Review: An Electric Bicycle

Stop me if you've heard this one before: I bought a knock-off product from an upstart Chinese company thanks to an Instagram ad. It was half the price of similar stuff from well established brands, shipping was free and a long-time warranty was assured in broken English. Well...it arrived at my house in pieces and even after riding it for the last few months I'm still not sure if I put it together correctly.

It's the best purchase I've made in years.

This is a review of the Puckipuppy Labrador Pro Class 3 electric bicycle (eBike).

Bike Specs

• Brand: Puckipuppy
• Model: Labrador Pro
• Motor: 1350W
• Battery: 48V 20Ah 960Wh
• Charger: 48V 2A
• Top Speed: Throttle speed of 20 mph and assistance can reach up to 28 mph
• Range: 80 miles
• Brakes: 3mmx180mm hydraulic disc brakes.
• Frame material: 6061 Aluminum Alloy.
• Gearing/drivetrain: Direct Mount 1-8 Speed, Black
• Weight: 67 lbs
• Payload Capacity: 400 lbs
• Current Price: $1,649.99

Uh, what does 1350W mean? 48V? 2B? 9S?

Motors: The power output of electric motors is measured in Watts (W). Watts (W) = Volts (V) × Amps (A). Volts = the “pressure” of electricity. Amps = the “flow” of electricity. Think of water pipes and you get the idea. Ultimately more watts means more power baby! With more watts the bike has a higher top speed, faster acceleration and it's easier to climb hills. Most commuter eBikes deliver about 250W-750W so 1350W is pretty dang good.

Battery: Voltage (V) affects how much power the motor can draw on from the battery. Higher voltage means higher speeds because more power can flow into the motor at once. In the hierarchy of electric bikes, 48V is middle of the pack. Bikes from solid brands like Aventon are 36V range. Top tier bikes in 2025 have 52V batteries. Part two of battery stats is the capacity of the battery (i.e. fuel-tank size), measured in amp hours (aH). Part three of battery stats is watt-hours, or the total energy stored. Watt-hours is voltage multiplied by aH. Watt-hours is the best number to determine how powerful the battery is.

Charger: Voltage has the same meaning here as above: how much power the charger can pull from its power source continuously (typically a wall outlet). The amp rating is the charger’s maximum output to the battery. A charger can give X amps at Y voltage. In this case, 2amps at 48V, which means it can deliver 96W of power an hour. The Labrador Pro's battery has a capacity of 960Wh, so it would be 10 hours to a full charge.

Controller: Not mentioned above but good to know, a controller is essentially the brain of the system. It manages the flow of power between the battery, motor, and other components to make the bike ride smoothly and safely. When you increase Pedal Assist levels on your LCD display, the controller is what actually enables more power to flow from battery to motor. This controls speed and torque. The voltage rating of the controller must match the battery voltage. If the voltage rating of the controller is too low, the battery has got more power than the controller can handle and it'll fry. If the controller's voltage rating is higher than the battery, it won't work properly because it isn't getting enough juice to operate properly.

All of this math sounds like black magic but you get the idea. The bigger the numbers, the better the bike, the more expensive it is. As with most things in life, this is kind of true. More money doesn't always mean better, so check the stats.

The Different Classes of eBikes

These classes truly only matter if your country/state/city cares about how fast you can go on the street and trails without a motorist's license and plates. Because these bikes are cheap and fast, new laws are coming through to kill the fun and increase safety for the general public. Otherwise the difference is whether you want pedal assist (Class 1) or pedal assist and throttle (Class 2+). The Puckipuppy Labrador Pro is a Class 3 e-Bike.

Class 1 – Pedal Assist Only

• Motor only activates when you pedal
• Assists up to 20 mph
• No throttle
• Often allowed anywhere a regular bicycle can go (bike paths, trails, etc.)

