Seniors: Do You Use the Pedal Assist or Throttle On Your EBike? Electric Bike Riding for Elderly

Seniors, do you use the pedal assist or throttle more on your e-bike?

Hey everyone, I'm Dustin. I have nearly 20 years of experience in the bike and e-bike industry, and today we're going to answer the question or talk about do seniors use the throttle on their e-bike more or the pedal assist more on their e-bikes. All right, before we dive into the question at hand, I've got four e-bikes here that are awesome for seniors. The Relaxed Body, the Simple Step-Thru 26 inches, the the Simple Step-Thru 20 inches, and Evryjourney. We've also got other videos on our channel detailing everything about these e-bikes, so check them out. Now, the question I posed is, seniors, do you use pedal-assist or throttle more on your e-bike? Now, I wanted to make a video about this because I wanted to get as many people commenting down below to share their experiences. After all, there are a lot of riders out there, let's say over 60, in their 70s and 80s who wanna hear firsthand about how other seniors use their e-bikes. How do they use the throttle? How do they use pedal assist? What is their experience? So, if you are a senior out there who has an e-bike, please comment below and tell us, do you use pedal assist more?

Do you use throttle more? Or what combination do you use? Now, I will give my experience because we've done hundreds of rides with seniors in a varying age range from over 60 to over 80, to be honest with you. And I will say it depends. Now, I'll tell you some common tendencies that I see. Number one, 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 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, and if I'm wrong, comment below, tell me your experience, 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 have the ability to 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. So I see a lot of pedal assist.

The other thing that I see is I see a lot of seniors using 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 if you're climbing big hills, a lot of seniors may like to have that additional power. But what I've noticed is, and I've done a lot of rides with riders over 60, I find myself wanting to use a higher level of assistance and many of the senior riders 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. And so you see a lot of younger kids, actually under the age of 18, I don't see them pedaling frequently at all. I see them using the throttle more than pedaling. Now, this is just my experience.

I would love to hear if you're an over 55, or over 60 rider about your experience and how much pedal assist or throttle you use on a given ride. It'd be such great information for others out there to hear so they can get some sense of how they can step into using an e-bike when they have their own. Don't forget, we have a 30-day test ride your e-bike policy. So if you're looking for an e-bike, give you 30 days to test ride. If you don't love it, no money out of your pocket. Send it back at our expense. In addition to that, we're going to warranty everything on the e-bike for the first year. If anything goes wrong in the first year, we take care of parts and labor to ensure you can keep riding. Now, lastly, we have two great ways to connect with our community. Our Facebook group is called sixthreezero Pedalers and our app is called sixthreezero Pedaling, which is available in the iOS and Android store.

Join the Facebook group and talk to existing riders about their experience owning a sixthreezero before you purchase them. When you have yours, post in the group and connect with other riders. It's a lot of fun. Then download our app to track your rides, compete on the leaderboard, and post photos to also connect with riders there. So thanks for sticking around and don't forget, it's your journey, your experience. Enjoy the ride.