Moped-Style Ebikes

This is the question people actually arrive with, so here is the answer first. A moped style ebike is not a moped. No licence, no registration, no insurance, no plate, in all 50 states, because it stays inside the e-bike classes on power and speed. A real electric moped is a registered vehicle and none of that is true of it.

The confusion is the styling doing its job. Bench seat, upright bars, a low frame that looks like something you kick-start. Underneath it is a 750 W rear hub motor and pedals, which is what the law reads.

Where it stops being simple is the class. Six of the seven here are Class 2, capped at 20 mph on both throttle and assist. The RadRunner Max is the exception at Class 3, assisting to 28 mph, and that changes which paths you can legally use. Our guide to the ebike classes covers what that means where you ride.

Most bikes treat carrying capacity as something you bolt on afterwards. A moped style frame starts from the deck and builds around it, which is why a passenger seat, a crate or a child seat fits properly instead of being improvised on a rack that was rated for a pannier.

The numbers are the point. The RadRunner carries 320 lb total, the Plus 350 lb, the Max 420 lb, each including a rider capped at 275 lb. Take a 180 lb rider off the Max's 420 and you have 240 lb of deck left, which is an adult passenger or a serious shop.

If you are moving children and a week of food every day, a cargo longtail has the wheelbase for it and these do not. If you want one bike that carries a decent load and still parks in a normal bike space, this is the compromise that works.

Every bike here has a throttle as well as pedal assist. On a short-wheelbase bike carrying 200 lb on the back, the moment you want power without pedalling is pulling away from a standing start at a junction, uphill, with a passenger. That is what a throttle is for, and it is worth more day to day than any headline speed.

Torque tells you how well it does that: 65 Nm on the RadRunner, 70 on the Plus, 90 on the Max. The gap between 65 and 90 is what you feel on a loaded hill start, not on the flat.

Range runs 89 km on the two 624 Wh bikes and 98 km on the Max's 672 Wh pack. Those are manufacturer figures on low assist. Ride a loaded bike on throttle in traffic and you will see meaningfully less, which is true of every bike on this site and rarely said out loud.

Buy the RadRunner at $1,499 if you want the cheapest way into the design and will add to it yourself. Rad Power publish no weight for any of the three RadRunners; the 29.5 kg we list comes from third-party testing, which is worth knowing before you plan on lifting one.

Buy the RadRunner Plus at $1,799 if you would rather it arrived finished. Same 624 Wh battery and near-identical motor, better equipment out of the box, 30 lb more payload.

Buy the RadRunner Max at $2,299 if you need the capacity or the speed. It is the only Class 3 bike here at 28 mph, has the most torque at 90 Nm, the biggest battery at 672 Wh and 100 lb more payload than the base bike. It is also the one most likely to be restricted from a shared path.

Then there is the split between the two brands, which is the real decision. Rad Power build around the deck, so the payload rating is the point and the bike is a tool. Super73 build around the silhouette, and the numbers follow from that rather than leading it. The MZFT at $1,995 and the M1D at $2,495 both take a second battery, which takes usable range from 15-20 miles to 35-40, and that is the answer if range is what puts you off. The S2 Laguna at $2,645 is the lightest thing on this page at 30.4 kg. The Z Adventure at $3,045 is the only geared one, 8 speeds where the rest are single-speed.

Worth being straight about the trade. A Super73 carries a rider and not much else: rider capacity runs 250 to 325 lb with no deck rating, against 320 to 420 lb total on a RadRunner. If you are carrying a passenger or a crate, buy the Rad Power. If you want the bike people look at outside the coffee shop, buy the Super73 and do not pretend it is a load carrier.