I bought an electric bicycle. It arrived last week, but I didn’t have time to try it (and the weather didn’t cooperate with me). Today, my schedule and the weather converged.

In the US I also had an electric bike. I know how they work. This new bike has six speeds, and works like a regular bike in adjusting the bike’s gears. There is also a display that shows the speed and it also has an odometer. All clear!

Here is a photo of my bike in the US. It was beautiful, and I have so many good memories. Her name was “Zippy”!

And here’s the new bike.  Her name is Nike.

But this new bike had me totally confused! Regardless of what gear I chose for the bike, the pedal assistant wanted me to fly. I went on a bike/pedestrian path along the river. It was very nice. In some places the path was set up higher than the river and did not have a guardrail. I wasn’t really afraid that I would over the edge (but I thought about it). I had to ride the brakes constantly. When I didn’t see other people on the track, it was a lot of fun, but when I met someone else it wasn’t pleasant for me! I didn’t feel totally confident in controlling this bike. The bike can’t exceed 25km / h, but I had to fight to keep it from running steadily at that speed.

Finally at home, I asked my friend, Mr. Google, why this bike wanted to kill me. My bike in America had 10 speeds (I think), and also three modes to control the pedal assistant. On that bike, the gear shift and pedal assistant were side by side on the right side of the handlebar. But the user manual for this bicycle had no information on pedal assist controls!

Eventually I found a YouTube video that explained everything! This bike has a throttle to make this bike a scooter. This throttle is not active in Italy (you need a license to drive a scooter, but not a bicycle). But the use of the accelerator is nevertheless rated with “100% assistance”. There are three other assistance modes – number 3 means 75% assistance, number 2 50%, and number 1 25%.

The pedal assistant control is on the display! You need to press a specific button on the display to change the assist mode. This was set to number 3! No matter how slowly I pedaled, the bike wanted to be at 25km / h. I hope tomorrow will be better 🙂. By the way, this bike is also foldable, because I live in an apartment building, and I can take it in the elevator!