First Road Ride on the EVRYjourney E-Bike: Hills, Traffic, and Cruiser Comfort

A First Road Ride on the EVRYjourney, Start to Finish

There's a particular kind of nervous excitement that comes with taking a new e-bike out on real streets for the first time. Bike paths and empty parking lots are one thing. Actual roads, with cars, crosswalks, traffic lights, and hills that don't care how new you are, are something else entirely. That's exactly why I love the footage I'm walking you through here. One of our riders took the EVRYjourney e-bike out for her very first road ride, put a camera on it, and narrated every moment, the smooth stretches and the slightly wobbly ones alike.

I'm Dustin Gyger, and I spend most of my days helping people figure out which bike actually fits their body and the way they want to ride. I've done plenty of reviews from the saddle myself, but there's real value in watching someone else's first ride unfold, because it shows you what a bike feels like before you've learned all of its habits. She didn't have a script. She had a short road loop, a friend calling out directions from behind, and a bike she'd never taken into traffic before. What she discovered over those few minutes says a lot about who this bike is for.

What makes this ride worth studying is that it wasn't polished. She talks to her riding partner, misreads an instruction at a crosswalk, rolls out in front of a van before she hears the warning, and catches herself going a little faster downhill than she probably should. I've kept all of that in on purpose. Those are the exact moments new riders worry about, and seeing how she and the bike handled each one is far more useful than a highlight reel.

Setting off: throttle first, then pedal assist

The ride opens with her partner calling out the plan: just keep going straight. She settles in, says she's going to hit the throttle, and gets the bike moving before she's pushed a single pedal stroke. A few seconds later she announces she's on pedal assist one and rolling down the street.

That sequence is something I recommend to almost everyone on their first few rides, and she found it naturally. The hardest part of riding any bike is the first few feet, when you're moving slowly enough that balance takes real effort. A brief touch of throttle takes care of that awkward stretch. You go from standstill to a steady roll without having to stomp on one pedal while you steer and hunt for the other. Once you're moving, you start pedaling and let the assist take over.

For anyone new to e-bikes, here's the quick version of the two modes she used throughout this ride. Pedal assist adds motor power while you pedal, and the number you choose tells the bike how much help to give. Lower numbers mean a gentler push and more of the work coming from your legs. Higher numbers mean more help. The throttle is different: it runs the motor without you pedaling at all, a bit like a scooter. She used both, and she used each one for a clear reason, which is one of the most instructive things about this footage.

Why level one on a flat, smooth road makes sense

Early on she remarks how nice it is to be riding on a smooth road. Smooth pavement and a flat stretch are the perfect classroom, and she kept the assist at level one there. I think that was a smart call. At low assist the bike responds calmly. Every pedal stroke feels predictable, and you have time to get comfortable with the brakes, the handlebars, and the way the bike leans into a turn. If you crank the assist up before you know how the bike reacts, every push sends you forward harder than you expect, and that's when people get rattled.

The other benefit of starting low is that you learn what your own legs are contributing. That matters later, when the road tilts upward and you have to decide how much help to ask for. If you've only ever ridden on a high setting, you have no reference point. She did. By the time she reached her first hill she knew what level one felt like, so the jump to level two registered immediately.

The bike she was riding

The EVRYjourney belongs to our family of step-thru electric bikes, which means there's no high bar to swing a leg over. You step through the low part of the frame and sit down. She doesn't dwell on mounting in the video, but her closing comments make it clear the low, laid-back position was one of her favorite things about the bike, especially at stops. I'll get into exactly what she said about that at the end, because it's the part of her review I hear echoed most often by riders who come into our showroom.

You can also tell she's keeping an eye on the bike's display, because she calls out exact readings throughout the ride: the assist level whenever she changes it, and her speed at a few key moments. That habit is worth borrowing. Saying your level and speed out loud, even if only in your head, keeps you aware of what the bike is doing instead of just reacting to it. It's a small thing, but it's the difference between riding the bike and being carried along by it.

If you're browsing and want to see where this style sits in the bigger picture, our full range of sixthreezero electric bikes is organized by style and rider need. For now, let's follow her to the first climb, which is where this ride really gets going.

The first hill arrives about a minute into the ride. She says it plainly: now we're going uphill, so she's bumping the pedal assist up to two, and it makes everything much easier. Then, two words: love it.

That reaction is the whole reason a lot of people buy an e-bike in the first place. On a regular bike, a hill is something you brace for. You shift, you stand on the pedals, your breathing gets heavy, and if the hill is long enough you start bargaining with yourself about getting off and walking. With pedal assist, a hill becomes a moment where you press a button and keep going. You're still pedaling, but the motor shares the load, so the climb feels like a gentle grade instead of a wall.

