Batch electric
Batch Step-through +
Need a little help getting up the hills? Let’s get you a little mechanical assistance.
A Bosch electric motor should do the trick.
This is the Batch Step-through Plus, one of the best electric bike designs that we have ever seen.
Based on an excellent hybrid design and outfitted with a powerful and reliable Bosch Performance motor system, this bike is an example of design perfection. It rides great and exhibits none of the “quirks” normally associated with E-bikes.
Quirks? It’s probably not polite to highlight the faults of others, but here are some of the things that have always bugged us about electric bikes: Under-powered brakes, low-end shifting systems on really expensive bikes, poor weight distribution that makes a bike feel tippy, Oversized tires that reduce the battery range and make flat repair expensive and inconvenient, clunky integrated rack systems that won’t accept standard bags (looking at you, Radpower), chargers and batteries that try to set your garage on fire.
We don’t like dealing with stuff that a bike company should address before the bike even goes on the road, so a bike that we can describe as “perfectly designed” is pretty appealing.
For those of you who have been spending a lot of time looking for an electric bike, here are the vital statistics: An aluminum hybrid frame designed with a motor in mind (integrated into the frame, not tacked on). Internal wiring for the motor and the shifting. A Bosch Performance motor with a 400 watt/hour battery. Shifting courtesy of Shimano’s Alivio component group. The bike stops safely and reliably by way of Shimano hydraulic disc brakes (an important element for a bike that weighs 10 pounds more and can be ridden 15 mph faster than a normal bike).
Electric bike charge range varies with the weight of the rider and the local topography, but you can expect 75 to 100 miles on the “Eco” assist level and around 25 miles with the motor going full blast in “Turbo” mode on this Batch. The bike can sense the amount of torque that you’re putting on the pedals and it will assist you according to your need (and you can set it to one of four assist levels). The motor will stop helping you when you hit 20 miles per hour, but there’s no rule that says you have to slow down at that point.
Once the battery has been depleted, the charger will fill the lithium Ion battery pack from totally drained back up to full power in about two hours.