The Rad Mini is a sturdy fat tire folding ebike from Rad Power Bikes.
That's a fairly unique combination. This bike is popular among people who don't
have a lot of space to store a bike. It can fit in a boat, an RV, or just a
normal size car. And the fat tires and geared hub motor mean you can take it on
rough and steep terrain. So, I like to think of it as an adventurer's bike.
Let's check it out.
be quiet!'s Silent Wings 3 uses a smooth running six-pole motor to remain silent
and cool your PC better. Check them out at the link below. The Rad Mini arrives
in a small bike box. Interestingly, not already folded, and it requires a bit of
assembly. You have to put on the front wheel, the handlebars, pedals, and the
optional front rack. I had a bit of trouble with it, but if you attach these
two arms first, you'll be fine. Now that it's assembled, let's try folding it.
Each of the folding joints features several points of redundancy to prevent
the bike from accidentally folding mid ride. So, if this lever is loosened,
you'll be fine. If the whole assembly rotates away, you're still fine. You
have to pull this whole contraption up before the bike will be able to fold in
half. And it's the same story with the handlebars. to fold. This plastic holder
needs to be rotated. This handle needs to be pulled down, and the spring-loaded
part needs to be moved. Now that it's folded, you might notice that the gears
are exposed. This guard around the derailure prevents them from being
damaged in transit. But it should be noted that there's nothing to prevent
the bike from scratching its own paint. So, I juryrigged a solution out of some
old bicycle tubes. Handy things, by the way. I keep them in my car next to the
duct tape and WD40. At 60 lb, the bike
is heavier than most folding ebikes, but that contributes to its sturdy feel, and
I was able to carry it comfortably, especially when compared to the 75lb Rad
Wagon. The rear rack can even be extended, but if your bike bags aren't
very rigid, they'll rub up against the back wheel, unless you bought the
optional fenders. And I like how it looks, but I found no real use for the
front rack. It's a weird hybrid between a rack and a basket. with the front
open, I guess, to accommodate larger items, but I also would have gotten rid
of these extra railings on the sides so I could carry a more diverse range of
objects. It's also worth noting that it kind of prevents you from parking inside
most bike racks. Well, time to start it up. The
key needs to stay inserted for the bike to run. I wish this wasn't the case
since they ended up hitting my foot while I'm riding. Separating the bike
key from the rest of my keys solves this problem, but it makes it easy to forget
the key in the ignition, which would allow someone to steal the expensive
battery. Now, let's talk about the riding experience. The bike has only one
derailure with seven speeds. That's usually fine, but I wish the highest
gear was a little higher. There's a back lit LCD display, which shows everything
you could ever want, except for estimated remaining range. The wimpy
front light runs off the main battery and the backlight uses double's. There's
no suspension on the Rad Mini. Combined with the smaller diameter tires, bumps
will feel harder than usual. The fat tires definitely soak up all the little
bumps, but not the big ones. On the subject of soaking, you can take the Rad
Mini out in the rain as long as you don't stay out for too long. But my Rad
Mini did not come with fenders. Pretty surprising since the company is located
in Seattle where it rains all winter long. I folded my bike bags over the top
of the rack to keep the water off my back, but the bike has still gotten
absolutely filthy. Apparently, there were no pre-existing fenders available
for a 20-in fat tire bicycle. So, Rad Power Bikes had to specially design and
manufacture them. As of December 2016, the fenders have finally become
available, and they're great. They work just as fenders should. But at 159 USD,
they're definitely priced like custom parts. Yikes. The Rad Mini has a 556Wh
battery and a powerful 750W planetary
geared hub motor, but because of the geared motor, the Rad Mini does not have
regenerative braking. Though, it makes up for this with better acceleration
than the Rad Wagon up to its governor limited top speed of 20 mph. However, it
takes almost a second for the motor to engage after you twist the throttle. The
bike has a throttle and five modes of pedal assist based on the cadence
sensor, but the pedal assist is absolutely awful, or at least it was out
of the box. Basically, the problem was
that they added speed limits on top of the usual watt limits for all of the
five pedal assist modes. This resulted
in most of the load being taken by either the rider or the motor instead of
being equally distributed. After I and
some other users sent Rad Power Bikes some feedback, they reworked their
firmware for the motor controller and sent me a new one in the mail. It was a
pain in the ass to install, but now the motor controller works just the way it
should, and that's great. But what's not great is that my first motor controller
on the Rad Wagon was also buggy and
needed to be replaced. So, it's become a pattern for me. And looking through
online forums, I'm not the only one. This is something I feel Rad Power Bikes
could address with more stringent pre-release testing and quality control.
But let's not dwell on that. What can you expect from the Rad Mini with the
updated motor controller that they're shipping now? good things. It turns out
due to its superior acceleration and possibly even higher top speed when
pedaling, the Rad Mini was able to beat all the other electric vehicles in my
office to Costco benchmark. As for range, the website claims 20 to 40 m and
the furthest I've ever gotten was 30. Which leads us to price. At 1,500 USD,
there is quite a lot of competition from other folding ebikes, such as the Enzo
or the Volt Bike, which both come with fenders included, by the way. But
despite that and any negative things that I've said about the Rad Mini, I
still really like it. And because of its superior acceleration and top speed,
more upright sitting position, wider tires, and reduced size and weight, for
most of my adventures, I prefer the Rad Mini over the Rad Wagon. And the
foldability means you can take it pretty much anywhere. Just make sure to bring a
tarp so you don't get your buddy's Lamborghini dirty.
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out what you could save. Thanks for watching, guys. Give it
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you can do. I'm not sure what it is. Uh check out our link to Amazon to buy
stuff. We've also got a merch store where you can buy a t-shirt. You can't
buy this jacket. Uh check out the Rad
Wagon video. I talked about that in this
video. So, if you haven't seen that, you're going to be kind of confused. So,
goodbye.