The sheer freedom and fun of an electric mountain bike is almost unmatched. For us, what really sets it apart is how simple and adventurous it is. Granted, we love four-strokes as much as anyone else, but e-bikes are easy to transport, allow for deeper exploration of national parks and forests than gas-guzzling cars, and they're fun for the whole crew.

Knowing all the different accessories for electric bikes is part of the total fun. Not only is it fun to learn the nuances of a powerful e-bike motor, how a good battery works, etc., but it's important that you have at least a working knowledge of all the components to maintain and maintain your e-bike. By working to understand every piece of the proverbial puzzle, you can get the best performance out of your e-bike over the years of adventure. We outline four of the most critical questions below.

Understanding the Importance of Electric Bike Components

While it all depends on how often you use it, you should still make sure to maintain your e-bike seasonally or annually. However, when you actually start to get a more nuanced understanding of your e-bike's components, you'll find a tuning plan that works better for your particular bike. This is because while your entire e-bike can certainly be maintained as a whole every year or so, you can significantly extend the life and performance of certain components by performing more regular maintenance on individual parts.

Battery

The battery is what keeps an e-bike going and running; knowing what the battery is capable of gives you a direct idea of how responsive the bike is.

In the first e-bikes to hit the market, the battery was usually made from lead-acid, nickel-cadmium, or nickel-metal hydride, but yours is most likely a lithium-ion (if not, you might want to consider upgrading). That's because lithium batteries are lighter, more powerful, more reliable, and have increasingly longer life cycles. If cared for properly, your battery will last five to six years of normal use.

When you're looking at different e-bike batteries, there are a few metrics to look out for.

Watts: This helps you get an idea of how much energy your battery can consistently draw. Note that you distinguish between continuous power ratings and peak ratings.

Amplifier: Equal an e-bike amp to your car's horsepower. This stat tells you what the maximum power output of the bike is.

Amp Hours: If amps are like horsepower, amp hours are like your gas tank. The higher the amp hours, the longer the battery life.

Volts: Volts indicate how much pressure can be contained in a system. Electric bikes are typically 12 volts, ramping up to 48. At the end of the day, volts basically equal power.

motor

The motor is the component of an e-bike that takes the energy contained in the battery and converts it into forward motion. Most modern e-bikes like ours come with a hub motor - a practical location that's relatively easy to access and maintain.

You'd be hard-pressed to find an e-bike on the market today that doesn't feature a brushless DC motor (BLDC). This shows that they don't use brushes to change the direction of the current like the old motors did. These types are significantly less efficient and wear out over time. Bosch -- a company known for innovations in e-bike motors -- is breaking history here.

The type of motor and whether it has gearing or direct drive and whether it's big and powerful or smaller and lighter all depends on the application, or whether you plan on cruising smooth streets or hauling heavy gear up steep, rough hills. You can see for yourself that we equip bikes like the QuietKat 2020 Ridgerunner with big, powerful motors that can go anywhere.

charger

Chargers are an essential part of an e-bike kit. Knowing when and where to use them and how often to charge them is of the utmost importance not only to get you home safely without electric sanding (that's the real term when you're trying to pedal an e-bike to death!), but also to make sure you of batteries continue to exhibit high performance throughout their expected lifetime. We break it all down in our e-bike charger explained.

exhibit

With time, speed, distance traveled, mode indicators, battery life, and more on the display on most QuietKat e-bikes, the display is a convenient way to keep an eye on the condition of your e-bike. There's even a way to tune your QuietKat e-bike The speed and power of the bike.

Speed and power can be increased or decreased according to rider preference with simple programming changes on the display on the handlebar. See the QuietKat Assembly YouTube page for a short video tutorial on how to adjust the settings.