This is ostensibly a review of an electric bike, the Cannondale Tesoro Neo X3

tl;dr: It’s a great bike. It should be as it costs a lot of money.

The real story is what e-bikes do for you. 

Prior to getting my new Cannondale I had only ridden one other e-bike before. It was a very brief ride down a short driveway into the road and back after which I dismounted and returned the bike to its owner. That bike, of no specific brand, was a folding bike with 16” wheels and a throttle. It was fast. It was jerky. It felt dangerous. I’m not slagging on that sort of bike. I’m sure they have their uses and like any tool, when used responsibly you can get good results with it.

I am also reasonably certain that all the media panic recently about e-bikes relates to these sorts of bikes and people not being as responsible on them as they might otherwise be. Mostly I think that hype is just nonsense in general. Yes, bike batteries can catch fire. Know what else catches fire? Cars, Phones, Computers and other things with lithium ion batteries.  If you buy a product that seems a bit cheaper than some of the other options in that market you might expect some corners were cut but beyond that shit happens. Do some users of e-bikes ride recklessly? Most certainly. Do pickup trucks the size of city blocks sometimes come too close to me on the road? All too often. Sure let’s get out the pitchforks for e-bikes just as they might start to cut into our over dependence on cars and the minor impact those cars are having on out planet. I’m certain bikes are the appropriate target right now.

Anyway...

As I said above this is a great bike and it costs a bunch of money. Money I never would have spent had I not had a substantial discount with Cannondale due to a warranty claim from an old bike. I did not pay retail for this bike. Prior to getting this new ride I thought I might get an e-bike one day as I’m getting older and I suffer from knee pain on the bike from time to time. However while looking at the Cannondale catalog it soon became clear that now was as good a time as any to get into e-biking.

As a lifelong cyclist I fought mental battles with myself over how I’m not that old and don’t need a bike to “cheat" on my rides. For the record, I’ve never accused anyone I see out riding an e-bike of cheating. In fact I often say to my wife that it’s better than them driving or just sitting on the couch. When it was time for me to consider an e-bike I was much harder on myself than necessary. I already have 3 other bikes that all see use for different types of riding. Besides raging against aging my fear was I may not ride those other bikes as much as before.  My knee pains won out and I ordered the Tesoro.

You can get the bike specifications on the Cannondale site and I’m sure you can find other much more technical reviews elsewhere. The bike has a Bosch drivetrain and a mid drive motor. For those unaware there are two general types of drives, mid drive and hub drive. Mid drive features a motor directly attached to the cranks while a hub drive is in the wheel. I only have limited experience here but all signs point to the mid drive being smoother and more natural feeling. I’m certain that you can spend enough to get an excellent hub drive e-bike.

This bike has a mid drive and it is smooth once you get used to it. I’m not even sure “smooth” is the right word. There is a unnatural sensation readily apparent to long time cyclists on that first e-bike ride. It’s a sensation that arises from putting in the effort that you would expect to result in your speedometer reading 12 MPH but seeing 16MPH. It’s the difference in mashing the pedals to get up a hill at 5 MPH and continuing to spin the pedals lightly and scaling the hill at 12 MPH. That uncanny sensation passes after the first few miles and quickly gets you thinking where can I go with this? How far will it take me? Can I finally see what’s down that road I always avoid due to the steep grade. Thus far my answers have all be in the positive.

After a few weeks, I have a little over 200 miles on the bike. I typically rode 20 mile rides on a steel touring bike prior to getting the Tesoro. I am the sort of rider out there in a button down shirt and my regular hiking/walking shorts. I don’t don the lycra. I’m not racing. I’m riding out of my driveway and seeing what’s out there. I go slow. I derive joy from following some new road, not how fast I did my route. Nothing wrong with lycra or going fast but that’s not me. This bike opens up new possibilities for me. I am getting older and I do resist more strenuous rides from time to time.

I am always curious what’s up that hill (and there are lots of rural hilly roads near me) From the first ride on this new bike I have just said “sure” every time I asked myself “should I see what’s up that road?” The bike will help me and I won’t suffer uphill or into the wind. My rides are now closer to 30 miles on average. I’m still pedaling, sweating and burning calories. Just going a little faster and a little farther with about the same effort as before.

