Alan B
100 GW
I've converted / built a number of ebikes since 2010, this is the first time I've purchased a ready made electric bike. My adult son has been using a conversion I built for him based on the Peugeot Canyon Express using a 9C motor and controller. There are some things that are difficult to upgrade on his old bike, so we decided to get a commercial ebike for his 32 mile (round trip) commute. The story of the old ebike is here:
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=27751 Canyon Express e-conversion Thread
If you want to know the detailed specs or the cost of the RadCity see the RadPowerBikes website.
This is not another RadCity review, there are plenty of those on the internet. This will be a journal of our experience with this bike from the viewpoint of someone like myself who has done many conversions, and from my son's viewpoint as someone who just wants to get to work and back. He never got around to getting his driver's license so he does depend on an ebike more than most.
When we ordered the bike they pulled shipping almost immediately but the box didn't get to Fedex for a couple of days, so the initial Friday delivery slipped to Monday. The box was out for delivery on Monday and Fedex claimed to make a delivery attempt, but we were here and watching for them and they apparently made that up. The box did arrive Tuesday. So it took about a week from order in Washington to delivery in California.
The box had some damage (photo is in my Canyon Express thread) on the lower corners. The bike was well packed and suffered no damage that we have found thus far. My son was disappointed they didn't have detailed assembly info in the manual, they do have videos online but that wasn't convenient since we were assembling in the front yard.
The first thing to do is get the battery out of the box and put it on charge. The charger is easy to find but the battery is not easy to get to until a lot of padding and cable ties are removed. They battery key has many positions corresponding to unlocked, locked, and fully on. The on-battery charge status check button doesn't work until the battery is fully on.
I was disappointed to see the charging connector is the standard coaxial type, I was hoping for a better connector there. I thought they mentioned a better connector in one of their videos. The charger says it is 2 amps, and it gets rather warm. There's no fan and it is fairly small so not hard to carry with you on the bike. The battery has two blade fuses accessible from the bottom when the battery is removed. The charging fuse is 5 amps.
The bike went together easily enough, though we will be making adjustments. There's a rattle in the front we should find. It needs a mirror but comes with most everything else out of the box. The kickstand is nice and solid, as is the rear welded-on rack. The rear light is triggered by the brakes so that's nice. There aren't any turn signals.
We saddled up and took the RadCity and the Borg to lunch. There were three random folks who had many questions for us, but they were all focused on the Greyborg. The RadCity was, to them, just another ebike. One asked me if the Borg could make it the East Coast without charging. Everyone wants to know the range of the Borg. They figure it has a lot of batteries under those covers, and it does.
So my son is comparing his experiences with the Canyon Express to the RadCity. The 48V RadCity is very silent but slower on the hills. I hope we can improve that. It bogged down pretty seriously. My son is not familiar with PAS and is mostly a throttle user. I'm trying to get him to pedal more. The Canyon Express has a 52V battery and a 12 FET generic controller that I originally got from Cycle9. It has seen a lot of use.
He likes a thumb throttle and the RadCity has a half twist. I'll have to look and see about 3D printing a thumb ring adapter to slide onto it. I've seen those around somewhere, not shure if someone sells them or there is a 3D design floating around for them.
Questions and comments from other RadCity owners or those interested in them are welcome.