How to Safely Ride an Electric Bike | E-Bike Tutorial and Tips

Hey guys, Dustin here, CEO of Sixthreezero. And today, I'm going to show you how to safely ride an eBike. Stick around.

All right. So today I'm going to show you how to safely ride an electric bike. But before I do, hit that subscribe button below, stay in touch with us here at Sixthreezero, all the giveaways we're doing weekly, monthly. And stay in the know about product releases and content we're putting out, so hit subscribe. All right. So eBikes are everywhere now, people are riding them on the streets on trails, on paths. And so today I'm going to show you how to ride an eBike, but also more importantly, how to safely ride an eBike. So I'll walk you through some of the controls, how to mount and dismount, and just how to safely operate, so we can hopefully educate more people and keep eBike riding safe for everyone. So first step now I've got a whole assortment of bikes here, different power levels, and different frame styles, as well. The concepts I'll talk about are going to be the same pretty much among all the eBike.

And I think we're going to need to get in a little bit closer here, so I can walk you through. Now, when we talk about riding an eBike, you want to have a good helmet first and foremost. Never, never, never get on an electric bicycle without a helmet on. There have been accidents that occurred, and you just never know when you're going to fall and especially if you're going to get going fast, you want to have your helmet securely on. So this one's good for me. Now, when you mount and dismount an electric bike, I advise, leave the motor off. Just in case when you're getting on, you don't want to accidentally hit the throttle or do something or move the pedals and have it in pedal assist. So you can just leave it off. In this case, all the power controls are here. So once we mount it, you can turn it back on.

So now, the mounting and the dismounting is also an important piece of safely riding an eBike. So depending on what you're comfortable with, there are obviously two common practices in mounting a bike. One is coming from the rear with your leg or the other is doing a step-over technique through here, right? Now, this frame is not a complete step over. So it's not as easy to come in this direction. What I would advise now when you're doing this, whichever way you're going to mount the bike, keep one of the brakes engaged, right? This is the front brake, I'm just going to keep that engaged while I'm moving my leg over. Now, I actually engage in both breaks, that's just a common habit for me. I lean in and I do this, if I were to step through this way, I would just do one brake, just so the bike doesn't get away from me.

Now, once I'm over the frame, go ahead and kick your kickstand up because you don't want to drag that with you when you're riding, and then you can slide back onto the seat. So, and actually, this seat is a little too high for me, so I'm going to just dismount again and just bring this down a hair. There we go. So also an important part about riding any bike but in particular, an electric bike, safely. Make sure in advance of moving, that everything's adjusted perfectly to fit your body. In the case of Sixthreezero bikes, all bikes are really customizable to your body. You can raise and lower the seat, you can adjust the handlebars. So you know that it's perfect for you. Especially if you have mounted, dismounting concerns, you want to make sure that seat is not too high for you. So I'm going to engage my brakes and I'm going to do the rear leg swing and in this case, okay, so now I'm up on the pads of my feet.

Let me lower it just touch again, we want to be as safe as possible. There we go, okay. Now brakes engaged, okay. Now that we're on, get the kickstand up. I like to, now in this case for an eBike, let's keep both feet planted on the ground and keep at least one brake always engaged. Now, I'm going to turn the power on right here and you can see from here, my screen now comes on and now the motor is engaged and everything. The electrics are turned on, so in this case, now, I still have this brake engaged. Make sure you steer clear of your throttle or anything and don't pedal because if you have it on any kind of pedal assist, it's going to go. So in this case, now it's on two. If I take that down to zero now, nothing's going to happen, right?

The motor's not going to engage, so I'm pretty safe here. I'm still going to keep my brakes on, but I would recommend for us to ride as safe as possible, start out with zero pedal assist at all. And as you start to ride, you can start to increase your pedal assist level. So in this case, now I'm in zero. Keep my brakes engaged and once you're ready to go, make sure your foot, whichever is the foot you like to push down with, keep that foot in this starting position. So when you go, you can push down and get the bike rolling forward. So this is a great starting position right here. I got my brake engaged and I'm going to push off and I'm just going to go zero. And then as I get moving normally, now I can start to engage my pedal assist. Now I'm in one, two, and I'm moving. And I'm going to ease into my brakes. And when you stop pedaling, the motor will disengage.

When you start pedaling, it will engage. Okay. Now, I'm going to show you how to brake properly. So now I'm going to roll up to you, I'm going to ease into my rear brake and then pull my front brake and stop. Now, in this case, I actually didn't take the pedal-assist down to zero, I'm still in pedal-assist two. You can stop with the motor still in the pedal-assist because once you stop pedaling, it's going to stop the motor. But once I come to a complete stop again, I recommend taking that down to zero. Now I can do, in this case too, when you're in zero pedal-assist the throttle also disengages. So that's a great safety feature, you don't have to worry about the bike getting away from you.

