The Best $300 Electric Bike for 2022 - Jetson Bolt Pro Review
Do you want to watch a video review of this electric bicycle? Watch it on YouTube!
Video Review Link Coming Soon
Electric bikes and scooters are a great way to get around, perfect for distances too long to walk and too short to deal with driving, parking, and gasoline. They can be faster than buses or even driving in many situations, as portable electric vehicles can bring you closer to the destination than a parking lot.
But usually, you still have to decide between an electric bike or a scooter.
Electric Bikes offer more comfort and the option to use your pedal power to supplement the motor. However, electric scooters offer more portability and less maintenance with no gears or chains. But what if you would have the best of both worlds?
The Jetson Bolt Pro can be best described as a hybrid between an electric bike and a scooter, having a similar form factor of a scooter but having all of the perks of an e-bike. Despite the odd look of the bike, and odd looks you may get when you ride it (it looks like you're on a clown bike), it is surprisingly comfortable and feels just like an ordinary bicycle.
Hello, my name is Tony Quill, and today, I will give you a comprehensive review of the Jetson Bolt Pro.
Here's my honest review, where I will give the positives and all of the negatives of this product.
This comprehensive review will include performance, portability (including a trunk test), ride quality, build quality, safety features, overall pros/cons, who's it for, who could benefit from this scooter, and who could benefit from something else.
If you are looking to buy an electric bike, you will see that many options range from 600 dollars going over 5000 dollars. Some people want the best and fastest, while others (including me) want to find an affordable option that gets the best value. Surprisingly, the Jetson Bolt Pro falls out of this range, but in a good way. Its MSRP is only 400 dollars making it the cheapest e-bike. (but Costco often has sales where you can purchase the bike at 300).
The Jetson Bolt Pro is probably the best commuter electric bicycle at this price point, as it is one of the only options at this price point. However, it still holds up a fair fight compared to other more expensive bicycles.
The basics: the Jetson will cost around 400 dollars but often goes on sale. It has a top speed of 15.5 mph. However, when I looked at the spec sheet, it included a 350W motor. I thought to myself; I'm pretty sure the bike can go much faster than 15.5 mph with that type of power. With modding, the scooter can go up to 19 mph, comparable to other 350W motors. This is even without pedal power.
Jetson used to have an iPhone app for other models that would allow users to unlock the speed legitimately, but this app will not work with the Bolt Pro. The modification won't be the easiest for people scared of re-wiring and Arduino boards, but it is not that difficult and is totally worth it. Word of warning and legal disclaimer this may void your warranty. I just found it cool how I could use an Arduino Board to make the Jetson that much better. Even with its unmodded 15.5 mph, it's still a great vehicle.
This bicycle has a standard disc braking system. In the realm of safety, it comes with a relatively bright headlight, which will suffice for the quick night ride. However, if you plan to ride in the dark every day, I recommend purchasing a stronger light.
The weight limit is 265 lbs, and it claims to be able to go up a grade of 15 degrees. However, at least for my fitness level, I was able to go up significantly steep hills, around 25 degrees or more. It seems like the 15 degrees they rated the bike at is purely on the motor power, and with pedaling, the bike is much more capable.
The battery is 36V with a charging time of 3-4 hours. The bike can go around 15 miles on pure motor power and up to 30 miles with pedal assist on a full charge. Again, I could get more than the claimed range and go around 35 miles. However, this could be because of light weight and the fact that I enjoy pedaling, as I am used to a regular bicycle.
If you are looking to purchase the Jetson Bolt Pro, you probably care about portability when it comes to a possible purchase. The Jetson Bolt Pro has a similar form factor to comparable 350W scooters horizontally. Vertically, the bike will take up slightly more space. When folded, the bicycle has a form factor of 46.5" × 19.3" × 23". It is important to note that the folding aspect of the bike only impacts the vertical height and that this bike does not fold in half, like other foldable bikes, which can fold in half. This may be slightly misleading to some people. However, the bike will fit into the trunks of most cars, from sedans to SUVs.
