My First EBIKE Ride as a SENIOR - What a WILD Ride! Electric Bikes for Seniors are Life Changing!

Speaker 1: All right, I'm here with Michelle. This is Michelle's first time going to ride an E-bike and we've got her with the Simple Step Through, the sixthreezero Simple Step Through with a low, easy on-off frame. Michelle, how old are you?

Michelle: I am 61 years old.

Speaker 1: 61. And how tall are you?

Michelle: I am five foot six.

Speaker 1: Five foot six. Okay, cool. And we're here in San Clemente at San Gregorio Park and she lives locally, so we got her out here to try her first E-bike ride ever. When was the last time you just rode a regular bike?

Michelle: Probably a couple of months ago.

Speaker 1: Okay. You've been on a bike recently, I mean, fairly recently?

Michelle: Yes.

Speaker 1: Okay. Okay, cool.

Michelle: It's a beautiful bike, but where is the engine located?

Speaker 1: Okay, this is a rear hub motor, which is back here in the wheel, so you can't tell, and this is a 500-watt. E-bikes typically in the market have three levels of power. There's 250 watts, 500 watts or 750 watts. We find that a lot of riders over 60 are good with 500 watts. We have another 750-watt you can try after this one too. It's a lot more powerful. And then so other than that, I mean, you have your battery here obviously.

Michelle: And that's right here?

Speaker 1: Yep.

Michelle: Oh, cool.

Speaker 1: And that's removable if you want to take that on or off. Here's the charging port right here.

Michelle: Wonderful. And how do you go about charging this?

Speaker 1: It comes with a charger and you just plug it into a normal plug in your house.

Michelle: Oh, great. Can you use this... Let's say that you wanted to ride the bike, but it was not charged at the moment and you had it charging. Can you use this as a regular bike?

Speaker 1: Totally. Yeah. I'll show you up here. Everything's the same, and this bike in particular, is more designed to look like a regular bike versus some of the other E-bikes that look almost like motorcycles in a way, if you will. You've got your front and rear brakes, and then this is the gears, like on a normal bike when you had a 10-speed or something.

Michelle: Okay, wonderful.

Speaker 1: And this is a twist shifter. To shift the gears, you would twist this up or down. You twist it up to put the gears up, down to put it down. In theory, if you want to ride without the motor, you can, it's just a normal bike. You just can use the gears, you can ride, and do whatever you want.

Michelle: I guess when we get started, you'll be able to explain that to me, how do you get the motor to start going?

Speaker 1: Yep.

Michelle: And how do you turn it off, most importantly?

Speaker 1: Yeah. Well here, let's do this. Why don't you try sitting on it first and get... Let's find the right height for you. Okay, do you want me to lower the seat a little bit?

Michelle: Well, let's take a look. I think that would be fine because I was supposed to have a little bit of bend in my knee, right?

Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, if it feels good for you, that's good.

Michelle: Yeah, it feels fantastic.

Speaker 1: Okay. Okay, cool. All right. Right here, this middle button right here is the power. I'm going to go ahead and hold that down and then the screen comes on.

Michelle: Okay.

Speaker 1: And let me put this... These buttons here, plus and minus, show how you increase or decrease the amount of assistance that the motor will give you when you pedal. Level one is the lowest amount of assistance all the way up to five. There are five levels of assistance. If you keep it at zero, we'll keep it at zero right now, it means it won't work at all just so it's not... While you're riding, you can toggle between having assistance, and not having assistance. You can go from one to five, totally up to you. If you were to take on a really big hill, you may want to go up to three, four, or five. Flat ground, you may want one. Now, here-

Michelle: When you have the power going, are you able to stop pedaling? Let's say you're at level five. Does that mean that you have 100% assistance and you're going uphill and you want to rest, it will go up the hill for you?

Speaker 1: Good question. It can if you use the throttle. This is a thumb throttle. You can try pushing it. Now, when you do that, when you ride though, just remember, let off of it just for a second, this is like a gas pedal. As much as you give it is as powerful as it is.

Michelle: Okay. Okay. Understood.

Speaker 1: If this is in at least level one, that means the throttle is fully able to be used. Just like a gas pedal in a car, however hard you push it is how much that throttle would go.

Michelle: Understood.

