Why Gears Make A-Trikes Better: Easier Hills, Smoother Rides, More Control

The benefit of having gears, though, is that it can dictate how easy or hard it is for you to pedal, which becomes a real benefit if you are riding your electric tricycle either without the motor on or if you're someone who likes to leave it in the lower pedal assist levels. By having the gears, you can dictate how easy or how hard it is to pedal by shifting the gears. In first gear, it's very easy to pedal. There's very little resistance on the chain. And as you shift up the places, more resistance gets harder to pedal. And the benefit of that is as you get moving faster, you want to shift up so you match the pace of your pedaling with the speed that you're moving, and you can ultimately go faster. If you're someone who's gonna ride up a lot of hills, having gears on your electric trike will be beneficial because you can shift into the lower speed, making it easier to go up hills.

Also, you can just find different variants on rides, right? You want to go faster, put it into gear seven. You want to go slower, downshift it. I've also found that many of the riders who are opting for tricycles like having the low gear option, the first gear option, because it's very easy to pedal, and it makes it easy for them to start riding. I've seen it countless times where I have it in a higher gear, like six or seven, and it's difficult for them to get the pedals moving. And they don't always want to use the assistance because the assistance gives them that boost, which they don't necessarily want when they start up and ride. They like to power it themselves to get a feel for it. And as they start moving, they ease into the power. Like these bikes, both have seven speeds that function independently of the actual electrical components. The gears are just part of this bike, like a standard bike. So shifting into first gear, it's going to be the easiest to pedal, and it's going to make pedaling up that hill as easy as possible.

Try to put it in level one and don't be impatient, right? I know level five is going to get you up that hill quicker, but if you can put it in level one assistance and in gear one for the bike and still make it up the hill easily, you're going to prolong that battery for so much longer. Now, if you need to get up the hill for whatever reason, sure, put it in five and go for it, but just know you're going to drain the battery, and the draining is going to be exponential. I'm telling you, if you're in level one, and you have it in gear one, and you get up that hill, you may not even burn one bar off. But if you put it in level five and you're in gear three or something and you're cooking up that hill, you're going to possibly reduce your battery by two to three bars off the display.

So that is a really, really key tip to preserve your batteries on the ride is how you strategically take on these hills. Now, one thing with the seven speeds is that you will have to figure out how to shift them. It's not very difficult. I have found that a lot of riders, though, are not familiar with different gearing systems. In this case, it's literally just a button you push either up or down to shift. It's very simple. You know, you just have to be pedaling for the gears to change back here.