Rad Power Bikes RadCity 5+ SE | Reliable & Hard-Working Commuter!
This is the special edition of the rad City 5 plus St from rad power bikes this has a few differences from the standard version of the bike so what are those and do they have any effect on the bike’s performance Let’s Take a Ride and find Out Welcome back to electric bike report I’m John and before we jump in please be sure to hit that subscribe button and turn on notifications that’ll keep you up to date when we release new ebike reviews a couple times every week but let’s talk about the special edition of
The rad City here which has some of the same trademark characteristics that you get on every rad power ebike and a lot of those aspects come down to the motor this bike has a 750 W rear hub motor which is a really substantial amount of
Power but it’s sort of toned down to be a bit less aggressive than your garden variety 750 wat and that gives it a really steady and reliable feel not only does that make the bike safer overall but it also allows for a nice wide span of different power levels for different
Types of riders so the special edition that we have here has this high visibility tiger orange paint job and that is only available in the step through frame in addition to being safer on the road since it stands out I think this color really complement the bike’s design but that’s not the
Only difference that we have between this and the standard version of the bike instead of the curved Dutch style handlebars and the adjustable stem the limited edition has a set of super wide 730 mm lowrise handlebars with a slight ergonomic curve and then a standard style stem that’s less adjustable but
Offers improved stability we like the setup on the standard rad City 5 plus St but the components here are a bit more typical for what you get on other dedicated commuter bikes and I really liked that these handlebars gave me really precise control over the steering
But to run through the rest of the specs and components here the motor uses a Cadence Sensor to stay engaged and it’s powered by a 48volt 6 172w battery that is semi-integrated into the down tube so it’s easy to remove it has a charge indicator button to show you how much
Power is left without turning the bike on and both the battery and the bike itself are compliant with UL 2849 and 2271 the bike uses a 7-speed Shimano alus drivetrain managed by an over the bar shifter on the right handlebar the gearing setup is pretty standard
Standard with a 46 Toth chain ring and an 11 to 34 to cassette the brakes are made by nut they’re a hydraulic system with 180 mm rotors there are 27 1/2 in Wheels with 2-in custom Street Tires there’s a front suspension with 50 mm of travel with a spring fork and the bike
Comes with full coverage fenders with mud flaps on both Wheels there’s also an integrated headlight and tail light that also works as a brake light the saddle is also custom and then there’s a nice cargo rack with a bit of a higher weight capacity than usual that can hold up to
592 lb and then up in the cockpit there’s a bit more going on here over your everyday commuter bike I really like the functionality and the feel of the Dual displays the screen on the left is where you can read or adjust your current pedal assist setting or turn on
The lights and there’s also a bar-based battery readout that side also has a bell but then on the right there’s a half twist throttle and the shifter that combination felt a little bit weird but I do think I’ve gotten more ed to it after spending a little bit more time on
The bike but right in the middle there’s the main display that includes a speedometer and odometer a clock and a watt meter for the motor that about wraps up the list but in case I missed anything we’ll leave a link to my written review over at electric bik
Report.com down in the video description for now let’s dive into our test and see how the bike Performed in our brake test we pedal the special edition rad City 5 plus St up to its Class 2 max speed of 20 mph and then hit the brakes then measure the distance it took to come to a complete stop the bike’s average stopping distance after
Three tests was 25′ 5 in which we can compare with other similar ebikes we’ve tested the current average for all the commuter bikes with hydraulic brakes we have data for is 21′ 9 in which means that the rad City 5 plus St was over 2 and 1/2 ft slower than average but it’s
Still within the range we consider safe and effective we’ve tested many of Rad’s other bikes which also use brakes from nut and they all did quite a bit better in this test the longer stopping distance in this case seemed to be a result of the custom tires which seemed
To lock up and sort of skate for a while when breaking really hard we’d recommend rad switch to something with a bit more stickiness and grip to bring the bike’s stopping distance down but bottom line the bike is equipped with decent brakes but there is some room for improvement Here let’s take the special edition rad City out for a speed test to find out what speeds it can hit in each pedalist setting and also to see how quickly its throttle can hit 20 mph all right we are here on the rad power bikes rad City 5 plus St limited
