Rad Power Bikes Radster Trail Review, 2024 | ($1,999) New Fat Tire E-Bike
Hey everybody this is Justin with EBR and the weather’s not fantastic raining a little bit on me but to be honest I don’t care CU I’m very excited to introduce you to this bike it’s the latest in the rad power bikes lineup it’s the radster trail and so maybe it
Is kind of perfect that it’s rain a little bit because this is a bike that’s meant to go a little bit further get you Offroad and really get you out adventuring stay tuned through the review there’s actually a handful of things that Rad’s done on this bike that
Are actually pretty cool so stick with us as we dive In okay so first off when I saw the radster trail for the first time my jaw just kind of dropped this coral red color is just for me just beautiful again looks are very personal but I love that coral red with the orange accents um our videographer didn’t love the
Orange accents I love them and then also the brown wall you know Brown sidewalls on the tires just made this bike look really good um the next thing I noticed was the tires they’re not 4in they’re 3in fat tires so these tires they are K of Havoc tires 275x 3
In and so that’s thinner than the Red Rover and I personal opinion here and I’m probably going to get some push back but I like the thinner tires for it’s a it’s technically a mid-fat tire bike I just think they’re a little more Nimble and better handling you may
Sacrifice a little bit of cushion versus the 4E but not a ton you can still air these things down a bit and have a really comfortable ride um and yeah so those were like the first things that jumped out of me but you can see this is
A really good looking bike um the frame and the bike in total is 78 lb 68 lb without the battery it’s 6061 aluminum and it has a pretty darn High Max payload of 700 sorry not 700 370 lb Max payload the rider weight 290 lb I think
A lot of that has to do with you notice it’s not a traditional High Step here right it’s kind of a midst step where the seat stay runs here but through the seat to the front and you got two of these so that just really gives the
Frame a very sturdy Stout feeling but because it’s not a full High Step it’s more approachable so I just I love this you know I’ve always said if you can make a bike a step through that’s just as stiff on the frame do it cuz it’s
Just easier to get on and off more approachable I just like it better this I just think they nailed that they nailed it from a look standpoint they nailed it from a stiffness standpoint um that standover height on the large bike of what we have
Is 24 in it’s 21 on the regular you’ll notice the frames a little bit different and just in general the bike the regular size bike is a little bit smaller the reach on this is 15.6 versus 15.2 the wheelbase is 47.4 versus 46.6 on the regular so overall you know
If you’re somewhere between 5′ 7 and 6’4 this is the bike you’ll choose I’ve had a 6’5 Rider ride it and they were good didn’t have full full leg extension but pretty darn close and they can have have longer legs so it’s not just your height another topic for another day but it’s
Also your torso length um but this is pretty versatile for Riders of different heights I would say if you’re around that 5’7 range maybe go with the regular version that’s supposed supposedly be for 4’11 to 5’8 um Riders I cannot confirm that I have I do not not have a
Regular size frame in yet I’m going to try to get them to send me one so I can do a good comparison for you um other notable features on the bike you’ve got friend fenders you got the front fenders actually kind of like the look of those
Being a little bit shorter there and you got the rear fenders a little bit bigger really cover that to kind of keep your backside clean you have a lot of mounting points you have this rear rack it’s actually a pretty stout rear rack you can mount
Things too um here in the in this seat tube you have mounting brackets for water bottle up front you have mounting points for a front rack and so in general that kind of makes this bike you know it is their Trail quote unquote version it is not a mountain bike just
To be clear um but for you know HOV roads fire roads out camping those tires are going to do a really good job but with all the racks and the mounts you can still do quite a bit commuting and it’s even decked out for commuter with a light so the front light
It’s a 200 Lumen front light that actually is pretty pretty powerful with a nice reflector on the back you have a brake light with turn signals and so again that kind of is more of the commuting style um and so if you want something a little more comfortable than the Roadster Road this
One you could definitely do um and use it as that comfortable commuter that you can also take off-road and go adventuring so overall I think it’s just a very functional again beautiful bike again beauty is in the eye of the beholder but I really do like the look
