Cowboy 4 electric bike hands-on: This is one smart electric bike
Our Verdict
The Cowboy 4 is a sleek electric bike with a clever smartphone app.
For
- Groovy design
- Lots of smart features in app
- Recharges telephone
Against
- Unmarried gear may be tough for hilly areas
- Lacks throttle
- Phone mount is iPhone-simply
Tom'southward Guide Verdict
The Cowboy iv is a sleek electric bike with a clever smartphone app.
Pros
- +
Cracking blueprint
- +
Lots of smart features in app
- +
Recharges phone
Cons
- -
Single gear may exist tough for hilly areas
- -
Lacks throttle
- -
Phone mount is iPhone-only
Is the Cowboy 4 the futurity of electric bikes? This sleek model features a smartphone dock between its handlebars that turns your iPhone into a digital dashboard, letting yous navigate, detect your bike and see your speed in existent time. (It also charges your phone in the process). I had a take a chance to take a test ride with the Cowboy 4 around Central Park in New York to run into how well it performed, too equally attempt out its smart features.
Cowboy 4: Toll and availability
Both models of the Cowboy 4 price $2,990, and are available now for purchase. They come with mudguards (which is nice), but if you want the phone case — which is a necessity — you'll take to fork over an boosted $29. It seems a fleck cheap for a bicycle that costs this much.
At the moment, the visitor is only selling cases that are uniform with the iPhone (the SE, XR, and everything more than recent are options). For Android owners, the company suggests purchasing the Universal Fit from Quadlock, which costs $60.
A kickstand and rear rack are sold separately for $99.
Cowboy also offers a few other services, only available by subscription.
Cowboy Care ($twenty/month) provides maintenance (such as a full bike checkup), brake pad and tire replacement, and a free indistinguishable bombardment key in instance of loss. Currently, this service is only available in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York (Manhattan and Brooklyn only), San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, and Washington, DC.
The company is also planning to offer Theft Insurance, details of which should exist available past the end of January.
Like many other products, in that location's a bit of a excess between the time you order something and the time you tin can become it. The company says that bikes ordered in September should commencement shipping to U.S customers in the next two weeks, and bikes ordered in January should arrive in May. From May onwards, the company hopes to reduce delivery times to four weeks.
Cowboy 4 design and specs
Like the VanMoof S3, the Cowboy 4 has a real minimalist blueprint that makes information technology wait futuristic but non fussy. All the wires are contained within the black matte frame; more than a few onlookers asked most information technology as I was pedaling through Central Park.
The bike'southward battery is detachable, and is just behind the seat mail service. I like it - it keeps the residue of the frame from looking too bulky. Built into one border of the battery is the bike's tail low-cal. A rectangular light in the front adds to the cycle's high-tech look.
In between the handlebars is a small dock to attach your phone. You lot need to commencement insert your phone into a special example, which then connects the Cowboy app on your phone to the cycle'southward electronics. It turns your phone into a dashboard, and turns this ebike into a smart bike. Fifty-fifty better: the bike will recharge your phone via a Qi wireless charger when it'due south docked, so you don't need to worry nigh running out of battery.
Unlike most of the all-time electric bikes we've tested, the Cowboy 4 does not take a throttle button, then you lot can't just sit down back and enjoy the ride — yous've got to pedal.
The company sells two models: A step-over and a step-through version. The step-over model is meant for riders from five'half dozen" to 6'4," while the pace-through version is congenital for those who are 5'3" to 6'two." Either mode, it's not a small-scale wheel.
Both versions are bachelor in blackness, light-green, or off-white, and have the same specs: A range of upward to 43.five miles, a top assist speed of 20 miles per 60 minutes, a 250W rear hub motor, and a nine.8Ah, 360 Wh battery. Both models tip the scales at 47.1 pounds. Too standard with both are hydraulic disc brakes, a carbon belt, and custom 27.v ten 1.85 tires.
Cowboy 4 app
What separates the Cowboy 4 from most other electrical bikes is its continued app, which turns it into — for lack of a better term — a smart bike. Launch the app, and your phone turns into a dashboard for the bike, showing your speed, altitude, and duration of travel. The GoCycle G4i+ has a like smartphone app, merely a much flimsier method of attaching your phone — and certainly not with a built-in charger.
In improver, the app has navigation built in, and then you tin can plan a route to go you from indicate A to B. During my test ride, I didn't have a chance to see whether or not it followed bicycle lanes like you can do in Google Maps, or if it merely used roads.
Other features in the app include a digital lock, predictive battery life, atmospheric condition alerts, activity tracking and Notice My Bike — helpful if you forgot where you parked information technology. Crash detection will offer to alert your emergency contacts if you become headfirst into a tree, while Theft Alarm will ping your phone if someone tries to brand off with your bike. However, this last feature requires a subscription.
In add-on to tracking your action, the app volition too let y'all share your achievements with other Cowboy bike owners, and come across how you compare to other riders. Information technology's probably a lot smaller than Fitbit's user base, simply you lot gotta beginning somewhere, right?
Cowboy 4: Performance
If yous want to ride the Cowboy 4, information technology helps to be alpine. I'thou about 6' and fit comfortably on the bike, simply its geometry doesn't allow you to raise or lower the seat all that much.
While the Cowboy 4 is just a unmarried-gear bike, I didn't have any trouble getting effectually the fairly apartment lower half of Key Park. The wheel's pedal aid, which is applied based on your speed and torque, kicked in fast, and its motor was repose, also.
The overall ride felt polish, but the bike lacks suspension of whatever kind, then you'll experience bumps and potholes more than you lot would on a wheel with that feature.
While I didn't get a gamble to test out all the features of the app, it was nice to exist able to look down and see where I was going.
Cowboy 4: Outlook
Between its design and its smart features, the Cowboy 4 aims for a different marketplace than sub-$2,000 electrical bikes similar the RadPower Rad City 5, our electric current height pick among the best electric bikes. Aesthetically, its biggest competitor would seem to be the Van Moof S3, which costs well-nigh $700 less, and has a few of the same smart features, including a Notice My Bike and activeness tracking. The S3 besides has a few things the Cowboy 4 lacks — namely, an automated transmission and throttle.
However, the Cowboy 4 has a removable battery, and it tin recharge your telephone on the go, likewise. And, the convenience of using your phone as a digital dashboard for your bike is something that I anticipate will become a more standard feature in future electrical bikes.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/cowboy-4-electric-bike-hands-on-this-is-one-smart-electric-bike
Posted by: steelepues1992.blogspot.com
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