Kent’s Bike Blog: I didn’t need or want an ebike, but now I’m glad I’ve got one!

“If the cell gets hot you know it’s not good, but I haven’t had that so far with these vapes, they are pretty good,” Mark said. By charging them up and draining them, he was able to determine how much power they could hold and confirm they were the right spec. Happy with his working prototype, Mark is in the process of developing “stage two”, in which he plans to buy a proper casing for the batteries, so kent hybrid bike the wires are not sticking out. After narrowly avoiding being questioned by a neighbour, he set off on his maiden voyage to Sevenoaks, a few miles away, on May 22. He bought an “ordinary bike”, a seven-speed pink Cannondale Adventure 2, online and decided to convert it into an e-bike himself. Mark had had an e-bike since 2017 which he used on a daily basis to cycle to and from his office in Canary Wharf.

Reviews claim this trail is the most wild and most raw ride in the area due to extremely steep ascents and descents, boggy mud, sharp switchbacks, and dangerous washouts. But after going to the gym and completing several CrossFit workouts each week, the rides became harder and more tedious. Each hill burned out our already fatigued legs and around the 4-mile mark, we’d head back to the car with stiff, cramped muscles. Most days, one or more of us would be forced to walk our bikes back to the car due to a broken chain, flat tire or bent wheel.

kent electric bike

The first half was mainly uphill and the bikes performed magnificently. The last 7 miles turned into an obscure, unmaintained dirt/gravel downhill road covered in sticks, pinecones, sharp rocks, and other precarious tire-popping rubbish (along with a wild turkey I almost kent bayside cruiser ran over). Somehow, we made it the whole 16 miles without a flat and with our brains intact. Not wanting to give up my precious gym time, I bought two electric pedal-assist bikes. I chose the Kent Electric Mountain Bike 27.5” from Walmart for a couple of reasons.

Mid-drive motors, unlike hub motors, actually power the bike through the standard gears on a bicycle. Hub motors, on the other hand, are single-speed drivetrains that bypass the gears and chain altogether, allowing them to be controlled quite simply as there are no gears to worry about. This is a gross oversimplification, but you can kind of think about it like automatic versus manual transmission cars, at least in terms of simplicity and ease of learning or use for the driver. Then one day, a fellow mountain biker asked if I wanted to ride his bike around the parking lot.

After a few seconds of strenuous pedaling, the bike suddenly took off with explosive force. It was an e-bike, an electric pedal-assist MTB with a motor that engages when an internal sensor encounters a hill. S-100 7th Edition Level 2 features a dual kickstaand for increased stability when parked, three independent braking systems, and dual suspension for smooth riding.