Most Stable ETrike: What Makes an Electric Tricycle Stable? Secrets Revealed About ETrike Stability

What makes an electric trike stable? Hey everyone, I'm Dustin, and I have nearly 20 years of experience in the bike and e-bike industry. Today I'm going to talk about what makes an electric tricycle stable or not. Right here, I've got two of our newest electric trikes, our Relaxed body 750-watt rear-mounted motor e-trike and our Simple Glide 750-watt recumbent e-trike. I've got both of these here because these are two of the most stable electric trikes, and I'll explain why. Now, one thing about a lot of trikes and electric tricycles is that they're more compact. Now, they're still decently long, but in terms of the ratio between the front wheel and the rear wheels, they're very upright, and I think that's what creates a lot of fear in many riders about tipping. The higher you stand upright and you lean, the greater the risk of tipping over. Now, once you get the hang of how to balance your weight on a trike. It can nearly eliminate the risk of tipping. There is an adjustment going from a two-wheel bike to a three-wheel bike if you've never ridden one before.

Half of the reason many people feel they have issues with tipping or fear it is because they're not used to how a trike rides. Now, once you get used to that, I think you'll understand how you shift your body weight, your butt, It's a different type of maneuver than you do on a two wheel two-wheel bike. You lean on a trike, you're kind of shifting your weight to counterbalance and keep the wheels on the ground. After a little while, it becomes a natural feeling. But many of the trikes are more compact, like I said, and because of that, if you lean the wrong way, there's a risk of bringing one of the wheels off the ground. Now, two ways you can circumvent that, and one of the number one ways is by elongating the frame. Now you can see both of these trikes have longer frames and a longer wheelbase. This just creates a lower, stretched-out center of gravity and way more stability when you're turning, right? So, as opposed to being shorter, the rider being taller, this is lower.

You've got the elongated, you can see here, the raked-out fork. Also, here as well, that just adds to the stability when you're cornering. So you'll be surprised by how much more stable it makes your ride. This is why you see a lot of people who like fully lying down recumbents. That's another option as well. Those are very stable again because your weight is dispersed more evenly throughout the frame. The overall weight of the trike makes it very, very stable, just like these two. Now, the other thing you can do, even though I think number one is the elongating of the frame, you can also increase the width, obviously, of the two wheels. The wider you make them, the more stable they're going to be. The issue with that is obviously if you're riding a trike around town, you don't want to have something with crazy wide wheels, right? And many people want something that could fit through a normal doorway. So it's about trying to find that balance between the rear width and the length of the frame.

So it still looks, feels, and acts like a tricycle and is mobile, but also has stability to it. So you can elongate the frame, and you can widen the frame. Now, in these cases, we've kept them to a standard width, which I believe is 30 inches or less. You'll see trikes about 26, 28, and 30 inches wide. This one has fatter tires, so it's a little wider, and if you want to see any of them with more specs on either of these trikes, go to our YouTube channel or visit our website. You'll find everything about them there. Now, the other thing you can do is add a rear differential. Both of these E-trikes, I take that back. Yes, both of these Etrikes have rear differentials. So what a rear differential does is it sends power to both of the rear wheels. So when you pedal, both of the wheels will spin. On many trikes, The way it works is that it's only going to spin one of the wheels, and the other one will be dragged along.

Now, the benefit of the rear differential is not as substantial, but if you do accidentally pick up one of the wheels, you're going to get power to the wheel that is on the ground, which will help you ride through that situation and then get both wheels down. If you lifted the wheel on one that maybe only has power to the wheel that's in the air, Pedaling isn't going to help you get out of it, right? You just have to do it yourself. The differential is more is better, really for traction, because if one wheel is slipping, hopefully the other one is grabbing. So basically, you know, both of them can turn in the case of needing to grip the pavement or the trailer wherever you are. Now, the last element that can add to stability is the width of the tires. You can see here we have a three-inch-wide tire and a four-inch-wide tire. A four-inch-wide tire, yes, is more stable, more rubber on the road. It creates a wider presence on the ground as well and adds to the stability. Now, there are some drawbacks. It's more of a drag. It's going to be hard to pedal without the motor, and it's going to drain the battery quicker because you are placing more drag on the motor. So three inches is another option, a little less wide than the four inch, and again, adds to the stability as well.

But I do think the number one way to make a trike stable is to lengthen the frame. Then from there, if you want to widen it, but then adding a differential and widening the tires are just icing on the cake, like these two have to make them two of the most stable trikes that are out there. Now, if you have any other questions or comments, reach out to us at theteam@sixthreezero.com or call us, 310-982-2877. And we also offer a 30-day test ride of your e-trike policy. If you don't love it in the first 30 days, send it back. No questions asked, no money out of your pocket. In addition to that, we're gonna warranty everything for up to one year. If anything goes wrong in the first year, we take care of it, parts and labor. And lastly, join our community. We have a Facebook group called Sixthreezero Pedalers. There are thousands of members in the group. Join the group before you purchase to talk to existing riders and ensure you're making the right choice. Then, when you have yours, post in the group, make friends. It's a lot of fun. And finally, download our app to track your rides and compete on the leaderboard. So thanks for sticking around, and don't forget, it's your journey or experience. Enjoy the ride.