Class 2 – Throttle-Assisted + Pedal Assist

• Can be powered by a throttle without pedaling
• Max motor-assisted speed: 20 mph
• Good for casual cruising or riders who need help starting from a stop

Class 3 – Throttle-Assisted + Pedal Assist, but faster

• Same as Class 2, but the motor-assisted speed is 28 mph
• If speed matters to you, these are ones you want.

There's another level of electric bikes that are throttle-only and even faster from brands like Surron, Talaria and Falcon79. They typically cost $4,000+ and are popular with rich teenagers because they're as fast as some budget motorcycles for half the cost, can be customized to go even faster and don't need licenses because they're technically bicycles. Gangs of kids are running around on Surrons popping wheelies and causing mischiefs. Because of that and delivery drivers using them as the cheapest form of short-distance transportation, Johnny Law is cracking down.

Why buy a electric bicycle?

Before this I wasn't a bicycle fanatic in the slightest. I had bicycles as a kid and bought a cheap Walmart mountain bike as an adult for exercise. That's it. I always thought riders in spandex looked like total dorks and people on fixed gear bikes acted like jerks in traffic.

On the flip side, I've been obsessed with motorcycles since I was a kid. No assholes there, right? Like most kids of the 90s and 2000s I loved Kaneda's bike in Akira, Trinity's Ducati in The Matrix, the Tron lightcycle, bikes from Bubblegum Crisis, No More Heroes, Terminator 2, Long Way Round with Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, on and on. Motorcycles just looked cool and I loved the spirit of freedom that they represented. A few years ago I bought my first motorcycle after taking the Motorcycle Safety School (MSS) course.

Pro Tip: If you're even remotely interested in riding, take the MSS course at least once in your riding career.

She was a beaut: 2005 Honda VTX 1300R, a purple retro-styled chrome cruiser with hand painted pinstripes. Forty thousand miles on the odometer, originally from Pennsylvania and even after twenty years the clutch was smooth and power rolled on nicely. Heavy as hell but in motion she was effortless. Motorcycles sound totally obnoxious but on saddle that noise translates into a living relationship. Then there's the sensation of surfing on the open road, feeling the entire world around you, navigating through dense traffic like a dancer. Even a trip down the road feels like a mission into the unknown.

But it was far from perfect. The negatives of the gas-powered riding experience lead me to sell the motorcycle and think about better, cheaper ways to capture that feeling of flying on the ground.

Note: A lot of these issues relate to this exact bike and my own lack of mechanical experience and courage. But it turned me off from riding motorcycles, which is healthier and cheaper for me in the long run.

The bad of my motorcycling career:

• The Honda was carbureted and after forty-thousand miles on the clock, she didn't start most times. I learned the hard way that using the choke, which increases the air/fuel mixture to make it easier to start the bike, can flood the carbs with gasoline, which is very common on this type of bike. I bought a carb rebuild kit to resolve the issue but I chickened out on taking the bike apart. Oil and fuel and tiny parts all over the place felt more terrifying than exciting.
• A new battery helped but when the bike would fail to turn over, that would drain the battery and I'd have to leave the bike on a trickle charger until I could attempt another ride.
• Changing gears never bothered me but slow speed maneuvers sucked on a heavy bike, especially at four-way stops. She was heavy and if I didn't time it perfectly, I'd fall over and embarrass myself in several directions.

There were many days where I'd gear up like a leather daddy in the Texas sun, wheel my big purple dinosaur out of the garage and pray for success. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. I wanted something fast, reliable and didn't need tons of heavy gear in Texas. This wasn't it. I sold her and went back to the $100 Walmart mountain bike when I wanted a two-wheeled thrill.

Then I heard about electric mountain bikes. I went into Mellow Johnny's on South Lamar and the sales guy talked my ear off with legitimate passion for thirty minutes straight. Everything I loved about surfing and motorcycle riding was captured in bike riding in all forms. I just didn't love the prices.

The salesman warned me not to buy a random brand because none of these companies are probably going to exist in two years. I agreed with him, but I was so excited and curious about electric bicycles that I wanted to jump in right away. Would I be lucky?

Why this Electric Bike?