“Live, laugh, pedal assist”

A few seconds into that climb she announces she's going to get a shirt made. She workshops the slogan out loud, starting with live, laugh, love, pedal assist, then trimming it down to live, laugh, pedal assist, and declaring the shorter one the winner. Somebody, she says, needs to make that shirt.

I'm including that because it captures something a spec sheet never will. Riders on their first e-bike hill almost always have the same reaction: a flash of disbelief, then a big grin. It's the feeling of a hill not winning for once. We hear some version of that from riders all the time, and it's usually the moment they stop thinking of the bike as a gadget and start thinking of it as something they're actually going to use every week.

Moving up to level three

Not long after, she steps up again to pedal assist three. Her verdict: obsessed. Then: look at me go. You can hear in her voice that she isn't straining, which is exactly what you want. The point of stepping up a level isn't to go as fast as possible. It's to keep your effort steady while the terrain changes underneath you.

That's the single most useful way to think about assist levels, so it's worth spelling out. Pick an effort level for your legs, a pace you could hold comfortably for a long time, and then use the assist to keep that effort roughly constant. Flat and smooth? Low assist. The road tilts up? Bump it a level. Steeper still, or you're getting tired? Bump it again. When the road flattens out or tips downhill, come back down. Riders who use pedal assist this way finish rides feeling like they got an honest workout without ever being wiped out.

Racing a green light, then letting the legs work

Later in the loop there's a stretch where she sees a green light ahead and switches to level three to try to make it. It's a natural instinct and a good example of using assist for a specific, short-lived purpose. Once that moment passes, she says something I really like: now she can use her little legs. She's comfortable dialing the help back and doing more of the work herself when the situation allows.

I point that out because a lot of people assume e-bikes are about avoiding effort entirely. In practice, most riders move fluidly between more help and less help depending on what the road is doing and how they feel that day. Some days you want a workout. Some days you want to arrive at lunch without breaking a sweat. Pedal assist lets you make that decision minute by minute instead of once, at the start of the ride.

Level four on the final climb

Near the end of the ride she takes on one more hill, this time on pedal assist four, and calls out that she's climbing at 15 miles an hour. That's a real climb, taken at a steady clip, by someone on her very first road ride. It's also a good illustration of why the higher levels exist. You rarely need them on the flats, but when the road kicks up and you want to hold a comfortable cadence without grinding, that extra help is what keeps the ride enjoyable.

There's a practical tip hiding in how she handled each climb: change levels before the hill bites, not halfway up. She tends to announce the new level right as the climb begins, which is the right timing. If you wait until your legs are already burning and your speed has dropped off, the bike has more work to do to bring you back to a comfortable pace, and you'll feel a surge as it catches up. Stepping up early keeps the transition smooth and keeps you in control.

In her wrap-up she came back to this on her own, saying she loved using the pedal assist to get up hills and that it made them so much easier. If hills are what's kept you off a bike, that's the most important takeaway in this whole article. Our comfort electric bikes are built around exactly that idea: an upright, relaxed riding position paired with assist that turns a climb into something you can actually enjoy.

Hills are only half the story on a road ride. The other half is everything that involves other people: traffic lights, crosswalks, turning cars, and the constant stop-and-start of riding through town. This is where her first ride got real, and it's also where you learn the most about how the EVRYjourney behaves at low speed, which is where new riders tend to feel least sure of themselves.

The crosswalk button moment

As she approaches her first red light, she spots it and says she knows where they are. Her riding partner lays out the plan: stop at the light, then cross. She asks a fair question: are they crossing on their feet or on their bikes? On the bikes, comes the answer, and press the button. There's a beat of confusion before she realizes her partner means the crosswalk button on the pole, not something on the bike. Got it, she says, and laughs it off.

I kept that in because it's honest, and because every new rider has a version of it. When you're concentrating on a new bike, your brain is busy. Instructions that would be obvious on foot suddenly need an extra second to process. That's completely normal. It's also a good argument for riding your first few routes with someone who knows the way, as she did, so you can focus on the bike while they handle navigation.

Once the light changes, she says she's going to use the throttle to cross the street, and she does. Awesome, she says, there we go. Then they swing left.

Why the throttle is so useful from a stop

This is the throttle at its best, and it's a pattern she repeats later in the loop. At another red light she waits, then says now we throttle, and a moment later, look at me throttling. In her closing thoughts she sums it up neatly: she loved the throttle for getting going.

Here's why that matters. Crossing an intersection from a dead stop is the moment when a rider is slowest, least stable, and most exposed. You have to get a foot back on a pedal, push off, find your balance, and cover the width of the road, often while drivers are waiting on you. A short burst of throttle gets you to a steady speed in a couple of seconds without any of that fumbling. You clear the crosswalk smoothly, then go back to pedaling once you're rolling. For anyone who feels anxious at intersections, that one feature can change how much you enjoy riding in town.

