*2020 Update*

If you are interested in a rad power bike you can use this link and you should get a $50 off your purchase and I will get $50 too!



We purchased our 2018 Rad Power Bikes RadCity Step through electric bike back in early 2018 for my wife after she was jealous of my Rad Rover. At the time it was the first and only step through bike that Rad Power Bike’s made, now they have 3 ( soon to be 4 when the new Rad Rover is released on 2020). So after about a year and 430 miles of pure bliss for my wife we thought it was time to write up a little review on how the bike worked for us.

First off since the bike isn’t a fat tire bike it feels lighter and more nimble. The Rad Rover feels more like a small motorcycle or moped and the city feels more like a bike. I put together a little comparison table below showing the differences between the bikes.



Rad Rover vs Rad City Step Thru key specs

Now a little background on the main rider of our ebike, my wife Kimberly. She is a little less than 5′ tall and has been suffering with Chronic back pain and nerve damage and was worried about getting on and off the other Rad bikes because of the stepover height. The RadCity Step Thru fixed that for her and she has been loving it! We just found out about the new Rad Rover step through and she wants to try it but is worried it will still feel too big. I put together a couple pictures of my 4’11 3/4” wife on the bike as well as some pics of myself on it, I’m 6’1” with a 32” inseam. The bike fits both us us just fine and the step thru really helps with people with mobility issues.







All of the rad power bikes have a throttle and peddle assist. My wife really enjoyed the throttle, especially to help her get going. She found that the combination of the throttle and 5 different levels of peddle assist made it that she didn’t really use the gears very much ( which is why the cheaper Rad Runner might also be a good fit if you don’t mind the smaller tires and limited display).

At the time of writing this blog post Rad has 3 step thru ebikes for sale, the cheaper Rad runner, the Rad mini step thru and the city step thru. You can see the comparison listed below. My wife is interested in the Rad Runner, especially because it was available in green, hopefully we can try one out and let you know what we think!

Ok back to the review of our Rad City step thru…overall my wife didn’t really have any complaints at all. The bike performed great, we took it on the beach a few times, in the rain many times and had it on the back of our RV for over 10,000 miles (many of which were uncovered). The only issues we had were adjusting the brakes to get them to not squeak (mainly bc I’m not great with bikes…) and having the screen turn off when water would get in the connectors because we left the bike out in heavy rain. All we had to do to fix the screen issue was disconnect the connectors and wipe out the water, let it dry and we were good to go. We try to cover the bikes now when we leave them on the back of the RV to keep from having the intermittent screen issue and keep the bikes cleaner. You can find our cover here. I have also heard that a little dialectic grease on the connectors will make them even better in the rain.

Our 2 Rad ebikes covered on the back of our Lazy Daze RV.



We did notice a difference in torque when going up hills compared to my Rad rover since the city has the direct drive motor. It was still totally fine and was always able to get my wife up very Steep hills but she did learn to try to get her speed up a bit before a really steep hill. I used my GoPro to track my speed as I went up the steep hill by our house (many times people will walk bikes up the hill). You can see that the bike did slow down (this was throttle only) but it was able to maintain ~12mph up the will with my ~190lb self on the bike, not too bad!

Hill climb test (speed on the left, elevation on the right, full throttle, no peddling, 190lb rider





Kimberly scooting right past a guy struggling to get up a steep hill on a normal bike. It was great to allow her to get out and enjoy some fresh air and not have to worry if she could make it up a hill.

The motor is also larger and more Noticeable than the Rad Rover motor since it’s not geared but you do get regenerative braking due to the Direct drive motor which you do not get on the Geared Rad rover.

Range is always a tough thing with it comes to ebikes because it depends on so many variables. The easiest way to think about it is our bike has a 672wh battery and a 750w motor so if you go full throttle and use all 750w of that motor you will be able to run for almost an hour. We have found that we don’t come close to running full throttle and have many times gone out on 20-30 mile rides with hills going about 10-15mph and still had plenty of battery left ( many times my wife wasn’t able to pedal at all and was using almost all throttle).



Another nice thing about the Rad City Step thru is that it comes with fenders and a rack where many bikes like the Rad rover require you to buy those separately. The only other accessories that my wife added were the mirrors, the big panniers that go back an forth between our bikes and an orange bike lock. We also have enjoyed the Saris bike rack for both our ebikes, it’s not the fanciest but definitely the best bang for the buck!

Mirrors that my wife added to her bike

So I think that’s about it, we have really loved the Rad City Step Thru electric bike, it’s been an amazing tool to help get my wife outside enjoying nature and having some fun! I hope this article helped you out if you are looking for some more information on ebikes, If you are on the fence I high fly recommend getting one, they are an absolute blast!

Stay safe and have fun!

John and Kimberly Dyer

full video review of our 2018 Rad City Step Thru ebike

Let me know if you have any questions or if you have found a new ebike thats a better value than the Rad Power Bikes! This isnt a sponsored video or blog post I just really like our rad electric bikes.

If you are interested in any of the accessories that we have added to our ebikes or the camera gear we used to shoot the video you can find them on the gear page.