to have it feel like they're riding a bicycle, versus I think younger riders more wanted to just be it, have it be about being an electric device. Many electric tricycles can come in a single gear, meaning there are no gears and you have one singular gear. Now, I want to clarify as well, when I'm talking about gears or speeds, I'm referring to the gears or speeds of the tricycle, not anything correlated to the electric assist component.

So if you were to have a standard tricycle or bicycle, there are gears or speeds that you can shift. A lot of people had 10 speeds growing up. There are 21 speeds, three speeds, seven speeds, and many different speed options. Now, what happens with gears and speeds is that you can shift them. First gear, it's very easy to pedal. There's very little resistance on the chain. And as you shift up, it places more resistance and gets harder to pedal. The benefit of that is that as you get moving faster, you want to shift up so you match the pace of your pedaling with the speed that you're moving, and you can ultimately go faster. When you're climbing hills, you want to shift down to a lower speed to make it easier to pedal uphill. Not all electric trikes have gears and speeds. There are a lot of single speeds out there means one speed. Now that can be fine in flat-ground riding. I will say that a single speed is a little less complicated because you don't have to shift, and you can just leave it in that singular gear. Now, the reason I don't love that for senior riders is you are stuck in that one gear, and you cannot customize or change that pedal resistance level at all to your body and your leg strength, right? So if you're just starting out riding and you want to build your leg strength, you've only got that one gear.

With a seven-speed or more electric tricycle, you can shift it down into first gear, making it easier to pedal. And then as you build your leg strength, you can shift to higher gears. Let's say you're considering, or many of you are considering buying an electric tricycle, or maybe you have one and you're wondering how fast they can go. Well, the top speed of e-trikes is gonna vary from model to model. The typical range of speed on an electric tricycle is going to be 15 miles an hour to 20 miles an hour. That's going to be the range of top speed. Now, they do have the ability, a lot of them, with the pedal assist, can go faster than 20 miles an hour. Legally, they can go up to 28 miles an hour. But in all of my experience, even on 750 watts, while you're pedaling in the highest level of assistance, it's very, very difficult to get it going faster than 20, 21, 22 miles an hour. Manufacturers or most manufacturers limit the speed of trikes because they want to ensure riders are not going too fast, right? On a trike, if you end up going too fast on a turn, there is a possibility that you tip and bring up, you tip up the rear wheels like so. The folding Easy Transit's top speed is 16 miles an hour. The reverse E-trikes are 20 miles an hour. And the Simple Glide Fat Tire is 20 miles an hour. The reason the first e-trike, the Folding Easy Transit, is 16 miles an hour because this is a conventional upright trike; it has a more compact frame, and the rider sits up taller.

So this is the kind of setup where if you corner too fast, there is the possibility that if you raise a wheel on the back here, and you know, in a worst-case scenario, you tip over. Moving into the reverse e-trike, this is the type of e-trike that feels just like a two-wheel bike. It has this tilting steering in the front, which makes it so that when you corner, it feels like a two-wheel bike. So the top speed on this is 20 miles an hour because of the way it turns and leans, you lean and turn on this like you would on a two-wheel bike. So on turns, you want to lean into the turn, and you want to go. Not fast, but you want to keep momentum in the turn to keep this one balanced and stable on the ground. Now, getting into our third and final one, the Simple Glide. We've done 20 miles an hour on this one as well because this has a recumbent frame. It has a more elongated frame, which adds to the stability of these four-inch wide tires, which keep it very, very grounded, stable, and easy to corner. Stability and balance are not an issue. It's easy to turn. Again, stretching out the frame, really, really adds a lot of stability. We felt like 20 miles an hour on this, you could still be safe. Now, you don't want to corner again, at fast speeds, but in general, if you're out cruising at 20 miles an hour, you feel stable and at ease on this trike.