A note of common sense: the rules about where you can ride and how you cross vary from city to city and state to state, so take a few minutes to learn your local laws on crosswalks, bike lanes, and e-bike use. The technique itself is universal, though. Stop fully, look both ways, then use a measured squeeze of throttle to get across with control rather than a sudden lunge.

The van: an honest lesson in communication

After that left turn, her partner calls out something about following a van. By the time she hears it, she's already ahead of the van. She says so, slows down a little, and then apologizes to her partner: she hadn't heard the comment until she was already in front.

Nothing bad happened, but it's a moment worth unpacking, because it's one of the most common surprises for new e-bike riders. With assist on, you get up to speed more quickly than you're used to, and you can find yourself somewhere in the flow of traffic sooner than you planned. Her response was exactly right. She recognized it, eased off, and gave herself space.

There are two takeaways I'd pull from it. First, if you're riding with a partner, agree on a few simple calls before you leave and repeat anything important, because wind noise and traffic make it easy to miss half a sentence. Second, when in doubt, drop your assist level or stop pedaling and let the bike slow down. You always have the option to back off, and backing off is never the wrong choice when you're unsure what's happening around you.

Stop-and-go riding through town

Across the loop she stops at several red lights, rolls through a green one, and never sounds flustered by the rhythm. Part of that is the throttle, and part of it is something she raves about at the end: a low seat that lets her put her feet down at every stop. I'll cover that in detail in the final section, but it's worth flagging here because the two features work as a team. The low position makes stopping feel secure, and the throttle makes starting feel effortless. Between them, the most stressful moments of city riding become some of the easiest.

If you're thinking about using an e-bike for short trips around town, running errands, getting to work, meeting friends, take a look at our electric commuter bikes. And if you'll be carrying things like a jacket, a lunch, or a lock, our bike bags and panniers keep your hands free and the weight off your back, so all of your attention can stay on the road.

What goes up eventually comes down, and the descents on this ride produced some of her most memorable lines. Heading down one hill, she says simply: life is a bike ride. Then she lets the bike run and calls out 20 miles an hour.

And then, almost immediately, she says she's going to slow down because that's the safe thing to do. A few seconds later comes my favorite line of the whole video, aimed squarely at her mother: see, Mom, I'm wearing a helmet, and I'm slowing down.

Gravity does the work on the way down

It's worth understanding where downhill speed actually comes from on an e-bike, because it surprises people. Later in the ride she points it out herself: she's heading downhill, not really pedaling much, sitting on pedal assist one, and she's doing 19.3 miles an hour. The motor isn't what got her there. The hill did. Pedal assist adds power when you pedal, and on a descent, when you're barely turning the cranks, gravity is doing nearly all of the work.

That has a practical consequence. On the way down, your assist level matters far less than your brakes and your judgment. You can be in the lowest setting and still be carrying real speed. Her instinct to watch the number on the display and decide when it was getting too high is exactly the habit I want every rider to build. Sure enough, right after reading off that 19.3, she says she should probably slow down a little, and she does, just a wee bit.

How to control your speed on a descent

These are the principles I share with everyone, and especially with new riders heading into hilly neighborhoods:

• Start braking early and gently. Light, steady pressure near the top of a hill keeps your speed from building, which is far calmer than a hard grab halfway down.
• Use both brakes together. Squeezing evenly spreads the stopping force and keeps the bike settled underneath you.
• Stop pedaling when you don't need to. On a steep descent, extra pedaling only adds speed you'll have to scrub off later.
• Keep your eyes up and well ahead. Looking down the road gives you time to react to a light, a driveway, or a car pulling out.
• Pick a speed you'd be comfortable stopping from right now, and stay at or below it. If you couldn't stop calmly from your current speed, you're going too fast.

None of that is specific to any one bike, but the relaxed, upright position she describes makes it easier to put into practice. When you're sitting upright with a clear view, scanning the road ahead comes naturally, and you aren't hunched over the front wheel feeling like you might tip forward every time you squeeze the brakes.

Wear the helmet. Your mom is right.

Her joke to her mom lands because everybody has someone in their life who wants them to wear a helmet, and that person is right. E-bikes make it easy to reach speeds you'd normally only see on a regular bike going downhill, and you'll often reach them more frequently. A properly fitted helmet is the simplest piece of protection you can add to any ride. If you need one, we carry a selection of sixthreezero helmets designed to go with the rest of your setup.

Fit matters as much as owning one. A helmet should sit level on your head and low on your forehead, snug enough that it doesn't shift when you shake your head, with the side straps meeting just below each ear and the chin strap fastened firmly but comfortably. If you're not sure you've got it right, ask whoever sells it to you to check the fit before you ride.

