I recently bought a RadCity, and you know what? I love it. It's my first electric bike, and I don't have a ton to compare it to, but I'm very happy with it.
When it works.
Unfortunately, it has problems, and some of those problems are compounded by the fact that Rad Power bikes are mail order. If I were going to buy again, I would buy from a local bike shop. Here's why...
For starters, Rad Power bikes have a lot of quality control issues. Their bikes get banged up pretty badly in shipping. On the one hand, it's not really Rad's fault that this happens. On the other hand, they choose the shipping company and they're responsible for it. It's their business model.
Mine wasn't as bad as some of the ones you see on the FB group, the only thing that arrived broken for me was the display and Rad promptly sent me a new one which I installed myself. Other folks in the FB group have complained about scratches and whatnot on delivery and received no replacement or compensation (if memory serves me correctly, they were offered 50% off an accessory). That's the type of problem that would only happen mail order and one more reason I recommend buying from your local bike shop.
I am having continuing issues with my battery that remain unresolved. It stays at "5 bars" of power then rapidly goes down to 1 bar fluctuating randomly a fair bit, and I only get about 30km to a charge. This issue is still outstanding with Rad -- we've tried several things to fix it, a new display (I actually just installed the broken one instead of asking them to ship yet another one to me), a new controller (which is no small installation task, so I paid my local bike shop to do the work), and no luck. If they were bricks and mortar, I'd be able to drop off the bike for a few days, they could ride it and see the problem in action, then fix it. But Rad is mail order, so they can't. Instead there's a lot of back and forth with videos and photos and long descriptions and misunderstandings.
And that brings me to the next part of why it's bad to buy a Rad bike mail order: you're the mechanic. I had to install/uninstall all of this stuff myself. I'm handy to a point, but I'm not a bike mechanic. If they were bricks and mortar, they'd be the ones doing the work. Instead they expect you to do a lot.
My chain split in half. To Rad's credit, even though chains aren't covered by warranty, they paid the $30 to fix it at a local bike shop. Even still it was a pain in the butt getting quotes and negotiating the process.
I also got an "Error 30", which I found out means that there's a bad connection somewhere. I had to connect and disconnect wires (no big deal), except that some of those wires are inside the bike. I had to remove the flange to get to them, and I can't get it back into place. Again, you guessed it, if they were B&M they'd be fixing this themselves instead of it being my headache.
I'm also now getting a creaking sound out of my back tire. The folks on the FB group seem to think it's a loose spoke. I reached out to Rad with a video of the problem, and they said the same thing. When I took it to my local bike shop to get it fixed (at my own cost, because they didn't offer to cover that and I don't trust myself tightening spokes) they said that the spokes were fine. I left it at the bike shop, they're going to diagnose it and fix it. This, of course, will be at my cost, which it wouldn't be if Rad Power had a physical presence in my city.
I'm not oblivious to the fact that e-bikes are still a relatively new technology and I have a lot of patience for new tech. I know that it's going to encounter issues like these and I'm good with that. But learn from my mistakes and buy from a bricks and mortar shop. The support is worth the extra few hundred dollars you'll end up paying.
I could go on but nobody reads a comment this long.
