Aug 26thEastern Shore Bike Trip ’16, RIIDE EBike Review

About thirty years ago, my family started doing a thirty mile bike ride on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  Now that EF is big enough, we decided to take her out on the trip.  I’m not nearly as in good of shape as my dad was when he was my age, and EF’s bike trailer is not fun to haul with a bike.  Pair that with the heat and humidity we’ve been having, and it doesn’t make for a very enticing trip.  I was researching ebikes for my Mom, and came across Riide.  Riide is an ebike that does about twenty mph, charges in three hours, has a range of about twenty-five miles, and only weights about forty pounds.  When I found out they do three day demos, I had an idea…  I booked two Riide ebikes for Thursday afternoon-Sunday morning, picked them up in DC, and headed straight for Oxford, MD.  During the demo, we covered over twenty miles in MD, and then when we got home, we rode about another twenty.  The short story is that the bikes were awesome, but I have a more detailed review after the gallery.

Our traditional Eastern Shore ride is from Easton through Oxford, over the ferry, to St. Michaels for crabs, and then back to Easton.  Its about a thirty mile loop, and a long day trip.  Not knowing how EF would sleep in the trailer, we decided to spend the night in Oxford, go to get crabs in St. Michaels, and then retrace our steps, riding about fifteen miles.  The riide ebikes did great.  The say the have about about a twenty-five mile range, but thats obviously not while pulling a baby trailer loaded down with a baby and accoutrement.  We did the fifteen miles no problem, and then tooled around Oxford about another five after the ride.  The bikes still felt strong and zippy at the end of the ride.  At this point, I was about sold.

When we got home from Maryland, all three of us really wanted to take the bikes back out.  I charged them (it only takes about three hours for a full charge), and we went out on the W&OD trail, and hit up some parks.  We biked to dinner and brunch.  While we had the bikes, we enjoyed being outside constantly, and the bikes really made it easy and fun to get out there.  In one day, we had brunch at Caboose Brewing right on the trail, and then rode back, hit up a park near our house, and then rode out to El Tio for dinner.  On the way to dinner the bike pulling the trailer died.  It had been fully charged and we had only traveled about ten miles, but all the hills and the trailer took their toll on the battery.  Earlier I had marveled at how I was passing serious road bikers wearing all spandex while in casual clothes and pulling a baby trailer.  Now I was stuck pumping a fixie with a heavy trailer behind it.  Once we made it to the restaurant, I took the other riide (stilll charged because it was not pulling a trailer) and rode it home to get the truck.  The bottom line is that these ebikes can pull a trailer twenty-five miles when its flat, but max out at about ten when its hilly.  My wifes bike did about fifteen with hills not pulling a trailer, which is still pretty impressive.  In Maryland I was sold on the riide, but now I was thinking I should test ride some electronically assisted bikes (you pedal and the bike adds supplementary power) before deciding on the riide (Which is more like a moped with pedals.  You can twist the throttle, or you can pedal, but you really can’t do both except while going up steep hills.)  I haven’t had the chance to test ride another ebike yet, but I still do really like riide and may end up with one.  If I didn’t have to haul a baby trailer, I would own one by now.  I definitely think its worth doing a free demo if you’re interested in an ebike.