Edition to do a speed test uh going here with no pedal assistance kind of between 9 and 9 1 12 milph pretty comfortably uh not trying to put in a lot of work on this test to just get a sense of what the motor can do uh so let’s go up to
Pas1 and little bit of a hum from the motor not noticing a huge difference but there’s definitely you know something going on there uh got about a mile per hour of difference up to about 10 1/2 in this setting so let’s go to pas2 feeling you know a little bit more
Of a push from behind we’ll go up to PS or sorry uh fourth gear definitely making more more of a difference here um and again I’m not not trying to put in a ton of work here but uh get up to speed looks like we’re going to
Land kind of right around 13 and 1 12 okay maybe up to about 14 so let’s go up to PS3 definitely notice a big difference there there’s uh quite a bit of power there um actually going to shift up two gears I think yeah I think uh you know previous
Settings would be if I’m taking a casual weekend ride and this one is definitely more suited to getting where you’re going I’m actually let’s see up to uh 18 18 1/ 12 milph here let’s go up to PS4 and see what happens not a big difference there but
I’m feeling you know a little bit more of a push up to seventh gear which is the max and we’re kind of going yeah 19 1 12 milph or so uh 20 by the bike well okay almost 20 by the app 2 uh this is a Class 2 bike
So 20 is the limit let’s see if five makes any difference and at least here on flat ground it really doesn’t uh so yeah kind of in that same 19 1/2 20 mph range so we’ll call that our speed test on the rad City 5 plus
St all right we’re here on the rad City 5 plus St the limited edition to do a throttle acceleration test from 0 to 20 so uh we’ll go by the the bike’s main display here uh but I do have that app open so let’s start in three two 1
Go now kind of slowly but steadily building here and we are at 20 all right so that steady and reliable feeling from the motor that I mentioned earlier was really clear throughout this test the bike’s throttle wasn’t super Punchy which we like but it also didn’t feel underpowered for the pedal portion
I kept my pedaling pretty relaxed to see how much of a difference the motor really made my speed without the motor was 9.7 mph and in the lowest assist setting P1 I didn’t feel too much of a difference I hit 10.7 M hour there and
Then in pas2 I hit 14 mph so a much bigger difference and then that increased to 18.8 in Pas 3 Pas 4 and five seemed to be about the same in this test I had 20.1 and 19.7 M per hour there so both were right at the class 2
Speed limit with only some slight variation from changes in the path the overall distribution of power in each pedal assist setting was decent we usually prefer a steady linear increase in measurable speed and the rad City 5 plus definitely showed some tapering off on the highend due to that 20 mph limit
Still it’s pretty good balance that offers plenty of options for different types of riders I’d give the rad City an a minus in our speed test just because pas3 seemed to be a bit more powerful than expected in relation to the other settings but things are definitely good overall Here rad power bikes advertises a range of between 25 and 50 Mi with the special edition of the rad City 5 plus St and we were able to do significantly better than that when we tested the bike’s battery life we pedal the bike in pas5 and pas1 to get a low and high-end
Bracket for its range and our results were 37.3 to 64.3 Mi compared to similar commuter ebikes we’ve tested the rad City’s high power results were above average especially when considering its motor and battery specs we usually like to see equal measures between the battery capacity in Watt hours and the
Motor’s nominal wattage so we expected lower mileage with the rad City’s smaller 672 W battery in this portion of the test specifically we expected 54 minutes on the bike with 17 M of range but what we ended up with was around 120% better in both areas this efficiency likely has to do
With that tuned down feel of the motor rad actually keeps their Motors running a little below spec to make sure they’re always following cpsc guidelines and where most other motors from other brands Peak above their their nominal wattage RADS do not so 750 watts is the max here basically the rad City still
Has enough power to get you moving but it uses less energy and is able to go further on a single charge the bike’s low power results were more in line with what we expected so overall it did very well in this test 37 to 64 is miles
Should cover most daily commutes but I think there’s a good chance it’ll cover multiple days of travel before you’ll need to recharge We tested the hill climbing ability of the special edition rad City 5 plus st’s throttle and pedal assist system at hellhole Trail which has an average grade of 12% over its third of a mile of paved path I’m going to pass you over to Justin for this test so you can
Experience things from his point of view we are on the rad City 5 this new super cool tiger orange color um Step through doing the throttle test so we’re going to see how this goes out of the gate kind of right around 5 mil hour through this or sorry 8 mph through this
Steep section down to 7 six so the motor definitely kind of not going to slingshot you up a hill but I’m going to say I don’t think that’s necessarily bad a lot of times people want something just Rockets them up and they kind of feel out of control