E-biking for me has been about giving me more me. I could always get up the hills or do 40 miles into the wind. I have done those things many times. Now I can do those same things easier. The bike has 4 settings for assist, eco, touring, sport and turbo. None of them allow you to stop pedaling. They just increase how much help you get from the motor (and how quickly the battery will drain and thus your range) As I mentioned I am a slow and steady, see what’s out there rider so I mostly stick to eco mode. I still do most of the work. I go a bit faster for the same effort. I don’t care about the speed increase at all. Sure it’s fun to pop it into turbo mode and quickly speed up to over 20 MPH but to me that is not why I bike so it’s a minor feature (and it eats battery)

I’ve found the advertised range to be accurate. The bike is rated to go 80 miles on a charge. While I have not yet done a single ride of that length I have done 40+ mile rides and still had more than half the battery. On most of my rides I mainly use the eco setting for minimal assist and maximum range but I am frequently popping into the higher levels of assist if only to climb a hill or overcome some other obstacle. I suspect I could get 90+ miles with my usage.

The quality of the bike is good. The key components are excellent such as the Bosch drivetrain and the frame. The gears and brakes seem adequate. They work fine but I suspect if you were on a regular bike you might prefer a better derailleur for example. The control/computer screen is adequate. I only say this as my wife recently got a Specialized Como that has a better computer than the Cannondale. The Cannondale does not support any apps nor is it a color screen. It does do what it needs to do in a clear way and that’s good enough. My wife’s bike computer doesn’t have any features I miss with the possible exception of interfacing with apps. Not important.

A big plus for me is how this bike is accessorized. It features front and rear lights, a rack, bell and fenders. If you’re the type of rider who rides a fender bike you know why this is important to you. You can ride in most any conditions and not come home covered in mud or wet. The fenders are large to cover the giant tires. They are solid but tend to make a bunch of noise in combination with the tires picking up gravel, etc and sending it in a trip around the fender. All fenders do this but these seem louder or more prone to it. Not a complaint but rather an observation.

Part of my justification for getting this e-bike was to take even more load off my Subaru. I already use my other bikes to run local errands but I hope to use this bike to go farther afield where I might have used the car in the past. Having said that in the first few weeks I’ve own the Cannondale I’ve reverted back to my other bikes to run all bike ranged errands. My grocery store is less than a mile away and I could walk. I don’t need a $3k+ bike to get there. I do live very close to an excellent bike trail that runs between two cities we frequent for errands and dining. I envision using the e-bikes to do the 25 mile round trip while not being concerned about post meal bloat slowing us down.

If you’re thinking I want to do no work and “ride a bike” this is not that bike. There are bikes with throttles that allow you to just sit, press the throttle and get where you’re going.

This is a heavy bike. You could ride it with no assist if necessary but it’s not ideal. In eco mode it feels like the assist gets you over the heft of the bike and a bit more. The other assist levels make the bike feel lighter and faster and at the highest level you are in electric motorcycle territory. In turbo mode a minimal amount of input will get you up the gnarliest hill and quickly have you speeding along at 25+ MPH. Your range will also drop down quite a lot. If you only need to go a few miles it might be fun to zip around in the higher assist levels. I prefer to save the battery to cover more ground.

So yeah, this is not really a review of the Cannondale Tesoro Neo X3. It’s a review of what an e-bike can do for your life. They allow you to do more. If you previously didn’t ride at all you might find an e-bike gets you out riding. If you typically ride 10 mile routes you might up that to 20 on the e-bike. If you have knee pain, like me, you might be able to take some of the load off and continue to enjoy your rides. If you often take a 10+ mile ride somewhere and think it might be nice to have some food and drinks but decide against it considering the ride home you might get enough assistance from the bike to make that a less of a burden. If you’ve been riding around your neighborhood for years and have yet to see what’s up that road with the 10% grade you might just cruise up there and see.

The best feature of any e-bike is it allows you to regain some of that joy you felt as a kid with your first bike. That sense of freedom that all bikes bring is a little easier to achieve on an e-bike. Sure it can be a cargo hauling, commuting to work tool but most importantly it’s just plain fun.