Trek Verve+ 2 Electric Bicycle

I took the plunge and bought an electric bicycle a/k/a e-bike and holy cow am I delighted. I had forgotten how much I enjoy being outside on a bike. Having an electric motor to help me up the hills vanquishes all of the pain so all I have now is the fun and the aerobic exercise goodness which, goodness knows, I need.

I started with one of the toy bikes from Costco, the Jetson Bolt Pro, because it was too cute and too cheap to pass by. And besides, I thought that Candy could use it to get around on nature trails while I hiked. And besides, how could I not buy a bike that looks like this and has a name that ends with “Pro?”

I rode it all over town for a couple of weeks and definitely had my moments. Most exciting was the time I was going downhill and came to an intersection and had to stop to wait for traffic. The wheelbase is so short that my weight was almost over the front axle so when I hit the brakes, I could feel the bike trying to dump me over the handlebars. Whee!

Riding the Bolt convinced me that I wanted an electric bike, though, so I started shopping for real e-bikes, instead of toys. I read a lot of reviews, considered several brands, and ultimately decided to buy a Trek bike locally, both to support my local bike shop and to get maintenance from professionals (more on that farther down in this post).

I bought a Trek Verve+ 2 from Momentum Cycles in Saint Peters. Hat tip to Steve and Gabby and the rest of the folks at Momentum for providing absolutely top notch service. For anything cycling, I urge you to head over to Momentum.

The Trek Verve+ 2 is a class 1 e-bike, meaning that it helps when I pedal but does not have a motorcycle-style twist-throttle. The electric motor stops assisting at 20 MPH.

Class 2 e-bikes add a twist-throttle. Class 3 e-bikes provide assistance up to 28 MPH. The Bolt had a twist throttle and I thought that I would miss it but I don’t. I actually like pedaling at an effort level that gives me a decent aerobic workout. In almost two weeks of riding this pretty much daily, there has not been a single time when I wished that I could just twist the throttle and go for a zero-effort ride. As for the maximum speed, I really don’t want to be going 28 MPH on a bicycle. I am typically riding 15 MPH or so in and around town and on local hiking/biking trails. That is a good speed to mix with the other bikes. I slow down significantly when there are walkers/joggers. Were I going 8-10 MPH faster, I would be a rolling hazard.

The bike has a Bosch motor and controller which are super easy to use. As I start to pedal, the motor magically helps. It’s that easy. There are four levels of assistance: Eco, Tour, Sport, and Turbo. In each mode, the controller senses the amount of torque that I am applying to the crank and directs the motor to apply a proportionate amount of torque.

• Turbo: 250%
• Sport: 170%
• Tour: 100%
• Eco: 40%

I like Tour the best because that gives me a nice speed for my effort. Basically, the bike is making me twice as strong as I actually am. Here is a 19 mile ride that I took yesterday afternoon. My average speed was 13.1 MPH and I only used a higher mode than Tour to get up a couple of the killer hills, climbing away from the Missouri River.

Here you can see that I got my heart rate right up into my aerobic exercise zone and kept it there for the entire ride. I also like to jog but I have a lot of trouble staying in this HR zone. When I jog, my HR shoots past 150. When I take a walk break, it drops below 120. If I walk fast enough to get my HR up, my strides are either uncomfortably long or uncomfortably fast or both.

A week ago, David and I rode to Defiance on the Katy Trail for pizza and beer, ten miles each way. The Good News Brewing Company is right on the trail. Their Belgian White pairs spectrally with their Vampire Deathwish garlic pizza. (That’s it for my beer sommelier advice.) Although David is much younger and in much better shape than I am, I had to drop back to Eco mode for the whole trip. I was basically running away from him in Tour mode. We averaged 10.6 MPH each way (the Katy Trail is pretty level) but I could tell that he was working a lot harder than I was. My average HR on the way down was only 103. On the way back, it was 121 and I totally blame the beer and garlic.

I passed 100 miles on the way back from Defiance at mile marker 52 on the Katy Trail. Until I got this bike, I never had one with an honest to goodness odometer. You can see the “100” on the display on my handlebars. (In case you are confused, the studly guy is David, not me.)

I did have one problem with the bike and it had me back at Momentum for warranty repair. The front disc brake was making a horrible noise whenever the bike was coming close to stopping. Think poorly-maintained-truck on a bad day. My wife could hear me stopping in the driveway and would know that I was home even before I could open the garage door.

It turned out that the front caliper was leaking and brake fluid and had contaminated the rotor. My efforts to seat the pads and glazed the contamination onto the metal. Shimano sent a whole new brake set, and I conveniently ended up with an upgrade on the front from a 160 mm disc to a 180 mm disc. Nice. I watched Gabby swap the brake and am 100% glad that I had a local bike shop to do this work. I’m pretty handy with tools and I used to do some simple bike maintenance but there is no way that I am prepared to do that job. It took her the best part of an hour to complete the work and she had all of the tools right at hand and tons of experience. Between disc brakes and the electric drive system, this is a whole different machine from my last bicycle.

I now have 147 miles on the bike. I have been riding it all over town, sometimes for pleasure, often to run errands. For many of my trips, it actually takes about the same amount of time to bike as to drive my car. I know; all you folks who have been riding for ages are slapping your foreheads and going Doh! Well, at least I figured it out before I was dead. 😛 Tomorrow, I plan to ride over to Steve’s, about seven miles each way, and let him give it a try.

I have a bag on the back, big enough for my camera and lunch. I have holders for a couple of water bottles. I have big plans to start exploring the trails in the conservation areas and parks near me. If you have suggestions about biking or destinations, please post them in the comment section below.