In terms of battery power, I had been impressed that when sitting idle in the garage through a few months of winter, the bike held a charge, diminishing only 19 percent from a full 100 to 81. I was less impressed, however, that when I resumed riding after a month-long hiatus on a 33-degree day, I chewed the battery from 81 percent down to 41 percent in less than 30 minutes while riding uphill using full-on throttle mode.
A few other gripes made me feel like I can’t take this electric bike as seriously as I should for its price tag. The rear wheel is bolted on and the front wheel is quick-release, both of which are signs of an overall lower-quality build. A bolted-on rear wheel means you need to carry a wrench to change it, and even very cheap electric bikes usually have a thru axle, which is more secure than a quick release.
Fenders are sold separately, adding $100 more to an already expensive ride. I didn’t have the bike’s official weight, but even just by carrying it around, I could feel that it was so much heavier than other bikes I’ve tested. It’s hard to imagine carrying up stairs, over any small obstacle, or anywhere other than into a roomy garage with its own designated storage space.
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Photograph: Stephanie Pearson
It’s worth mentioning here that this is the higher-end “track racing” version of the bike; N+ Bikes also offers a slightly more reasonably priced commuter version, as well as a much more expensive (and dubiously-named) rallye version.
Still, I had to do a lot of troubleshooting with this bike that I just haven’t had with other high-end electric bikes that I’ve tested, and there were a few too many easy-to-fix problems that I had to overlook for me to recommend it at this price. The Mercedes AMG-F1 Track Edition 750 Electric Bike just has a little too much hyped-up bling, with too little benefit for the bucks.
