Lightweight eBike vs powerful electric bike
Ever since electric bicycles hit the market, we have witnessed a real struggle to offer increasingly powerful motors and higher capacity batteries.
However, the second generation of eBikes bets on more compact batteries and motors that, even being less powerful, offer cyclists a series of advantages that super powerful eBikes are far from reaching.
So, if you want to know what advantages and disadvantages lightweight eBikes offer vs super powerful electric bikes, you've come to the right place. In today's article, we'll take a look at what the differences are between them and how they affect riding.
Are you up for it?
Main differences between Lightweight eBike vs powerful eBikes
The main differences between a lightweight eBike and a powerful electric bike lie mainly in three aspects: design, performance and riding experience.
Lightweight eBikes focus on providing a smoother and more comfortable ride with an emphasis on portability and maneuverability. While more powerful electric bikes focus on providing greater power and speed.
Would you like to take a closer look?
Powerful eBikes features
Powerful eBikes are equipped with motors that allow them to reach higher speeds and climb steep slopes more easily.
In other words, this is a type of ebike that can be very useful for those cyclists looking for strong thrills and greater performance in terms of acceleration.
However, this effort to increase the power of the bikes translates into an increase in the dimensions of the tubes, an excess of wiring and weights that can reach up to 25 kg.
So, despite offering higher power, they also force you to ride weighted down by your bike's weight when you ride above 25 km/h (15.5 mph).
In addition, bikes with high-power motors and high-capacity batteries have moving parts inside them that involve a rotating mass that must be moved with pedaling effort when the battery is off, making riding more difficult.
Lightweight eBike Features
The main characteristic of lightweight eBikes is that they are built with lighter materials, such as aluminum alloys or carbon fiber, which facilitates their transportation and maneuverability, especially in difficult terrain where you need to make more precise turns or avoid obstacles more easily.
Another advantage of lightweight eBikes is that they are usually designed with the rider's comfort in mind. They feature ergonomic frames that offer a more natural posture and, because they are lighter and use more elastic materials, they better absorb impacts from bumps to provide a smoother and more comfortable ride.
Moreover, although lightweight electric bicycles tend to have smaller batteries than more powerful eBikes, this does not always mean that they have a shorter range. For, today, we can find new types of integrated motors and batteries that offer adequate power and autonomy at a low weight.
Such as, for example, the Fazua removable motor, a motor that offers 58 Nm of power at a weight of only 1.8 kg (3.96 lbs). Unlike super powerful motors that offer up to 85 Nm but weigh almost twice as much.
How to choose your ideal eBike wisely?
Beyond the considerations you may find in any eBike buying guide, when choosing between a lightweight ebike and a powerful electric bike, you should take into account your personal preferences and the type of routes you plan to use it on.
For example, if you intend to use your eBike to get around town or take your weekend rides on the road or mountain trails, a lightweight ebike may be the right choice for you.
While, if you prefer strong thrills and a pedal assist that allows you to reduce the time on the climbs to enjoy more of the descents on rough terrain, a powerful electric bike would be the right choice.
If, on the other hand, you are looking for an eBike to accompany you on your bikepacking trips, you have probably thought that the only option is to go for an electric bike with a high-capacity battery.
However, we must not forget that pedal assistance can only be used when you ride under 25 km/h (15.5 mph) and having to deal with such excess weight for the rest of the time can be a real agony. That's why our recommendation is that, in these cases, go for a lighter electric system and take a spare battery just in case.
And finally, there's the riding feel.
Powerful eBikes allow you to ride more aggressively to climb challenging terrain in a more explosive manner.
But if you're looking for a more natural, efficient and virtually frictionless riding experience, you can only get that with a lightweight eBike.
If you've chosen the latter option, you might be interested to know that Crow bicycles are super-lightweight electric bikes that you can convert to a conventional bike whenever you want to further reduce their weight in a single move.
Would you like to take a look at them?
