Dustin Gyger
April 28, 2022
Hey guys, Dustin here, CEO of Sixthreezero, and today, I'm going to answer the question, should I bring an extra e-bike battery on my ride? Stick around.
All right, so today we're going to answer the question should I bring an extra electric bike battery on my ride, but before I do, hit the subscribe button below. Stay in touch with us here at Sixthreezero, be the first to know about all our new products, new content, and of course, giveaways we're doing for bikes, e-bikes, and accessories. Hit subscribe.
All right, so e-bikes are pushing the limits of riding. People are riding farther, it's amazing. Someone that could be going 10 miles before is now going 30 miles, and something that's happened to me is I've gotten caught with my e-bike dying because I've tried to push too far and so going to answer the question should I bring an extra battery on my ride?
Well, this is of course up to you, and it's a very personal question. There are two factors that play in, one, buying the extra battery, and two, carrying around a little additional weight on your ride. Now in the case of Sixthreezero e-bikes like we have two here, our EVRYjourney e-bike and our Pave n'Trail e-bike, our batteries are on the rear rack here and it's very easily removed with a key right here and each of these batteries weighs eight pounds and on our website, these cost $350.00. If you don't have a Sixthreezero e-bike, you can obviously check your manufacturer and see how much their extra batteries cost. I would say the market range is going to be somewhere between $200.00 to $500.00, maybe as low as $150.00 depending on the capacity. Our battery right here is a 48 volt 10.4 amp hour. This is to power our 500-watt e-bikes. Now every motor is going to have a different battery size, 500 watts have a typical battery size, 750 watts, so you'll have to check with your manufacturer. But I would say if budget is no issue and you don't mind, having an extra battery on a ride is a great idea.
Now I would say this really depends on also the range you intend ongoing. The one thing I have run into with e-bikes is sometimes you end up going further than you had anticipated because they're so much fun and they do a lot of the work that you can push much farther than you first had anticipated. So if that's something that happens to you frequently, definitely take the extra battery with you. Now the thing with the range on e-bikes and all e-bike companies is the battery range is very much determined by the rider weight, the conditions, the terrain, and also the level of pedal-assist or throttle amount that you're using during your ride. So since there's no perfect science and equation to tell you the exact range you're going to get on any given ride, if you think, this is my general ballpark idea, if you think you're going to ride close to 20 miles, I would say bring an extra battery with you on your rides. Now if you're not scared of making it or going far and having to ride back under your own power, then you never have to worry about having an extra battery because the beauty of e-bikes is you can ride them as a normal bike, so you always have the option of riding home under your own power.
Now if you think you're going to be far away, and you want to go 20 miles out and you want to make sure you have that battery juiced to get you home or there's a very large hill to get you home, or you have to go up to get home, carry the battery with you. I would say 20 miles, 25 miles is sort of a breaking point where depending on how you've been riding the bike, the type of terrain or the hills, one day you might get 30 miles out of a battery, the next day you may get 15 miles out of the battery.
Even when I charge my Tesla on certain days, depending on how I drove the car previously, the top range that it tells me I have can fluctuate 10, 15, 20 miles, depending on how I was driving the car, the meaning was I driving on flat ground, how did I use the braking system, the regenerative breaks, same things. So e-bikes are going to be similar in that every ride is going to be different. Now of course if you do the same route every time, you should be able to get the same range out of the battery. So that's another point is if you're exploring a new route and you're pushing to about 20 miles, 25 miles, and you don't want to be left with electricity, yes. Bring that extra battery. I think for the investment of $350.00 and the peace of mind and now you've just doubled your potential range, so on a Sixthreezero bike, instead of talking about 30 to 50 miles of range with pedal assist, you're talking about 60 to 100 miles of range when you have two of those batteries. In full throttle you're talking about as opposed to 15 to 30 miles before, now you're talking about 30 to 60 miles of range, just using the throttle.
So when I say 20 miles though, you say, "Well why if you're only going to ride 20 miles should I bring an extra battery?" Well, it depends on where you're going to ride and also I'm just saying that's a breaking point. If you're going to go 20 miles or above, it's a good idea to have an extra battery if you don't want to be left without electricity, and I actually put a bag on here, I just want to show you how simple this is. Sixthreezero has a few bags that you can actually put the battery in, but this is eight pounds. Now for me personally, when you get the bike moving and especially with the electric motor, this isn't going to bog the battery down that much.
Now again the rider's weight is going to affect the bike more. So we do have a rear-mounted bag that can go here, the battery can fit in that, or in this case, you can actually put the battery in here as well and it will fight right in the pannier sideways, just like that, and you can just close that up. And I'll just show you really quickly, and now your battery is in there, no big deal, and if you really wanted to be ambitious, you could fit two batteries in this bag and I'll just show you. For me, honestly, it makes zero difference in terms of my riding. I can't feel any difference at all. It feels completely normal. Especially when you have the pedal-assist in, it feels just like nothing. So it's not going to have that much of a burden or a bearing on your actual feel of the ride. And then when you go to change it, again it's very simple or swap batteries, you would just take it out, pull this out of the bag and put this in here, and you're all set.
So my suggestion is to buy an extra battery and have it on hand with you if you're going to ride 20 miles plus or think you may go 20 miles or more on a ride. It's a huge benefit. The other thing too is it gives you peace of mind to go faster and take on bigger hills because you know you'll have that extra battery, so if you're scared to do a level assist pedal five up a big hill because you don't want to drain the battery, well bring that extra battery, boom, you've got peace of mind. It adds a lot more fun and takes the stress out of everything.
So I hope that helps. If you have any other questions at all, please comment below or email us, the team at Sixthreezero.com, or call us at 310-982-2877, and don't forget, if you're in the market for an e-bike, visit our website, Sixthreezero.com and take our proprietary body fit algorithm. It's going to ask you some questions about your body and your life and recommend the perfect electric bike for you. In addition to that, we have a 90-day test drive for your e-bike policy, if you don't love your e-bike within 90 days, send it back, no questions asked, no money out of your pocket. In addition, we have a 365-day warranty after that 90 days where we'll still take care of your bike, make sure it's working within 365 days so you can always be out and riding.
Lastly, join our community. Our Facebook pedalers group and download our app. You can talk to other riders before you buy, you can ask questions, and see how others are riding their bikes. In addition, you can track your rides on your app once you get your e-bike and compete on our leaderboard challenges weekly for giveaways of accessories, bikes, and e-bikes. In addition in the pedalers' group, you can make friends, post photos, and see how others are using their bikes. It's tons of fun. All right, thank you for sticking around, and don't forget, it's your journey, your experience, enjoy the ride.