So, after the joke of an experience I had with the Vivi and Chinese/Amazon customer service, I decided to try again.

To be fair, there was only one flaw with the Vivi...the lack of overload/thermal protection. Had I known, I could have installed a 10 amp fuse between the controller and the motor, or the battery and controller, and it probably would still be running today. That was literally the only problem I experienced with it when I had it.

But, it was a big one.

This time, I was going to do my homework and make sure that I got something that the company would stand behind.

I read a ton of articles about budget ebikes and the Ride1up Core 5 kept coming up over and over again.

It was more expensive than the Vivi. In fact, about twice as expensive.

So, it should be twice as good, lol.

I read about Ride1up and their philosophy. They basically pick and choose solid quality components at a reasonable price and that's what goes into their bikes. There's not much proprietary on them, which makes them easy to work on should something go wrong. For example, the control display is a KD21C Adjustable Speed LCD. They're a common display and you can buy replacements on eBay. Same with the cassette, which is a 7 speed Shimano 11-32t. Also available on eBay. And of course, you can get replacements directly from Ride1up.



Complete specs.

So I sent them an email explaining my situation with the Vivi and asking how that would NOT be repeated if I bought from them. An excerpt:



Their response:



Bike shops around here are not an option in reality. They only tend to work on what they sell, which is fine. I'm mechanically inclined, so if I have someone to walk me through troubleshooting steps, I can probably get to the root of any problems. And from all accounts, this would be in my native language, not Chinglish.

So, I got the bike. Price delivered was $1005 after a coupon code. Very reasonable as far as ebikes are concerned.

Waited, waited, waited...FedEx...that's a completely different story. But anyways, I came home one day to find the bike out on the porch.

People complained that it was relatively "unassembled" when they got it. It was, but no worse than I would have expected. It's a bulky item shipped in a large box, but still has to be compact enough for relatively easy handling.

I had to install the front wheel, fork and handlebars, the crank, the pedals, and the seat. Instructions were mostly clear and I had no problems. The rest of the process was adjusting, which was not difficult either.



As I assembled it, I charged the battery so I could immediately take it out for a ride.

Throttle rolls in exponentially, which makes it seem slow at first, but when I got on it, it kept accelerating and accelerating. I'm a big guy, so it takes a bit to get me up to speed, but the motor is torquey and pulls just fine once you get it rolling. 750 watts moves things along nicely. Pedal assist seems to kick in more immediately than the throttle does making it easy to squirt across intersections in town.

It's pleasant to ride and feels solid. The gear selector and brakes were easy to adjust and setup with minimal watching of Youtube videos. The shift indicator matches up perfectly with the gears (like, when the arrow points to 1, you're actually in 1st gear, etc).

Brakes are highly effective. Some criticized the lack of hydraulic brakes, but they are plenty good enough.

The Core 5 is supposed to top out at 20 on throttle alone, but the motor usually cuts at 22. On pedal assist level 5, I can easily get 25-30 mph and keep up with traffic in town. It feels fast.

Range is excellent, but the battery does suffer from voltage lag. What seems to happen is that the battery goes from 5 bars to 2 rather quickly, then stays on 2 bars for a LONG time before dropping to 1.  At first, I thought my battery might be a dud. Turn off the power for a bit and the battery creeps back up a bar. Riding on throttle alone, and admittedly hammering on it as much as possible, going between 15-22 mph, I can easily get 16 miles before battery cutout. I've never run it to empty while "taking it easy", but keeping the speeds to around 10 mph got me 17 miles with 2 bars of battery remaining. 20 miles on a charge if you were at all careful would be no problem.

Probably the only thing I miss from the old Vivi is the front shock. The Core 5 can be a little rough on unpacked or unimproved trails. You can ride them, but it's best if you go slow.



As for the motor protections...twice I've had them "kick in" and prevent an overheat/meltdown situation. Both have happened when I kept the motor at a sustained high speed for a long period of time. The most recent was yesterday.

A buddy and I went for a 12 mile ride on a local trail. He arranged for us to be picked up by a somewhat sketchy aquaintance and shuttled back up to the start point where our vehicles were parked.

I figured there might be issues. Instead of waiting, right before we got to the end, I turned and rode the 11 miles back up the trail on battery power alone. I set up a makeshift cruise control earlier and had set the speed on about 16 mph.



About 43 minutes in, the motor hit thermal shutdown.

I started pedaling. As I pedaled, I powered down the controller and powered it back up. I set the cruise for 10 mph and made it the rest of the way with no further problems and I never had to stop the bike. Within a minute or two, I had the speed back up to 15 mph or so.

If I hadn't owned the Vivi, I would view that as an annoyance. But now I'm almost thankful. It's MUCH better than the alternative...lol.

I beat my buddy back to the start point. To be fair, his guy was 1/2 hour late. But, I had no problem going 11 miles in 45 minutes or so. According to my GPS, I averaged about 14 mph, even after the shutdown.

With the Core 5, you can monitor wattage output from the motor. When I was doing 16 mph, the wattage varied between 30-60 watts. When I slowed to 10, wattage dropped to between 10 and 15 watts. Huge difference, both with battery consumption and stress on the motor. Hence why I said 20 miles would be no big deal on battery if you stayed around 10 mph. (CORRECTION - I thought there was a decimal point, but there wasn't. Actual wattage was 300-600 watts at 15 mph, and 100-150 watts at 10 mph. This makes more sense).

You can also adjust the wattage output in increments all the way down to 300 watts max to prevent hitting the overload to begin with. Of course, lowering the wattage will kill your top speed...

I'm about at 150 total miles right now on the Core 5. That's not a lot, and I will keep you posted about my experiences with this, but so far, I'm pretty happy with it.

