How Can Pedal Assist on EBikes Benefit Disabled Riders? Electric Bikes & Riders with a Disability

How pedal assist on an e-bike can benefit disabled riders.

Hey everyone, I'm Dustin. I have 20 years of experience in the bike and e-bike industry and today I'm going to talk to you about how pedal assist on an e-bike can benefit disabled riders. Okay, I've got four e-bikes here that are great for riders that maybe have a disability or limited mobility in their legs, anything limiting the range of motion. All of them have a pedal assist option. That's our Relaxed Body, our Simple Step-Thru 26 inches, Simple Step-Thru 20 inches, and our Evryjourney. So, the reason I'm talking about this topic is we get a lot of comments on our YouTube videos and riders reaching out, talking about how they have some disability or limited mobility in their knees. It could have been surgery or anything that just limits the range of motion, arthritis, or things like that. And they talk about how pedal assist has been a real benefit. A lot of e-bikes come with throttles also, but in particular, a lot of the disabled riders talk about how much the pedal assist has benefited them. It's really for, I think, one main reason, which is due to either loss of mobility or muscle strength, these riders with some form of disability can no longer turn the pedals under their power on a standard bike.

It's not that they lost love for riding a standard bike, it's just that physically they're unable to power the bike under their power. What the Pedal Assist has done is it has allowed those riders to get enough assistance from the motor while they're pedaling to keep their legs moving in a circular motion. The cool thing is on the Pedal Assist, if you put it into level five, all you have to do is keep your legs moving to make the sensor trigger the assistance to help you pedal. So, if you are at the point where maybe you have arthritis or knee replacement or you have a disability where you really can't provide any torque on the pedals and your power can't keep the bike upright, if you shifted it into level five pedal assist, all you need to do is keep your legs moving and the bike can stay upright and the assistance can do the majority of the work. It's opening up so many doors for disabled riders to continue to be on a two-wheel bike that didn't exist 10, or 15 years ago. And it's exciting to see how the assistance can benefit them. The other thing, too, is based on your disability not only maybe you still up and riding on a two-wheel bike, but you're limited in the terrain or the range that you could take on. And now with the pedal assist, you can take on some hills.

You can go a little bit farther than normal, and it allows you to get out and ride on your bike places you couldn't go before because of whatever limitations you may or may not have with your body. Now the other thing too is there are three wheel options which we offer as well. That's a decision you'd have to make about how physically capable are you of being on a two-wheel bike versus a three-wheel bike. But the same options exist with a three-wheel bike, whereas if you don't have good balance and you still want to be up and riding, you can opt for an electric tricycle as well. That can be just as powerful as a two-wheel bike, can go just as far as a two-wheel bike, and you can still be out there riding. So that's cool as well. So the exciting thing is, is that if you have some limited or physical limitation in your lower half or upper half something that's prevented you from getting onto a two-wheel bike you can now consider something that will give you that assistance when you're out riding. The other thing too is all four of these e-bikes have a certain configuration that is ideal for somebody who maybe can't lift their leg as high or needs the seat in the lower position.

You can see, these two right here have a very low step-through so stepping through the frame and mounting and dismounting is very easy as well. If you wanna know more about all four of these e-bikes, check our YouTube channel. I go into details about each one of them, the seat heights, the step-through heights, and everything you would need to know before making a smart purchase. If you are a rider with a disability of some sort who wants to choose to get an electric bike, I'll work through all the details and explain why each one of these is good for different reasons. So pedal assist on e-bikes can have a real advantage for somebody with a disability or limited motion in their lower half. If you're someone who has experienced the benefit and you have some form of disability or arthritis, please share it in the comments because there are lots of people who ride, read comments that would love to hear your experience and how pedal assist has changed your bike riding experience.

And if you have any other questions, you can pop them in the comments section below. In addition to that, we have a 30-day test ride your e-bike policy. If you don't love your e-bike in the first 30 days, send it back, no questions asked, no money out of your pocket. In addition to that, we warranty everything for one year. If anything goes wrong in the first year, we take care of its parts and labor. Lastly, we have two great places to connect with our community. Our sixthreezero Facebook group called Pedalers, sixthreezero Pedalers, is also an app. Pedaler's Group, you can talk to existing sixthreezero riders before you purchase them. When you have your e-bike, post in the group, and make friends, it's a lot of fun. You can download our app to track all your rides, check the leaderboard to see who's logged the most miles in a given period, and also post your rides with photos. So thanks for sticking around, and don't forget, it's your journey, your experience. Enjoy the ride.