Um I’m glad they sent us the coral red I think it’s it’s probably my favorite color the sage Moss is the other option if you want to take a look at that um could they offer a few more colors sure I’d always like to see more colors but
That’s kind of a nightmare from an inventory management standpoint and I just like that they didn’t stick with just plain old black and white so yeah there you have the overview now let’s dive into some of the other areas okay let’s Dive Into the Heart and Soul of
The bike talking about the motor and the battery these are two areas where rad really has made quite a lot of improvements on the the rear hub motor 750 watts they’ve stuck to their guns with that where they’re not they’re not going it doesn’t Peak over 750 watts but
They have increased the torque by what what they’ve claimed is 54% to 100 newon meters of torque now this morning I took this up hell hole and did the hill test for electric bike report not going to tell you the results you have to wait for that review but I’ll kind of tell
You the the bottom line this thing booked it up the hill this was one of the this is the best hill climber that I’ve tested from rad um this radster series is just phenomenal what they’ve done with that motor increasing the torque without making it Peak above 750
Wats it’s just a fantastic job moving on to the battery now the battery is something you’re going to see in the press a lot it’s their safety Shield battery it is UL certified to 2849 and 2271 but they even went further they potted the battery with thermal resistant resin that encapsulates each
Individual battery cell to prevent thermal runaway in other non-technical words they made the battery significantly more safe and went beyond current UL standards you know this is the same Tech that you’ll find in electric cars you know yeah so again the same Tech that you find in electric
Cars and as far as I can tell they’re the only ones doing this to the batteries I really want to see the rest of the industry doing this so we don’t have as many fire hazards with ebikes um and you can also recycle the battery
Which is which is really cool they did a a partnership with redwood materials to do that so double triple thumbs up for the battery and the motor on the radster trail okay so starting to drizzle on us a little bit but I’m I you know we’re on
A trail bike so we definitely got to get used to being out out in the elements let’s just keep going um the drivetrain on this is a Shimano 8-speed drivetrain Shimano a sah I like the fact that they speced with Shimano you’ve got a 50 to
Front chain ring I didn’t have any ghost pedaling issues it still had good range to get up even really steep hills and just overall is a nice drivetrain that anywhere can service um it’s going to be durable and just nice and reliable they also went to the Shimano thumb
Shifters just kind of a better feel than the Over The Handlebar shifters and just good overall quality all the way around on that um the brakes moving on to those they’ve got tectal hydraulic disc brakes in the rear 180 mm and in the front 180
Mm they are 1.8 mm thick you know I think they could increase that a little bit but I haven’t had any issues myself and I think they’ll do I think they’ll do really well um especially being from Tek a nice reputable brand is is going to hold up and also are serviceable um
One key note they you know rad mentioned they cut down on the parts of this bike by 63% I have not figured out a way to confirm that yet but the goal was to make this a much less maintenance much less needed maintenance on this bike um and everything spec-wise
Kind of tracks you know it’s just a good well speec bike throughout um before I forget you also have the seat which is a nice comfortable seat even in the rain again everyone’s butt’s a little bit different but me I like that saddle it feels really nice and
Comfortable and up front to further enhance the comfort really is that it’s a Suntour 80 mil hydraulic fork and it has a lockout and a load adjustment on this side here so you know not it’s not like a mountain bike quality Fork but it’s definitely Trail worthy um softens the
Bumps makes this a very comfortable bike um all the way around especially with those three-inch fat tires now moving up to the cockpit and it’s rain a little bit sorry about that the handlebars 710 mm wide the grips are the rubber grips if you’ve already watched our radster
Road bike review you’re going to notice a lot of similarities here already talked about the Shimano un you know rapid fire shifters and the brakes the brake levers our tectal brake levers the other thing I like with this cockpit it’s just a nice clean look they’ve
Wrapped the wires very well in the front here and they run down through here into this down tube where you’ve got a cover on the down tube to protect that but you can still access some of these cables if you need to take it into
Bike shop to kind of get fix so nice clean look functional and just overall you know it as you take a step back and look at the bike so the overall quality of the components is a step above what you get in the rad Rover Top Notch especially for that $2,000 price range