So now I'm in zero, I don't have to worry about the bike kicking up and I've seen that before now. It's important when riding an eBike because typically, on a bike, you're going to have your shifting controls most times on the right thumb and you're going to have the twist shifter over here. So a lot of people may not be used to having controls and a throttle on the left hand. So it's important that you get used to not hitting that throttle, bumping it, or pushing any controls that you don't have to, so just really keep your grip up here.

All right, so let me swing around. All right. Now, let me show you what I recommend for pedal assist. Now I recommend, oh sorry, for full throttle. Now, the same thing for throttle. Let's keep the brake engaged when we're stopped. I'm in pedal-assist zero right now, get my pedal into the starting position. I'm going to start pedaling first and then engage the throttle. So get going, release my break, start pedaling. Now I'm going to increase my pedal assist and I'm going to stop pedaling and engage my throttle. And now I'm just driving.

And you can see I'm doing a throttle. Now I'm coming to a stop. So what I'm going to do is ease my rear brake and my front brake and I'm going to start taking my pedals down to zero. That's really the safest way, and when I'm ready, come to a complete stop and one foot, two-foot. So once you get familiar with all the controls and utilize them, it's really, really safe. If you've never been ridden an eBike, I would practice the steps I've talked about and get comfortable with downshifting, upshifting on the pedal assist, take it down to zero when you're stopped, just so you accidentally don't get going. I've seen a lot of people get on an eBike. They don't realize the pedal assist is on and I can, I'll show you as an example. Now I'm doing this just to demonstrate, but let's say right now in pedal-assist five, right?

And you're just not paying attention and you start going and boom, the minute you pedal that thing kicks you like that, right? So if you're not ready for that jolt, it can be a little bit alarming. The other thing about starting with hitting that throttle from a standstill is depending on how heavy you are or how not heavy you are, how light you are. If you hit that throttle and you're standing here, let's say you hit that throttle like this like that, see? So I'm trying to do this as a demonstration, let me back up a little bit. But if I keep my feet down and I hit that throttle, the bike wants to go, right? So if I start fighting it and I don't get on the bike, the bike's going to go up. You can see right, just like that. So if you're not ready for that and you keep that throttle down and if you just, all of a sudden freakout and you keep your thumb down, that bike's going to shoot away from you.

So again, I recommend keeping it at zero and when you get going, just ease into it. So now we're in zero and I'll just ease into it, there we go. I can just brake, throttle and when I stop, now I'm going to downshift to zero. Now I have no motor I'm braking rear, front, stopping. And I don't have to worry about anything happening. There are my throttles disengaged because I'm in zero. So the other thing too is on the brakes, when you come to a brake, come to a stop, you don't want to clamp down like this, right? It's like a car you want to give it gentle pressure, so you can ease into the stop. You don't want to go 20 miles an hour and boom, do this because you may fly over the handlebars.

Now, if you put most of the pressure on the rear, then that could prevent going over the handlebars, but you still could experience a skid-out. So you just really want to ease into the braking, as much as possible. So I think the key to everything, is to be aware, on an eBike. An eBike is a motorized vehicle and so the awareness required is more than a bike because you've got power and it can do things without you pedaling, just like a motorcycle. So let me just show you the braking one more time. All right.

So I'm going to really spot my stopping point. Okay, I know I'm stopping up there. So I'm going to downshift now, stop pedaling, ease in, clamp the front and that brings me to a complete stop. So you really have to have a higher level of awareness on an eBike than you have on a standard bike. You really got to spot your spot, where you're going out in the distance. Be prepared to stop early, make turns early just make sure that you get comfortable working all the controls. So I hope that helps. I hope that explains on how to ride an eBike safely.

If you have any other questions at all comment below we'll always respond, or you can email us, the team@sixthreezero.com, or call us (310) 982-2877. Also, if you're in the market for an eBike, take the body fit quiz on our website, sixthreezero.com. It's going to ask you some questions about your body and your life and our proprietary algorithm will fit you to the bike. That's perfect for you.

In addition, we have a 30 Day Test Ride Your eBike policy. If you don't love your bike within 30 days, send it back, no questions asked and no money out of your pocket. In addition to that, join our community. We have a Facebook pedallers group and an app. Even if you don't have a Sixthreezero bike, you can see how others are riding their bikes. Ask questions, especially if you're thinking about purchasing one for yourself. And once you get a bike, post your rides, track your rides on the app, see how others are riding their bikes, and just make new friends. It's a lot of fun. So thanks for sticking around and don't forget, it's your journey, your experience. Enjoy the ride.