Um this one feels pretty good when you’re riding and it’s held right at 6 mph so that’s that steep section the motor is on the quiet side of Motors um again I’m only 8 mph so we’ll see as we get to the top if it gets a little bit
Louder I’ll let you listen to the motor through this next kind of steep Punchy section here let’s see if it makes it up makes it up How’s it going see I kind of held right at that 6 mph um so it’s kind of feels like it just has that good kind of low and torque that even if you’re not going super fast it’s going to kind of keep you going um so we’ll see what the
Results are it’s not going to be a he killer on throttle again I would say Rad’s rad has kind of purposely tune their Motors more for longevity I’ve actually taken them out and gone up and down this hill as many times as possible trying to Breck the motor I have bricked other companies
And I’ve never bricked A rad um so doing pretty good 13 miles at the end we’ll see what the results come out on to the pedal test with rad City 5 now um so see how this does again I’m kind of soft pedaling up here shifting down into fourth gear so through this
First section right around 11 miles hour again I’m letting the motor do most of the work here not trying to push too much with those rear hub Motors um so looks like it’s going to go down to about 9 so a little bit faster than the
Throttle um I think the throttle we were down to about six so you definitely get up faster and I could again I could go faster if I really wanted to crank but I try to keep all these consistent so motor sounds just like it did on the throttle where it’s nice and kind
Of quiet um almost kind of forget that it’s there let you listen to it through this next section right so yeah kind of held right there at that 9 10 mph through that section and starting to pick up speed a little bit shifts fairly well while I’m climbing the
Hill and so we’ll see what the results are it’s not going to be a barn burner but just remember um this this motor is not going to have any issues going for a long time for you and I you can tell I’m not breathing at all very easy hill
Climb on the rad City 5 so to be clear rad power bikes typically aren’t the fastest in this test but as Justin said they also don’t quit so that steadiness was very apparent here Justin finished the throttle portion in a minute and 54 seconds and maintained an average speed
Of 9.5 M hour his pas5 results were much faster coming in at a minute and 30 seconds at 12.1 mph compared to other commuter ebikes we’ve tested yes the rad City came in on the slow side but I want to focus on a few important considerations here first
Not all ebikes can even finish this test so so the rad city is still plenty capable of handling steep hills second pedaling up hellhole is not something you’d want to do without the help of the motor so you’re definitely going to be thankful for the assistance the rad City
Provides and third to add to what Justin was talking about during the throttle test rad builds in some protection to their Motors to keep them from overheating which helps them to keep going for longer so you’re going to have a tough time finding a more reliable motor
To take a quick detour I tested the bike on another Hill near the office to gauge the power difference between pas4 and pas5 since we didn’t really feel any difference on flat ground I won’t get into the specific numbers on this one but we noticed a 20% difference in time
And a 24% increase in speed in pas5 so we definitely recommend the highest setting for the largest amount of help on Hills I want to bring BR you with me for one more spin on the special edition of the rad City 5 plus St to talk about its ride quality so let’s go out for a couple more minutes and then we can wrap things up back
Here all right we are here on the rad power bikes rad City 5 plus St the limited edition to give you a sense of what it’s like to ride so there are a couple differences between this and the standard version of the bike primarily with the handlebars uh I’m aside from the color
So the standard version has more Dutch inspired sort of curved handlebars where these are more straight uh lowrise bars they are wider 730 mm on on these um so with those you get uh I would say mostly upright riding position I’ve got a little bit of a forward lean but uh you
Know not too bad there uh there are fewer points of adjustment on this version of the bike with the standard style stem uh so you could loosen that up and kind of rotate the handlebars a little bit to change your feel but primarily the points of
Adjustment uh are are with the seat post and the saddle there this version of the bike is made for Riders between 4′ 8 and 6 ft tall uh and I think that those on the taller end are probably going to have a little bit less leg extension I’m
511 and uh that’s kind of what I’m experiencing here so uh moving on though we have a suspension Fork up front that is a spring fork with 50 mm of travel and then we are rolling on 27 1/2 in x 2 in custom Street Tires uh so kind of a nice blend
Between stability and maneuverability and then also a little bit of comfort when you’re rolling over bumps there so um and then the motor let’s talk about the motor that is a 750 wat rear hub that uses a Cadence Sensor so I’m going to show you how quick that is to engage
