I think the battery built into the bottom tube looks cool. Most ebikes just have a big battery hanging off the bottom tube. Without knobby tires, the Marshall isn’t going too far into mud or snow, but it is great for easier trails and dirt roads. My testing has been done on gravel roads and wet, muddy trails at around 5° C with a bit of snow on the ground.
For open road riding with traffic you may hit 32 km/h regularly. Overall, given the fundamental shift I have seen in my personal bike riding habits this past summer, I very much enjoy having an e-bike. The schwinn electric bike Coston e-bike is a good example of that in a much more approachable price range than some others. But a lot of the nicer features also have drawbacks. The bike is powerful but also discharges very quickly.
The front fork evens out the bumps on the pavement and the dirt. The mountain bike shape makes it easy to ride on rough schwinn electric bike trails as well. The balance with the the battery takes a bit to get used to but then it’s all fun anywhere you go.
Fundamentally, this bike seems like a bunch of parts bolted and ziptied (yes… literally ziptied) onto an otherwise standard Schwinn city bike frame. The Essential Guide for MenThe Manual is simple — we show men how to live a life that is more engaged. As our name implies, we offer a suite of expert guides on a wide range of topics, including fashion, food, drink, travel, and grooming. We don’t boss you around; we’re simply here to bring authenticity and understanding to all that enriches our lives as men on a daily basis.
I’m not about to pedal around in the lightest pedal assist setting all day, especially since this isn’t a high power e-bike to begin with. So if you’re using liberal throttle, keep in mind that you’re going to wind up with limited range. The Tailwind was announced in late 2008, and came out in early 2009, retailing for a rather high (at the time) price of $3,199. It also managed to get coverage in a lot of business-focused magazines – which is unusual for an electric bike.
And when it comes to serious hills, the Coston gets left far behind other e-bikes. Of course, some of that weight is in the 288-watt battery which Schwinn adversities as being good for up to 35 miles of range. We’ll get into the range in a moment, but the rest of the bike is fairly standard fare for any bike. You get a 7-speed gear system on the rear wheel with a single gear on the front. The shifter is on the right handlebar opposite the LED display for the motor on the left. I’m sure that keeping it in low pedal assist will still net riders the claimed maximum of 35 miles that Schwinn promises.
The 250-watt electric motor offers 7 different levels of powered drive or pedal assist, selected using the LCD screen and achieving speeds up to 20 miles per hour. Aluminum frame and schwinn mountain bike wheel rims deliver lightweight durability while an integrated LED headlight illuminates the road for nighttime rides. The best bike for you depends on how you will be using it.
On flat riding roads, where we did most of our testing, the assistance creates an experience where, though you still need to pedal, you can definitely feel a substantial amount of help from the motor. We’re not saying it’s without effort, but it’s a greatly reduced effort. Uphill, however, we definitely expended a significantly higher amount of energy with our toothpick-like legs. On flat roads, shifting gears will allow you to put more or less effort into your ride as you please, allowing for a lot of levity in the experience. We didn’t clock our speeds, but the bike can supposedly top about 15 miles per hour on flat ground with the pedal-assist on, and that sounds about right to us. For that ride, just getting the feel of the bike, I headed for a local paved rail-trail.
Additionally, the weight of the bike makes it pretty inconvenient to carry up and down stairs on a regular basis. The Tailwind’s frame is meant for flat city or suburban riding, and, at the end of the day, Schwinn’s entire package here hits dead-on a really specific and growing demographic. There is a small but ever heightening interest in alternatives to gas automobiles in the US, and bicycles, as evidenced by bike-friendly cities such as Portland and Minneapolis. Less pedal-happy cities are beginning to see the advantages of cycling (less pollution, less car traffic) and taking steps to reform their towns. Simply put — plenty of people would rather bike to work than drive there, if distance and climate factors are in their favor, for reasons environmental and health-related. The Schwinn Coston DX is a Class 2 e-bike, which means that it has a throttle that is capable of reaching up to 20 mph without pedaling.
That being said, the small-ish 250W motor isn’t going to be a powerhouse on hills. The bike accelerates fine on flat ground, but you’ll definitely need to add some leg assist if you’re going to be climbing tall hills. Schwinn’s electric bicycle line has significantly expanded over the last couple years.