All that, plus the six-pound Toshiba battery housed behind the seat, makes the bike quite heavy, and, in some ways, a bit clunky feeling to move around when you're not riding it. Where an average bike weighs about 35 pounds, the Tailwind, as we mentioned, weighs 58 pounds. Of course -- this bike does a lot more than your average bike, and its weight is actually fairly low for electric bikes (plus, we're huge wimps). The motor driving this bike offers 180 watts nominal power and up to 250 watts peak. It’s a planetary geared design by Protanium and it offers good torque while keeping weight down.

Even at level 3 assistance, my pedals are free spinning in 7th gear. The only time you'll ever need to balance power output would be if you were planning on doing an entire 20 miles without charging. For commuters and people who run errands, that's not always going to be the case. At level 5, the throttle propels you up to 20 miles per hour and disengages if you go faster than that (for example, if you go downhill). Class 2 e-bikes are required to stop assistance past 20 miles per hour. Level 1 throttle tops out at around 10 mph while level 5 will give you the full 20 mph.