Okay I almost forgot to walk you through Rad’s new display which is really cool and apologize for the for the rain here we’ll get some b-roll see you can see a little more clear but there’s a new display from red color display you turn along with this button
Here and notice something cool where there’s a security code with a key just focus here so the key you just hold up to there and it unlocks the bike so adds a nice you know security level to that now on the bike youve got this turns the
Light on and off you can also in increases your Pas decreases your PS you see here from 0 1 2 3 4 5 above that you have turn signals so left turn signal right turn signal and you’ll see it blinking here left you press it down it
Turns it off right press it down turns it off and the display is just simple clean but I like how bright and vibrant is your PS down below here your miles per hour you got your Watts your odometer your battery level there um it’s not a percentage battery readout
Which I guess if I’m being picky I would like to I would like to see that just so I don’t have to guess as much um but overall it’s it’s pretty good um the right here you hold on the M button it changes the screen right here so it says your trip
Distance your trip time your class level I’ve unlock this to three if you hold down the M that’s where you get into the settings so you get trip class hit m m again for set and you can togg between class one 2 3 3 so if you’re on a trail
Only class one’s allowed you got class one it turns off the throttle class two turns it to a pedal assist throttle up to 20 class three pedal assist up to 25 on this one it limits it this class 3 is fully 28 mph so this is a class 3 ebike um
Just gives it I think it’s actually going to give it a lot more appeal and then to get back to the menu return to menu and hold down that M button and you are back here where you got that display so overall I think it’s a nice upgrade
From from red on the display um it’s just very simple and easy to understand the readout very easy to toggle back and forth between class one class two and class three I found myself a little bit hitting these buttons sometimes to change the Pas so until you get once I
Get used to it though it won’t be a problem using these ones down here um but overall very nice clean crisp this from rad now I’m going to pass this off to Ben he’s our head mechanic um as I mentioned before he’s been in the industry for 30 years done a
Lot of wrench turning and so we’re going to get his take and I’m hoping this is a helpful section for you all I know a lot of you are going to be putting the bike together um and so yeah we’re trying to give some additional insight there leave
Comments if you have other questions or things you think Ben should cover but I’m going to pass it off to him and get his take okay Ben so you’re the one that got the box unboxed that put it together walk us through what it was like to get
The bike delivered and go through all the safety inspection that you do for us Justin I really liked unpacking this bike it was very simple from the start to the finish what I like to look for as a mechanic of building however many thousands of bikes over the years and
Years I like to see simple effective packaging this showed exactly that the packing foam and cardboard was in all the right places all the contact points were zip tied nicely not too many zip ties so it didn’t take very long to package everything even including the small parts box it was great awesome
Um we have you go out and do like an initial test and just kind of really go through the bike on how it rides as someone who’s ridden in the bike industry for a long time what were your first impressions I really like this bike a lot at first I thought it might
Be kind of sluggish given the width of the rims and the tires that it was anything but that once it got up to speed and which to say that the power band was nice it was very comfortable very consistent I felt confidence inspiring even in the corners with a
Through axle Fork uh felt very stiff in the front end riding downhill trying to get it to wiggle trying to get it to flex it felt very stiff very controllable at speed one thing that I would like to see on a bike like this especially the trail version would be a
Thicker brake rotor these have 1.8 mm thick brake rotors I feel like the heat dissipation and control of the brakes especially the progression of the brake strength feel would be noticeably better with a thicker brake rotor other wise it felt great awesome um and on that rotor
Like would you say that’s just something you kind of upgrade later down the line like I know when I wrote it I didn’t have necessarily any issues with breaking but definitely I think that’s again us getting pretty picky on things that they can improve would you say I stated that correctly absolutely yes