Enjoying the speed without being reckless

I don't want to make descents sound like something to dread, because they're one of the real joys of riding. She was clearly having fun at 20 miles an hour, and you should too. The point is that fun and control go together. She enjoyed the speed, read her display, decided when it was enough, and eased off, all on her very first road ride. That's the balance to aim for. Ride at a pace that makes you smile, and keep a little margin in reserve for whatever the road throws at you.

After that last descent she reaches the bottom, spots a green light up ahead, and heads into the final climb on levels three and four that I covered earlier. Which brings us to the most valuable part of the whole video: what she had to say once the ride was over.

When the ride wrapped up, she gave her honest summary: her first road ride on the EVRYjourney was a great time. Then she got specific, and her points line up almost exactly with what I hear from riders who test this bike in person.

“It really felt like I was riding a beach cruiser”

Her first comment was about the overall feel. She said it felt like riding a beach cruiser and that it was super comfortable. That's a meaningful comparison. A beach cruiser is the definition of relaxed riding: you sit upright, your arms are comfortably bent, and nothing about the posture feels aggressive or rushed. The fact that she reached for that comparison after riding in real traffic, up hills, and down descents tells you the bike held on to that relaxed feel even when the riding got busy.

If that laid-back style is what draws you in, it's worth browsing our electric beach cruiser bikes to see the different ways cruiser comfort gets paired with electric assist.

A low seat that lets you put your feet down

Her second point is the one I'd underline twice. She loved how the seat sits lower to the ground. When she has to stop at a stop sign or a red light, she can simply put her feet down. She contrasted that with other bikes, where you might find yourself wobbling a bit as you come to a stop. On this one, she said, she felt very stable and secure when stopped.

If you've ever ridden a bike where you had to slide forward off the saddle and tiptoe to reach the pavement, you know why this matters. That little scramble at every light is where a lot of tip-overs and near-misses happen, especially for shorter riders or anyone whose balance isn't what it used to be. When you can stay seated and plant your feet, stopping stops being an event. Multiply that by every light and stop sign on a ride through town, and it's the difference between arriving relaxed and arriving tense.

This is also why the bike suits such a wide range of people. Riders on the shorter side often struggle to find a bike where they can reach the ground comfortably, and if that's you, start with our electric bikes for short people. Riders coming back to cycling later in life often tell us that confidence at stops was the very thing holding them back, which is a big reason our electric bikes for seniors collection exists.

Full leg extension, because the seat is set back

Her third point might sound like it contradicts the second, but it's the clever part of the design. She said she likes how much she can extend her legs, because the seat is set back. In other words, the low seat doesn't come at the cost of a cramped pedal stroke. The pedals sit forward of the seat rather than directly underneath it, so she can sit low, reach the ground at a stop, and still get a good, long leg extension when she pedals.

That combination is hard to get on a conventional bike. Normally, if you lower the saddle far enough to put your feet flat on the ground, your knees bend too much on every pedal stroke, and you lose both power and comfort. Raise the saddle high enough for a proper stroke, and you're back to tiptoeing at lights. Moving the pedals forward is how this style of frame gives you both, and her comment is a rider's way of describing exactly that.

Pedal assist for hills, throttle to get going

Her final point tied the whole ride together: she loved using the pedal assist to get up hills, and the throttle to get going. Those were the two jobs she gave the motor all ride long. Assist on the climbs, scaled to how steep they were, and throttle for clean starts and crossings. Everything else she handled with her own legs and her own judgment, which is exactly how an e-bike should work.

Who this kind of ride is for

Watching her first ride, a few kinds of riders come to mind. If you're new to e-bikes and nervous about traffic, the pairing of a secure stop with an easy start takes a lot of the fear out of intersections. If hills have kept you off a bike, pedal assist changes the math completely. If you want the posture of a cruiser but plan to ride real roads, she's living proof the two go together. Many riders who choose this style are women looking for a comfortable, easy-to-mount ride, and our women’s electric bikes collection is a good place to compare options side by side.

The best way to know whether a bike suits you is to find out how your body fits it. Our Get Fitted tool walks you through a few quick questions to narrow things down, and if you'd like to try a bike in person, you're welcome to visit our store. If you order online, our 30-day test ride gives you time to put the bike through your own version of this ride, on your own streets and your own hills, before you decide.

She finished by thanking everyone for coming along and saying she hoped they'd join her on the next one. I'm with her. First rides are a little messy and a lot of fun, and this one showed exactly what the EVRYjourney is like when someone takes it into the real world for the first time. If you're ready for your own first ride, I'd love to help you get there.