We do not publish a range figure for any electric bike we sell. That is deliberate, and this article explains why — and how to work out your own number, which will be more useful than ours ever could be.
Why every quoted range is a best case
A manufacturer’s range figure is produced on a chosen route, at a chosen temperature, with a chosen rider weight, in the lowest assistance mode. Change any one of those and the number moves a long way. Quoting it back to you as though it were a property of the bike would be the same kind of fiction as a car’s official mpg.
The five things that actually decide it
| Factor | Effect | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Assistance mode | The biggest single factor, by far | The highest mode can draw three to four times the power of the lowest for the same ground covered. |
| Gradient | Very large | Climbing is where a motor spends its energy. A hilly 20 miles can cost more than a flat 40. |
| Total weight | Large | Rider, bike, luggage, shopping. Heavier means more energy to accelerate and to climb. |
| Temperature | Moderate but real | Lithium cells deliver less usable capacity when cold. Expect a noticeable drop below about 5°C. |
| Tyre pressure and terrain | Moderate | Soft tyres and soft ground both cost energy the whole way, not just on the climbs. |
How to estimate your own range
The only number that transfers between bikes is watt-hours (Wh). It is the size of the tank. A rough working figure for a mid-drive on mixed UK terrain is 7 to 20Wh per mile — the low end for a light rider in eco on the flat, the high end for a heavy rider in boost on hills.
So an 840Wh battery gives you somewhere between roughly 42 miles of hard hill riding and 120 miles of gentle flat riding. That range of answers is the honest one. If a shop tells you “90 miles” without asking a single question about you or your route, they are reading the box.
A worked example
600Wh battery, hilly commute, rider and bag around 95kg, mostly in the middle assistance mode. Call it 15Wh per mile: 600 ÷ 15 = 40 miles. Then take 20% off for winter and for the battery ageing, and plan around 32. If your round trip is 20 miles you are comfortable; if it is 34 you are not, on a cold day in year three.
The mistake people actually make
Not running out of charge on a ride — that is rare. It is buying a bigger battery than the riding needs, carrying the extra two or three kilos every single day, and paying a few hundred pounds for capacity that never gets used. Work out the longest ride you will genuinely do weekly, not the longest you can imagine, and size to that with a margin.
What to do if you run low
Drop to the lowest assistance mode immediately rather than when the display flashes. Assistance tapers as the pack empties, so the last 10% helps far less than the first 10%. And every e-bike we sell can be ridden with the motor off — heavy, but it gets you home.
Battery capacity in Wh is on every electric bike page we publish, because it is the one number you can actually compare.