It’s easy to upgrade you can get some new brake rotors from trp or any of your favorite brake rotor manufactures 2.3 thickness rotors would be the way to go it isn’t necessary but for a guy like me that’s it’s ridden those bikes ridden a lot of different bikes especially
Heavier bikes with motors it does enhance the brake and safety awesome okay so there you have it mechanic take from Ben I appreciate that Ben very helpful and again I hope this is helpful for you if if there’s other questions you have or things you’d like B to cover
Please leave those down in the comments okay so Now’s the Time where I’m going to jump on the bike and we’re going to go ride it yes it’s going to be a little windy yes it’s going to be a little bit rainy but I don’t care the bike’s
Waterproof rated anyway so that’s not going to be a problem just grab a jacket and let’s go for a ride so now we’re going to take this out the rain unfortunately stopped a little bit on us I was kind of I was kind of liking the
Rain felt it fitting coming from a brand from Seattle um anyway so this is the Rader Trail so we’re going to start by kind of taking it on kind of some off-road back here um I’ve got it set on P2 so just keep it nice and controlled as we go
Here I’ll just kind of give you some commentary as we ride you know so as I went over that you heard a little bit of chatter there in the rear that’s just that rear derailer a little bit but in general like I said that 80 mil front fork here those fat
Tires kind of absorb a lot of these bumps I feel very comfortable out here um so let’s see how it does I think this is a perfect example of the type of place that you can ride comfortably on the radster trail um where to be honest I could probably
Even air down the tires a little more than what I have now um but I do think I like that 3-in tire it just feels more Nimble than the other 4in fat tires so I think I might again for me just personally I think I might like that
Mid-fat feeling I I kind of wonder if it’s going to become a little bit more of a trend similar to what we saw in the mountain bike world where I don’t know how many years ago it was kind of a big thing to go to the 275 and 3 in tires
And then everybody started coming out more with the 29 in um and just kind of cut down on that tire size so we’ll see if that happens here but I think overall nice feel on those tires through some of this more you know off-road style areas and just feels really good nice and
Nimble and comfortable through these sections if I throttle here can’t just kind of throttle through some of this stuff um The Twist throttle I don’t know the more I use it actually the more I like it usually I like the thumb throttles but this does
Let me kind of control it a little bit more like here I don’t want to just kind of full on throttle I want to kind of go a little slower in some sections um so I like it for that actually you know I don’t do a lot of dirt bike motorcycle
Riding so maybe that’s why I don’t like the thumb throttle but yeah good overall feel and just very I don’t great feel there actually on the bike um the frame you know I’m not rolling it around the corner or anything but it does just feel very
Stiff um sometimes when I jump on a bike you just kind of don’t get like a solid feel to it and I don’t have a great way to explain it other than it just doesn’t feel dialed in it doesn’t feel firm this one does just out of the out of the gate
Um feels very solid you know now that I’m on kind of paved roads Let’s uh let’s kick this baby up to 5 and see how long it takes to get it up to 28 here so yeah not very hard to get this up to 28 um
It’s a little bit windy a little bit damp on the road the tires have good grip the shifting is I shifted up you know to eighth gear it’s very smooth I’m not ghost pedaling so I think they kind of nailed that gear range there on it feels really good let’s kind of check
The brakes wet slid out a little bit there there but felt very comfortable and controlled um it was fun that was a lot of fun getting up to 28 on this thing I think let’s go this way I think those I don’t know I’m becoming more of a fan of
The 3-in tires on this cuz it just gives it that more Nimble feel as I’m riding around but I don’t feel like I need anything bigger so yeah I’m a fan I’m trying to find something that I don’t love about the bike and other than those and this is us
Being picky you know this B being very picky on those rear rotors being a little thicker so as you can tell again stopping here very comfortable even in wet slit conditions I they perform well um I’m going to have to I’m going to I said this on the in the radster radster
Road review as well I’m having a hard time finding something I don’t like so I’ll keep searching I’ll get back to you on that part um I’m not out on the road but I just want to show all those blinkers work here left again they don’t replace hand
Signals but it’s nice to augment the hand signals I I tend to forget to leave it on so just hit it again and it turns it off it’s not like a car where after you turn it kicks it off at least I haven’t had it happen to me yet right turn off