We’ll bump up to pas5 here and I’m just kind of coasting actually going to bounce back to a lower gear but I’m just going to turn the cranks and show you how quickly that engages we’ll do that now so pretty fast there took takes about a quarter turn of the cranks and
Then it you know power sort of builds slowly uh so let’s bounce back to the studio and talk a little bit more I like just about everything this bike offers and I do think it has a bit of an edge over the standard version of the bike I’m usually a big fan of
Anything super adjustable and Dutch styled so I do like the original version but this version of the bike feels like it takes itself a little more seriously for a commuter bike especially in terms of its responsive steering and control the wide handlebars here felt really awesome although just as a word
Of caution the added width does make them easier to get caught on things I found the suspension Fork here to be a little soft even with the preload turned all the way up but it wasn’t a problem during normal operation overall the ride here was super comfortable I really like
The saddle as well the grips felt pretty decent even with gloves on and I also like that the riding position didn’t feel too aggressive the Dual displays gave the cockpit a super cool high tech feel that I think is kind of missing from a lot of ebikes and all the controls worked out
Pretty well there is one area with some room for improvement and that’s with the bike’s Cable Management it’s a minor thing but we reviewed the standard version of the rad City 5 plus back at the start of 2022 and pointed out the same I saw then
So with a special edition of the bike we just expect a little bit better of a presentation I think it’s worth talking more about accessories here because that’s something rad does very well the rad City 5 plus can be outfitted with a ton ton of optional extras including
Cargo baskets soft and hard shell storage containers pet carriers wheel locks and even the Tulie yetep Maxi child seat so overall well there’s a little room for improvement I think the ride quality here is really solid the bike feels really capable and comfortable it’s responsive and it
Offers a lot of options for Riders who might use the bike for different Applications Rad’s mission is to get more people out of their cars and onto bikes so the rad City’s goal is to make the job of getting to and from work a lot easier this is a bike that’s made to be comfortable and functional which I think it does well but it’s also really
Fun to ride and it can be tailored to fit the needs and personality of its Rider the special edition of the bike in the step through frame kind of cranks things up a few notches with a cool looking but also functional paint job and some great handlebars that change
The feel and generally improve the handling in our testing we saw solid performance in just about every test there was a little room for improvement in its stopping ability but that was more related to tires than the brakes themselves we’d still love to see rad improve the cable management as well but
Otherwise the special edition rad City 5 plus St has all the best features of a rad power bike in a great looking package so if you’re looking for a safe and dependable bike for getting to work in back or running errands I think the
Rad City 5 plus is going to be right up your alley if you want to take a closer look at this or the standard version of the bike check out the link to Rad’s website in the video description down below and you’ll also find a link to our
Written review if you enjoy reading but thanks for hanging out with me today and don’t forget to like And subscribe let us know if you have any questions as well but that’s all for today again I am John with electric bike report and this is the special edition of the rad power
Bikes rad City 5 plus St
For current pricing on the Rad Power Bikes RadCity 5+ ST, click the link below:
RadCity Electric City Bikes
For a full detailed written review of the Rad Power Bikes RadCity 5+ ST, click the link below:
We first reviewed the Rad Power Bikes RadCity 5+ ST in late 2021/early 2022, but felt it was time for an update since a new Special Edition of the bike is now available. We explore the differences to see if there were any changes in performance in this Rad Power Bikes RadCity 5+ ST review!
The Special Edition of the bike comes in a new Tiger Orange paint job for high visibility – plus it just looks good! The bike also swapped out its old Dutch-style handlebars for wider low-rise bars for improved steering control.
Its motor, however, has not changed; the bike is propelled by a 750W rear-hub motor with Rad’s trademark tuned-down feel. It still packs a punch, but it gives the bike a safer, steadier feeling that we happily recommend for riders of all ages.
Additionally, the Special Edition retains the RadCity 5+ ST’s great level of comfort; with ergonomic grips and a mid-size saddle, it’s enjoyable for long rides.
Check out our Rad Power Bikes RadCity 5+ ST review to see how the bike performed!
0:00 RadCity 5 Plus Review
0:39 Overview
4:33 Brake Test
5:48 Speed Test
10:41 Range Test
12:30 Hill Test
17:56 Ride Quality
22:26 RadCity 5 Plus Conclusion
#radcity #electricbikereview
