![]() ![]() Mike and Eric are well versed in the IZIP line and Rudy cranks the wrenches in the back. Plenty of customers were on hand, but we still managed to talk to the whole crew there. Every model in their line is on display, and plenty of demo and rental bikes are available. With E-bikes everywhere, they even have them as wall decorations. With more room and a nicer shop, they have really made it their own. They had been enjoying a nice storefront at Venice beach, but moved to this awesome new location just a short distance away. The IZIP Store there is not brand new, but bigger and better than ever. The timing was perfect and instead of packing them off, I delivered them in person. I had just been asked by BML to ship the demo Ferei headlights (story on those coming soon) I’ve been testing up to Ethan (who runs the show at the IZIP Store) so he could try them out. But, as luck would have it, they were having a Labor Day sale and BBQ over the holiday weekend. Well, the grand opening was on a weeknight and many miles north of our home-base so we couldn’t go. They had also invited us to share in the grand opening of their new IZIP Store. Right now I am knee-deep in my E3 Ultra excitement. You may know that in addition to all the other bikes I ride and test, Currie Technologies has offered me extended rides on every E-bike they offer. My bike blog continues to take us to some of the most fun places. It’s about 10 cents to fully charge the bike, which translates to a fraction of a penny per mile to ride it.Right on Main Street in Santa Monica, the IZIP Store really stands out. What’s most efficient about the Express is the cost. That would require reversing the polarity of the motor to send energy back to the batteries - a bit of technological wizardry that’s inefficient and offers almost no benefit because the brakes on a bicycle aren’t used nearly as often as they are on a larger, motorized vehicle that’s moving with the whims of traffic. Pedaling doesn’t help charge the batteries. ![]() ![]() I found that if I fully charged the bike when I got home and unplugged it before going to sleep, it lost one dot, or one-fifth of its charge, by morning and another one-fifth on my ride to work, but I could get another round trip on the bike before it needed to be plugged in. There are five lighted dots on the battery pack that disappear one by one until you’re out of juice. Reading the bike’s level of charge is simple, but it isn’t precise. It takes four to six hours to fully charge the batteries, which the manufacturer says can travel 31 to 62 miles per charge, depending on the power setting. What does take time is recharging the battery pack. That’s faster than my commute by car or even motorcycle, when I factor in the time it takes to gear up, park, walk to my cubicle and gear down. That was slow enough that I needed to stay right and scan parked cars for unexpected door openings but fast enough that my 5.75-mile commute was a mere 21 minutes from door to desk. But at such a fast pace, I did look like Miss Gulch pedaling away in “The Wizard of Oz,” which is why my average speed was more like 15 mph. My heart wasn’t pounding to the point of explosion and sweat wasn’t flying off my face. In the five days I spent commuting on the iZip Express, my top speed was 32 mph. What wasn’t normal was the planetary drive system, which combines the power produced from pedaling with the output from the motor - a system that allowed me to reach higher speeds with less physical effort. I twisted the right grip to select among the nine speeds on the freewheel, and I adjusted the tension on those gears with my left - just like I would on a standard, multispeed bicycle. Speeding up and slowing down, I moved through all 27 speeds on the Shimano drive train with a combination of two movements. ![]() I just pushed a button on the 36-volt lithium-ion battery pack to turn on the bike, pushed another button to select the level of power-assist, started spinning and the Express whirred to life. ![]()
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