There yeah sections like that are where I really like having those those tires as far as like compared to the road version of of the Rapster um it’s not quite as Nimble but it’s more Nimble than I expected um I like the feel of the handlebars there’s slightly sweat back not like the
Rad are um 710 mil width just feels nice and comfortable not super aggressive I’m still somewhat upright and just overall nice nice quality feel and yeah having a hard time finding something I don’t really like about this bike I think a lot of people are going to like it and it’s going to
Become I hope to see this in the red lineup kind of going forward um especially with that Improvement on the motor and the Improvement on the battery I’d be shocked if they don’t you know kind of keep pushing the limits on that so well done rides really clean
Really smooth if there’s some other questions you have on how it rides um please let me know we’ll get back back to in the comments you know talking about the torque sensor this is also an an upgrade over the Red Rover and I like the fact that they’ve done this it
Feels going kind of test and try to describe it to you so when I start it it kicks in so I’m in one we got a two I feel it more in two than one um but it’s a very responsive torque sensor when I stop pedaling it also
Stops let me kick it up to five that’s where you see some of that lag even more so I would say to engage it maybe a fourth of a turn and then when I stop it’s really next immediate um not mid Drive immediate but there is not a lag on
Disengagement there it’s very smooth and I would say you know I don’t have to crank it to get up to 28 so it’s it is a torque sensor but it’s still a rear hub motor it’s kind of pushing you along and if that’s kind of the fun feel you’re going
For you’re definitely going to get it on this bike okay so as you can tell I’m a pretty big fan of the Rader Trail this is a bike that I do think is a great option for someone who wants to commute to and from ride around town go get some
Groceries or want to take it Offroad a little bit um I’d stay away from single track but other than that it’s with those 3in fat tires got the 80 mil suspension it’ll be able to handle some bumps and it’ll be able to help handle some of those Country Roads you know
Camping and just be a ton of fun um and just in general I think what rad has done here is quite phenomenal under $2 the battery is probably one of the biggest highlights um that’s just a really cool step that I’m seeing you know with what they’ve done I love the
Frame I love the design I love the colors and in terms of of improvement on the motor I just think that’s fantastic job um this really did climb uphills well rides around very smooth that torque sensor just makes it gives it a more natural riding feel and just overall
Makes this a really fun versatile utilus um bike so well done by Rad and you know for all if there’s anything that we didn’t cover in this review please leave those questions and comments down down below like And subscribe to our Channel you know hit that little bell so you get notified
When we come out with new stuff there’s a lot of cool stuff coming out in the industry this year and I don’t want you to miss it um so yeah I hope this was helpful and hope to see out on the trail
Read our Full Rad Power Bikes Radster Trail Review:
https://electricbikereview.com/rad-power-bikes/rad-power-bikes-radster-trail-review/
Check The best price of the Rad Power Bikes Radster Trail:
https://ebreviewdeals.com/RadPowerBikes_RadsterTrail
I’m blown away with the new Radster Trail from Rad Power Bikes. This is an exciting new model that is as versatile as it is powerful. From the frame to the motor to the wheel and tire choice, this is terrific new model from one of the most popular makers of e-bikes.
The Radster Trail rolls on 27.5 x 3-in. tires, what they call a mid-fat. I like the 3-in. width because it handles better than 4-in.-wide tires. Sure, it loses some cushion, but the narrower tire improves the maneuverability, whether on-road or off of it. While this isn’t an eMTB, it does have the ability to take in dirt roads and some natural surface trails. I ran the tires at less than 20 psi and that combined with the 80mm-travel fork gave me a very comfortable ride any time I wasn’t on asphalt.
According to Rad Power Bikes, this new motor still delivers a maximum of 750W, like other Rad Power Bikes motors, but they increased the torque in the motor by 54 percent to produce 100Nm of torque. What that means is that this thing really moves uphill. The narrower tire is substantially lighter than the 4-in. rubber we see on all-terrain models, and that almost certainly helps the Radster Trail’s acceleration.
This is a true Class 3 e-bike, able to achieve 28 mph and it has both the power and the gearing necessary to reach that speed. Here’s another reason to like the 27.5 x 3-in. tires: This e-bike handles really well at speed.
