A TRUE Replacement for a Car??? - Radwagon Review
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,858 words · ~9 min read
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we've covered a handful of small electric vehicles on this channel so far
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some have been pretty cool and somewhat practical others have been cool and
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completely impractical and others have just been terrible but none of them are
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nearly as practical as a common Garden variety bicycle and that's because
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bicycles are fast efficient reliable
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easy to repair and cheap that's why I've been riding bikes for over 20 years and
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that's why I've been so anxious to try the rad wagon an electric cargo bike
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from rad power bikes it's got most of the advantages that come from being a
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bicycle but it's also got a 750 W
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Motor Corsair boasts unrivaled comfort and Universal compatibility on its void
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surround headset featuring a genuine Dolby 7.1 headphone USB adapter click
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the link in the video description to learn more the radwagon has has a
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21-speed gearing system wide allterrain tires no shocks mechanical disc brakes
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an LCD display with lots of information and plastic fenders mud flaps and clear
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wheel guards for the cargo area it's a longtail bike and it's heavy at 75 lb so
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you won't be doing any tight Maneuvers there's a rear light powered by
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doublea's but the front light runs off the main battery the beam is pretty
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narrow and not super bright but it will always shine even if you run out of
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power for the motor assembly of the radwagon is pretty easy if you have a
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decent set of tools the ones in the Box are just okay and there's a YouTube
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video to help you out just don't put the handlebars on backwards like I did and
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you'll be fine and while you're at it please read the manuals among the other
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very useful information you'll find safety warnings like the one about not
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putting the seat post too high which I didn't read and accidentally bent part
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of the frame and needed our neighbor Steve to help fix it again be sure to
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read both manuals cover to cover or you
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won't get the best experience I guarantee it at the heart of the
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radwagon is a 7lb lithium ion battery
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with a whopping 566 wat capacity it even has an onboard
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5volt USB port so you could recharge an
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iPhone about 70 times but this battery's
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true purpose is to power the direct drive hub motor it's gearless brushless
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very quiet and runs at 48 volts with a peak output of 750 wat the maximum
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allowed by law in the United States that's a lot of torque and let me tell
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you this thing kicks but only to a point
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out of the box the radwagon has a factory set speed limit of 20 mph that's
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as fast as you can legally go on an electric bike using a throttle only
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before us law classifies your vehicle as a moped for which you would require a
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license according to straa great app by the way I average about 12 mph on my
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canondale road bike compare that to 18 mph average on the rad wagon 50% faster
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that's respectable especially considering that the rad wagon wasn't
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even Built For Speed it's a cargo bike
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one that's capable of hauling a whopping 350 lb that's what this huge amount of
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rack space is for there's enough room for four standard paer bike bags or two
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of rad wagon's Ballard bags though I did not like the Ballard bags for several
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reasons worst of which is the pathetic attachment mechanism that has me
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fumbling with the clips like I'm in an infomercial fortunately you can use any
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bike bag compatible with the rack's 3/4 in tubing and there's even more room on
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the wooden deck and running boards you can carry groceries boxes Lumber and
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even people as long as they weigh less than 120 lb but don't tell that to your
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girlfriend so that's great but but just how much range can you get on a single
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charge well that depends rad power bikes
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says you can expect a range from anywhere between 20 and 40 mil depending
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upon factors like speed weight terrain and how hard you're pedaling I've ridden
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this bike for more than 200 miles over the past 2 months with a mix of long and
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short trips but I've never gotten farther than 30 mil on a single charge
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even on perfectly flat terrain to test the lower boundary I loaded up the
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radwagon with 300 50 lb and biked around
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on pedal assist mode 3 until the battery depleted I expected to go about 10 mil
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but the bike didn't make 10 mil it made 20 and shockingly it didn't give up much
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performance either easily reaching above 15 mph throughout my torture test and it
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even handled a very steep downhill without losing stability at 30 mph you
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can't do that on a boosted board this absolutely blew me away and so did the
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results of my new real world test the office to Costco Benchmark where the
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radwagon turned in the best performance of a non-gas powered vehicle losing to a
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car by only 2 and 1/2 minutes and this
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bike gets a lot of attention from people I get stares compliments and questions
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about the radwagon all the time love that color man but it's not all good
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news the rad wagon does have a few problems and odd quirks in addition to
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the mechanical disc brakes the bike also has a regenerator breake which is
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fantastic but it does not always engage
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even though it is supposed to however I found that I can force it to engage by
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twisting the throttle and then depressing the brake lever there's also
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another USB port on the LCD display but
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it doesn't always work I really like pedal assist mode for long Journeys but
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it's not great for stop and go travel because it requires about a half to a
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3/4 turn of the pedals before it kicks in and it takes almost a seconds to
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disengage after you sto pedaling that's more of a delay than I would like out of
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the box the rear derailer was not properly aligned and the disc brakes
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also rubbed quite a bit also the back wheel went pretty far out of true during
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my 350lb torture test I got the derailer
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brakes and wheel fixed at my local bike shop where the mechanic told me that
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every single spoke on the back wheel was loose so make sure you check for that
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before you do any riding but when the radwagon was in the shop I
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really missed having it around riding this ebike helped me remember why I love
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biking in the first place and I went on much longer trips that I would otherwise
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have done by car I forgot I even had a car and that's really what the radwagon
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is all about it's a vehicle somewhere between a car and a bike and considering
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that about half of all car trips are less than 5 miles owning a bike or an
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ebike for those longer heavier trips makes a lot of sense now if you don't
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know much about electric bikes it may surprise you to learn that at
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$1,700 the redwagon is a value option at
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this price with these features I could not find a better cargo ebike seriously
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if you know of one leave it in the comments below but the main deciding
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factor for a purchase like this should be one of practicality don't buy
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something like this unless you know you're going to use it make sure that
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biking is already a part of your life and then you can take it to the next
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level with an ebike like the radwagon by the way if you don't want this much
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cargo space they also have the rad Rover
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and the rad mini the rad wagon is fun
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fast practical versatile and it's a great value you could even call it rad
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it's not perfect but honestly my biggest concern is that it might get stolen
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great job rad power bikes for setting the bar so high I'll be riding this bike
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kit this one's got a more durable case and magnets to hold all your little
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screws and stuff in place the 64-bit kit itself is held to the tool roll using
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magnets as is the shell cover more bits means fewer repair roadblocks and
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they've got a newly designed swivel toop Precision driver there's also a flex
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extension for hard-to-reach screws Precision Ed safe tweezers and a pair of
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reverse tweezers there's a wider variety of plastic opening tools and picks to
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safely work on tablets and smartphones and whatever else and a suction cup for
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display assembly removal there's metal spers spudgers whatever and iix its own
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destroy your work with static shock the price on the Protech toolkit has
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over to ifixit.com Linus and use code LTT at checkout to save $5 on your
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purchase of $10 or more thanks for watching everybody and give us a like or
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a dislike depending on how you feel there's a subscribe button somewhere
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that you should press if you haven't pressed it already and check out one of
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my other electric vehicle reviews The Fly cly smart ped which is well it was
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super disappointing and terrible and um I'm glad that there are good electric
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vehicles that exist um that's pretty
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much it uh you can buy stuff on Amazon but not the radwagon you got to order it
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directly from rad power bikes and uh see
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you next time