The most obvious thing about riding this bike is the riding position. Imagine you’re an 80 year old man. Get your pants hiked up to just below your sternum. Put on your best loafers, your town cruising hat, and carefully step onto this bike.
In addition to the 5 assist levels, there are 7 gears. I really like the pedal assist and gear combination. On slow steep hills or trails a lower gear with a bit of assist keeps you moving. The lowest gear is a nice big ring in the back for helping on those hills.
Check out their website and give them a ring, I hope this helps because I don’t think Schwinn sells batteries for schwinn dealers t his ebike anymore. There are a lot of good ideas on this bike, but it still feels more like a bike designed by a committee that was told, “Build an electric bike so we can get some great press! ” than a group that actually understood electric bikes, or even had a real mission for this bike.
The LCD display is centered in the handlebar and has a screen that measures 3″ L x 2″ W. The IC4 must be plugged in for the display and Bluetooth connection to work. The dark screen has bright numbers and letters and shows a wealth of information at a glance, including cadence, elapsed time, estimated calories burned, speed, distance, resistance level, and pulse. The display turns on if any button is pushed or the RPM sensor is triggered when the pedals turn. The screen automatically begins to display and record your workout information when the pedals start turning. Your workout automatically pauses if the pedals stop turning for 2 seconds.
I’ll start at the front interface to the drivetrain. The pedals are nice metal units, with a grippy rubber strip around them. These are definitely easy on the feet or shoes, and are perfectly fine for barefoot riding, should you care to do so. They seem to be quite strong units, and I wouldn’t expect any problems with them, ever. They sweep back at a ~30 degree angle, which is very unusual for most bikes.
Use the power button on the handlebar controller to activate the pedal assist. Use the “+” and “–“ buttons to select your level of pedal assist. We recommend starting on the lowest level of pedal assistance. There is a HUGE market gap right now, for quality ebikes that are priced between $1000 and $1500, and deliver the value needed for a would be e-bike candidate rider. Certain functionality has to be there, to get these ebikes more past the early adopter, or even past the early mainstream type of buyer. Those market ‘chasm’s’ have yet to be jumped here in the US, where bikes aren’t seen as transportation or for commuting practicality as they might be in Europe or Asia.
If you’re using an e-bike to commute or run errands, or if it’s a particularly hot day, the throttle might be a better way to go. The throttle is a thumb lever on the left side of the bike, next to the LED panel. It has about an inch of travel between off and full, and you can push the throttle part way down or all the way down. Obviously, full throttle is the easiest to maintain. So, if you commute, or you frequently run errands, an e-bike can save you a lot of gas, and get you outside more.
Schwinn was created in Chicago Illinois, USA in 1895 and eventually grew to become the dominant manufacturer of American bicycles through much of the 20th century. It is now part of the Pacific Cycle group, and has begun launching electric bicycles such as the Schwinn Monroe 250, it’s most affordable model. Three things that stood out to me when testing this bike were how lightweight, affordable, and smooth it was.
Court – good work on the site, you have really stepped things up. By the way, it is my understanding that Schwinn has not made bikes for many years but just licenses their name. About ten years ago we sold Currie electric scooters under the Schwinn name.