Great write up and good luck with it!

looks cool.  appreciate the writeup.  And, hi neighbor!

Howdy!

I really like this bike and it continues to perform well.

I've put 350 miles on the Core 5 so far, including a 3 day, 56 mile ride.

During that ride, I pulled a trailer of about 80 lbs or so with all my camping gear on it (I like to live comfortably).





The Core 5 did just fine. I used pedal assist level 1 for the entire 56 miles and had no trouble keeping it moving, and I still had two bars of battery left when I got to the end of the ride. Impressive, considering I was moving nearly a quarter ton of weight down the trail.

In fact, I was able to do the last couple miles on throttle alone, which was nice.

I've done a few trail rides with it and I occasionally use it for commuting around my small town. It's been good all around and I've had no problems with it.

Next update at 500 miles...

Excellent AAR OP.   Is that the C&O trail or the GAP ?

OST

https://www.greenbrierrivertrail.com

Well, next update was supposed to be at 500 miles.

Instead, I forgot all about it and looked down one day to see 570+ miles on the odo.

So, I pushed it to 600...



So far, the Core 5 has been nearly perfect. I say nearly because I have changed it slightly from it's stock config. First, the seat is awful. And eventually, so was my replacement seat. I finally gave in and added an old man cruiser seat and suspension seat post. Now, it's good.



The only issue with the bike itself has been a broken spoke. It broke right at the wheel end where it mushrooms. I ground the end smooth, put a little bend in it, threaded it back through, and tightened it back up to the correct tension. So far it's holding well. A replacement is on the way.

I had to do a temp fix, because I've been commuting with it almost daily. I almost never take my vehicle to the dollar store or convenience store. Bike transportation in WV sucks, but I even drove it along the highway to the vet's office to pick up Doggo's food (she gots da beetus and has to eat special stuff). The berm is wide in most places, but I really wouldn't go any farther on the main roads than that.

I've done several bike trips with it and it continues to impress. People always ask me what the range is, but that's such a complicated answer. Do you want to use it as a bike with a little help from time to time? Or, do you want to use it as a motorcycle? The latter is the "worst case scenario" and I decided to do a real-world test to determine what the actual range is.
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So, I rode around on random streets in my town. This is WV, so that means a lot of uphill/downhill stuff. Total elevation changes went from just above 800 ft elevation at the low point to over 900 at the high. And I ran that entire elevation range several times during the test. 750w is just a little over a horsepower, so there would be times I would need to help. When I went below 10 mph, I pedaled long enough to get back above 10 mph. This probably happened a half dozen times or so. I didn't pedal much.

I absolutely hammered the throttle for the first five miles, I mean, ripping around corners, zipping down alleys, etc. I tried to keep it at 20 mph as much as possible. The conditions were windy, which didn't help. What also didn't help is that I had inadvertently over-tightened my front brake caliper yesterday and it was slightly dragging for the first 5 miles. Also, my rear tire was 36 psi and the front was 38 psi for the first five miles (hadn't checked my air pressure in quite a while). I figured this all out when the bike hit thermal overload and shut down on me. I limped home and corrected both of those situations before continuing the test.

After that, I varied my speed somewhat, but kept it mostly around 15 or so. My average for the whole trip was around 15 mph. Top speed was over 25 (love the backside of the hills). I had no more overload events for the rest of the test.

The Core 5 has a real-time watt meter so you can see your power output. Works kind of like a gas mileage indicator as you ride...bigger numbers mean you'll be pedaling soon. There is a huge difference between the watt draw at 20 mph vs 15 mph. On level, paved ground at 20, the motor was putting out between 300-350 watts. On level ground going 15, it dropped to 100-150. So, there's potential, if you're careful, to greatly increase the range above what I got here if you can keep your thumb out of the throttle.

At the end of the test, the bike shut off once due to low voltage after I pulled a long hill. I turned it off and back on, and I gained a bar of power and kept driving. The Core 5 does have an issue with voltage lag, and that means battery level as displayed on the monitor may not always be correct, especially right after a heavy period of activity. After turning it off once and back on, I was able to go about 1.5 more miles before total shutdown.

So, the final result is, I got 19.9 miles using throttle as much as possible and pedaling as minimally as possible, right here in hilly WV. That's after 600 miles and dozens of charge/discharge cycles. The battery is still in pretty good health from all indications.

The Core 5 still feels very solid. Nothing seems loose or worn. It cleans up well and looks good.

I definitely would buy this again if I had it to do over. Next check-in, 1000 miles!

Awesome, glad it's working out for you.

Damn.  My Dad has some form of e bike.  He has a part ownership of a beach house, and uses it to avoid traffic and get around.  I finally took it for a spin this week, and it was pretty impressive.  i dont know the brand or model or anything, but i was giving it what felt like 3/4 throttle and i was scooting at 22mph pretty damn quick.  definitely interesting.

I bought my wife the Core 5. She rides it to work daily and loves it.

The Core 5 is still going strong. Of course, with the weather getting rainy and the temps dropping, I'm not getting to ride as much as I would like. Nevertheless, I'm over 1000 miles on the bike as of now.

No other issues to report. It still pulls strong and battery life is quite good. I'm very happy with it overall. Still would buy if I had it to do again.

Nice write up . Thinking about getting a couple of good ones for my wife and I . Where’s a good place to read up on the different brands ?

I found some owners forums on Facebook where you could read or interact with current owners.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/264729534163214

I imagine other bike brands probably have similar groups. I know Lectric does.

I also read a lot and paid close attention to the articles that were critical or negative and I watched a lot of Youtube videos. I also contacted the company and asked specific "what if" questions. I had them put in writing what they would do in case the bike failed.

I was nervous, because even a "budget" bike of $1000 is a big investment. But, I think I did very well considering what I paid.