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My car was at the auto shop. It was officially about to get junked (yay!), but I had to be there to hand it off to the folks taking it away. That's more than a 15-mile roundtrip from my home in Brooklyn, so I figured it'd be a good test for the Lectric XP Trike, the company's new electric tricycle. I had to haul some stuff back home from the car anyway, and the rear basket was the perfect size to fit everything.
I was right—the Trike handled the distance with barely a sweat. However, the trip was something I'd never experienced before. This is an electric bike designed for folks who may have a hard time balancing on a two-wheeler, or for anyone too afraid to practice on a normal bike because they're scared of falling (cough, my wife). But there were a few times when I did not feel all that stable on the Trike, and that's a problem.
First things first: The Lectric XP Trike is not for anyone that lives in an apartment. This is an electric bike made for someone who has a garage they can store it in. That's not me. The first problem was that when it was delivered, the box would not fit through my apartment's door—I had to unbox it in the street. Second, the rear portion of the Trike is so wide that it still barely fits through my door frame. (It definitely left a few scratches. Please don't tell my landlord.)
OK, I made it through the front door. Now I had to haul this 70-pound etrike up a flight of stairs. Not fun! There's no easy way to carry it, and it being so wide doesn't help anything. Imagine doing this every single time you wanted to leave the house. The point is, don't bother buying it if you don't have a secure ground-floor space to store the Trike.
The setup itself didn't take too long—you can follow this handy video here—and the folding mechanism is similar to all of Lectric's other folding ebikes. (And no, it doesn't really make it any easier to carry when it's folded because the rear two tires are still super wide.) It is weird that you need to angle the front wheel first in a certain direction or it won't fold completely. I didn't feel the need to fold it most of the time, but it's handy if you want to put it in the back of a car.
I did hit another snag though, and this is a theme I've encountered with nearly every Lectric I've tested. When I tested the Lectrix XP 3.0, I had a front tire that kept leaking air. When I reviewed the Lectric XP Lite, one of the pedals kept hitting the bike's frame, scratching the paint off. On the Trike, the right-side rear tire was touching the fender. The fender either got bent out of place during shipping or it's just a defect from the manufacturing process. It's part of the problem with direct-to-consumer bikes. In all these cases, the fixes were easy enough (I just bent the fender back out with some pliers), but I'd love to see more quality control.
The company still doesn't include a bell on this bike, but you do get a removable battery, a throttle, a headlamp, and an LCD display. When you buy it, you can add on the Support Seat and Cargo Package—these are supposedly “extra” accessories, but the company usually offers it for free. The Cargo Package's Large Basket is absolutely worth it if you want to use the Trike to tote around groceries (or the last few memories of your car). The wide Support Seat is pretty comfy too.
One thing I'd like to point out is the placement of the key that's required to start the whole system. Of all Lectrics I've tried, it's typically been on the underside of the bike, which is very annoying, but here it's finally on the side of the battery. Hooray! Much more accessible. Lectric also says this is the lowest step-through frame it has made, at just 13.8 inches tall. That means you won't need to raise your leg as high to get over the frame and take a seat.
On the LCD display, you can choose between five Pedal Assist System levels. Levels one and two didn’t give me enough power to move this heavy bike at a decent speed, so I usually kept it at level three. This kept me cruising at roughly 11 mph, but if you ratchet it up to level 5 PAS, you can hit a top speed of 14 mph. You can also use the throttle whenever you want to take a break from pedaling, but this will cut down the Trike's range.
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Speaking of, the range is excellent. After riding 8 miles to get to my first destination, I thought the display was broken because the Trike's battery bar didn't deplete at all. When I was a few miles away from home, it finally went down a bar, and after the full trip (a little more than 15 miles), the Trike only lost two bars out of 10. At PAS 3, Lectric claims a range of 40 miles. I think most people can get something close to that, though it depends on rider weight, payload, and road conditions.
The Trike is rated to carry 415 pounds in total, but you need to distribute the weight correctly. The rider can weigh up to 330 pounds; the front basket, if you install it, can carry 35 pounds; and the rear basket can hold up to 75 pounds. Speaking of ratings, Lectric says the battery on this thing is UL 2849 and UL 2271 compliant, which is not the same as UL Listed. That means there's no UL mark on the battery, so while it may have been tested and marked as safe on Lectric's side, you're beholden to Lectric's word.
I never had any qualms about braking on this thing—the hydraulic brakes had no problem stopping quickly, plus you're rarely going too fast anyway. I do appreciate the parking brakes to keep the Trike from rolling down a hill.
OK, here's where we get to some of the flaws. First, I want to point out that the front wheel is much closer to the seat than you might expect (more than any other bike I've sat on). That means turns are incredibly tight. Lectric has some language on the bike and in the manual that notes you should not pedal or use the throttle when making turns. In fact, you want to slow down before turning. It is immediately obvious why—if you're going too fast, the Trike might tip over. It took me a few turns to get the hang of it, but all I could think of was my wife or my dad using this thing and making too hard a turn and falling over.
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The second flaw isn't really a fault of the Lectric but more of tricycles in general, but you can really only ride on flat roads. The sides of the roads here in Brooklyn usually slope into the curb for rainwater to enter the drains, but that's typically where the city puts the bike lane. This is something I've never cared about on a two-wheel bike because I can balance upright. On the Trike, the two back wheels tend to slowly tip you into the gutter. My body automatically tries to correct itself so that I remain upright, but after a few miles of this, my back started to hurt.
Three wheels also mean it can be harder to contend with potholes. The Trike takes up so much space on the bike lane that I've had to just ride into a few of them because some roads are just that bad here. My back jolts to one side of the bike when one of the wheels dips into a hole. At one point, the dip was big enough that a few seconds later, the mechanism to keep the seat at my preferred height got loose and dropped me lower. It was easy to fix and tighten again, but I worry about how often that'll happen.
Again, these issues aren't necessarily exclusive to the Trike. You can see in this video from Sixthreezero that the company warns about the same risks on its Tricycle (which you can read more about here). They're things anyone can get used to after a few rides, kind of like the first time riding a two-wheeled bike. However, I don't know whether I can say the ride will be comfortable if you're primarily riding on the sloped part of the road in your area. I also think that if you spend more, you can probably find something even more stable.
But the XP Trike is one of the more affordable etrikes out there at just $1,499. It's a great way for a lot of people who can't ride a two-wheel ebike to enjoy the bliss of the wind rustling through their hair while riding across town. Just take the time to understand the dos and don'ts of a tricycle first, and take it slow.
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