Speaker 1: If you're on the middle of a hill and you're using pedal assist then you can switch to the throttle, totally a viable option. I do that all the time. It's like, "All right, I'm tired. Let's just use the throttle." You know what I mean?

Michelle: Okay. Wonderful. Okay. Well, I'd like to give it a roll.

Speaker 1: Go for it. Yeah.

Michelle: If I can. Okay. The engine is engaged, right?

Speaker 1: Well, it's at zero. Do you want to put it in level one maybe?

Michelle: Okay, level one. It's pretty user-friendly.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Michelle: Yeah, I think I got it.

Speaker 1: Okay.

Michelle: Okay, let's give it a go.

Speaker 1: And you can just make a big loop around the park if you want.

Michelle: Okay. Okay, got it. Wow. Love it.

Speaker 1: Pretty easy to use?

Michelle: It's really lovely. I didn't go... I'd like to go around one more time because I just kept it at power one.

Speaker 1: Sure.

Michelle: It's pretty powerful for power one.

Speaker 1: Totally.

Michelle: I'd like to see what it's like. I wanted to get used to the feel before I started playing with buttons.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Michelle: Let me go around one more time and I'm going to...

Speaker 1: Go higher?

Michelle: ... go up higher and see how it goes.

Speaker 1: Cool.

Michelle: Okay?

Speaker 1: Yep. Have fun.

Michelle: Thank you. Woo. Okay. Wow. Okay. Well, power five is... I think I would use Power Five when I was going up a steep hill. For flat, it's like-

Speaker 1: Too much?

Michelle: ... a racehorse. It's a racehorse on five. One is not a turtle, one is comfortable, and two, but going at five, I would use that for a hill. On flats, it's an extremely powerful bike. I love it.

Speaker 1: Cool.

Michelle: But yeah, and the color is beautiful too.

Speaker 1: Well, there you have it.

Michelle: Do you have it in pink though?

Speaker 1: We don't do pink, unfortunately. Maybe one of these days.

Michelle: Okay.

Speaker 1: But yeah, this one too, we have a really low step through. I don't know if you find it easy to get your leg through the frame too on and off. Yeah.

Michelle: You know what? I like this because I think that is something, as you get older, your hips can't go over things. You lose a little bit of mobility in your hips as you get older, they get a little stiffer. To be able to just step through that, it's user-friendly. I love it.

Speaker 1: Cool. Well, there you have it. Michelle's first ride. She got it no problem. You can get back on and take another cruise around.

Michelle: I'd love to take it for a spin. I live near the beach. How is it with low tide? Can I take this on a low tide?

Speaker 1: I-

Michelle: [inaudible 00:08:25] Beaches allowed bikes.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I've done it before low tide down at CreekSide, or no, the one by the Ritz-Carlton, the beach there, and as long as the sand is fairly hard-packed, it's pretty fun.

Michelle: Wonderful.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, if you get out there... Yeah, it was in the winter at night. I went about 6:00 in the sunset. It was a lot of fun.

Michelle: Great, and how is it on... We have a lot of trails around here. How is it on dirt trails?

Speaker 1: It'll do great.

Michelle: Wonderful.

Speaker 1: Yeah, you could go back and cruise through the grass too. You can-

Michelle: I'd like to try that.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Michelle: I think that would be fun.

Speaker 1: Yeah, go for it.

Michelle: I'm going to bring it down to a... I've tried level one, which I was very comfortable with trying for the first time, but I'm one who likes to go full throttle on things, so I did try level five, which like I said, is something that I would use when I'm going up steep hills. But let me try at level three now.

Speaker 1: Okay, go for it.

Michelle: Okay?

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Michelle: Thank you.

Speaker 1: Have fun.

Michelle: Thank you. It was fun going around like that. I love it.

Speaker 1: Yeah?

Michelle: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Exhilarating, huh?

Michelle: Uh-huh. I feel 12 again.

Speaker 1: Yeah, the motor opens up the possibilities.

Michelle: Well, it does good on the bumps as well. Going across here felt like a Lamborghini.

Speaker 1: Cool.

Michelle: All right.

Speaker 1: Well, yeah. Keep enjoying the ride.

Michelle: Well, thank you. I'm going to go for another spin.