Yearly, I put collectively an inventory of a few of the finest, brand-new electrical bikes and bikes you should purchase … and this 12 months is not any totally different. Besides it’s, as a result of there’s at the least one bike that actually deserves to be on that “finest bikes” record, but it surely doesn’t actually match into any bike class I can consider. That bike: the Jackrabbit.
Weighing in at a featherweight 24 kilos and sporting an ultra-short body between a set of 20″ BMX-style wheels, the Jackrabbit isn’t actually a motorbike. For starters, you don’t pedal it — but it surely’s undoubtedly not a motorbike, both. It has no suspension, but it surely has a throttle. It even manages to sort of “fold up,” however with out truly folding.
Irrespective of the way you attempt to classify it, in different phrases, there’s all the time one thing a bit totally different about it. “We do describe it as a micro e-bike,” stated Jackrabbit co-founder, Jason Kenagy, after I interviewed him on the Electrify Expo in Austin final 12 months. “That’s what varied reviewers have taken it on as.”
Placing the Micro in Micro-mobility
Picture by the creator.
No matter it’s, it’s silly enjoyable – and it does have a motorbike kind of “really feel” to it as you journey it. The Jackrabbit has a motorbike geometry, it’s made with bike components, and it even rides like a motorbike. The most important variations, from the seat, are the Jackrabbit’s ultra-responsive dealing with that comes courtesy of that compact wheelbase, and the truth that your toes are, left-to-right, in the identical place.
The static foot placement can really feel a bit bizarre, however after a couple of minutes on the transfer it feels pure sufficient, and I began to understand that, for a motorbike that’s this small — sufficiently small to be checked as baggage on Southwest, in actual fact — it feels fairly roomy. Roomy sufficient, in actual fact, to suit NFL participant Michael Davis of the LA Chargers.
Micro E-Bike, Macro Type
Selfie courtesy NFL participant, Michael Davis, of the LA Chargers.
“It was designed by bike fanatics, bike mechanics as nicely, and we simply realized that 80 lb. e-bikes are nice,” says Jason. “I’ve a number of, and I exploit them — however numerous the time you simply want one thing that’s extraordinarily gentle, transportable, and can get you anyplace you need to go. And you may simply seize a Jackrabbit and go.”
I’m not the one one enamored with Jason’s creation. “The portability of that is a part of the enjoyable issue,” says my good friend Matt Teske, the founding father of EV charging app Chargeway and co-host with me of the Electrify Expo Podcast. “You add the ‘micro’ in and you then add the pliability of how one can journey and use it.”
Conceptually, and in observe, the Jackrabbit is the alternative of one other favourite of mine, the heavyweight, fat-tired, 30 MPH Himiway Zebra. “That’s sort of like taking the RV out of the storage,” says Jason. “You possibly can match 3 Jackrabbits within the trunk of a Tesla Mannequin 3,” he jokes, “bringing bikes to a present, I can match 12 in my small SUV.”
3 Jackrabbit E-Bikes Match In A Tesla Mannequin 3
Picture courtesy Jackrabbit.
See? He’s not kidding!
No matter what you name this factor or the way you would possibly consider it, you undoubtedly owe it to your self to take a look at the Jackrabbit. With a 20 MPH high velocity and “10+ miles” of scooting vary, the Jackrabbit could also be simply the factor to make your final mile of using the smilingest mile of the day.
Don’t simply depart it at that, although. Tell us what you consider the Jackrabbit within the feedback part, beneath, and keep tuned for the Finest E-Bikes & Bikes You Can Purchase In 2023, coming quickly!
Photos through Jackrabbit.
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