Now let's get to one of the essential parts of a review, how is it to ride? How is the ride quality? The ride quality, to put it bluntly, is surprisingly good. From the looks of it, it may seem to be an uncomfortable ride due to the small form factor, but it felt just like a regular bike to me. I had to adjust the saddle by moving it back all of the way and in the highest position, but it felt perfect in this location. However, if you are taller than 5 foot 8, you may find the bike slightly small and may need to buy a higher saddle post. I let other people try out the bike, and they all found it comfortable to use.
The saddle is quite comfy and one of the better saddles for default bike saddles. It is nice and cushy, with springs on the bottom to help ease out bumps in the road. As the bike has no front or rear suspension, anything helps with ride comfort (as you will see later with the offroad test), but for everyday commuting, this is perfect.
There are two main ways to ride the bike. The first mode is my personal favorite, which is on by default. The bike will automatically detect pedaling in pedal-assist mode and provide motor power to the cycle when pedaling normally. It is very intuitive when transitioning over from a regular bicycle, and I did not have any issues when the motor would not engage or the motor engaging when I did not want it to. It essentially felt like being able to bike but with more powerful legs.
The second way to ride the bike is to use the twist throttle. This does not require pedaling, but you can if you want to. All there is to it is to twist the throttle, and the motor will engage.
Funnily enough, the Bolt Pro has the same motor controller as a very similar-looking model. There is no menu system, any settings to change, or levels of pedal assist to my knowledge. Usually, Jetson puts these features in an app, but this bike is not compatible with the app, as it does not have Bluetooth. When you look at its internals, they just unplugged the Bluetooth module, meaning for, under 2 dollars, it would have been possible. I suppose they just didn't want to deal with the hassle of the app.
Either way, I liked the simplicity of the bike. Coming from a bike with a 3X7 drivetrain, it felt liberating just needing to pedal and not needing to think about gears. It was just getting on and go. I never needed to worry about what gear or setting I was on. I initially thought only having one gear would be a drawback, but with the electric motor, it felt seamless.
Overall, I found the ride quality excellent and preferred it to my normal hybrid bike, which was quite surprising…Until it came to offroad trails.
Although it was still bearable, some bike trails that I went on weren't the most comfortable to ride. For example, this bike won't work very well with loose gravel. Since the stem and handlebars are similar to a scooter, this can cause issues with riding offroad. If your entire commute consists of these types of trails, I would stay clear of this bike. However, it will not be an issue if it just happens to be a portion of the commute.
The bike also has a cruise control mode that I did not really use, but you can press the right button and lock in the bike's speed when riding. If you plan on riding a long distance without pedaling, this might be pretty useful, but I never used the throttle in the first place, so I did not use this feature that much. The feature still worked great the times I did use it.
The bike comes with two powerful disc brakes and an integrated front headlight when it comes to safety features. The disc brakes were near perfect out of the box, but perhaps I just got lucky. It is crucial to tune the bike for safety, good comfort, and longevity as with purchasing any bicycle. A properly tuned bike will last much longer than a bicycle that has not been tuned.
The headlight can be turned on by holding the cruise control button for 4 seconds and runs off of the internal battery. It is located on underneath the stem of the bicycle, which means the headlight will be more stable than one located on the handlebars. From a guy who has only been using handlebar-mounted headlights, it was pretty cool to look at. However, if you commute every day in night, you will want to invest in another, brighter light for safety.
The build quality, in my opinion, is excellent. The metal tubes of the bike and strong and do not give much flex other than the stem, but this is inevitable due to the folding design. The welds are also great and will not cause any issues. Although this is a personal opinion, the matte black paint job is sleek and looks great, meaning I'll be scared to scratch it up. However, it'll be inevitable.
The bike's weight is quite similar to non-electric bikes, weighing in at around 40 lbs. This probably makes this bike one of the lightest electric bikes on the market, making it quite portable and allows for faster acceleration.
The overall Pros:
Portable
Lightweight
Well Priced
Powerful for the size & weight
Overall Cons
Speed locked in 15.5 mph without modifications
Stem can be wobbly on rough terrain
Battery is not removable, if you live in a dorm or apartment may cause issues
Overall, at $400, this is a valuable buy, and if you can get it on sale for $300 this is worth it.
Search on Tony Quill on YouTube for a full-feature review.