So - Puckipuppy. It's a weird name but it's memorable so kudos to the branding team. All of their models are named after dog breeds. In doing my research I found lots of written and video reviews, so at least I knew it wasn't total vaporware. To be fair, a lot of the video reviewers get the bikes for free and that softens up their feedback, but the consensus I was getting on the Puckipuppy brand was that it was real and good enough.

Next up I had to consider bikes with cadence sensors (cheaper) versus torque sensors (more expensive, better feel). I wanted torque sensors so that removed most of the Puckipuppy models from my list. Bikes with cadence sensors are still good, it's just that the responsiveness of a torque sensor, which increases power proportionally to how hard you're pedalling, feels more natural.

The other consideration: bikes with hub motors or mid-drive motors. Mid-drive motors are set into the frame of the bike, which leads to better balance and a smoother delivery of power but are more expensive. Hub motors fit in the center of the rear wheel, or if it's dual motor, in the center of each wheel. It's more common on budget bikes. Puckipuppy doesn't have any bikes with mid-drive motors. If you're looking for a good mid-drive bike, Santa Cruz has some of the best, especially the Marlin, Trek and Vala series.

Delivery + Setup

Delivery was about a week after order placed, arrived in a giant box coming off a truck. I wasn't planning on writing this review at the time so I didn't take any pictures. The box was insanely heavy which meant that I put it together in my driveway. Not fun in Texas but it was a good way to burn calories through pure sweat.

It was straightforward though - all of the various pieces came separated by styrofoam were well labeled. Most of the bike was already put together, I just had to install the front wheel/tire, make sure the brakes lined up properly, connect the electrical doodads and charge up the battery. It took a few hours but only because it was tricky to line up the placement of the front/wheel tire to the rest of the frame. Part of that involved getting the brake pads to slide seamlessly into the rotors. I had to loosen a few bolts and such to get it right and then tighten them back up. I'm barely handy so this is something that anyone could do.

Difficulty of Install: 2/5

First Ride

Wow it's quick! Once you increase the Pedal Assist at or above Level 2, otherwise you feel the weight of the fat tires holding you back. The torque sensor isn't truly instant, it takes a second or two for the power to surge. It didn't bother me, just showed me how to ride the bike a bit differently to account for that. Everything felt good about the bike, and switching the different Pedal Assist levels and working my way through the gears felt good. Brakes felt good as well.

Exploring around Town

I've taken it around my insulated neighborhood, which has a mix of street, gravel country roads, dirt trails and miles of mud. It's handled every condition very well, and the moment I hit a road that feels a little tough for the bike, I can increase the Pedal Assist and change my gears and I can power through anything easily. Because the bike is so quick and responsive, I don't freak out when I hit a bunch of gravel for example and lose all traction - I can drop a couple gears and push my way through. I'll even use the bike rack above the rear seat to pick up packages and bring little things with me to the local park. I haven't bought a bike basket yet but that'll unlock another dimension of usefulness.

Design & Aesthetics

The design is neat, it's got this wishbone suspension type deal which looks cool and makes handling big drops an ease. This model is bright orange, which I didn't love at first but it makes me think of Akira and the color way is unique. This one is hard to steal visually at least. The frame is crazy looking and the colors are special.

Fit & Finish

For a random brand, I have to say the fit and finish is pretty solid. I heard that a lot of bikes, "real" and "fake" are ultimately made in the same factory, so the consistency of build quality tends to be pretty high. The Puckipuppy absolutely feels like it's worth the money, maybe a little bit more. Each piece of the frame feels solid, and the basic stuff like pedals and cockpit controls are good enough.

Immediate "wow" factors or disappointments

When you have Pedal Assist on, especially level 3+, it just feels fun. You immediately feel this push of power in the wheels, just like when you're surfing and you feel the water and the energy surging behind you to push you forward. And because the bicycle is so much lighter than a motorcycle, it's no nimble and easy to throw around, even with the fat tires.

Size/height suitability

I'm 5'10" and I've found that the bike fits me well. The seat is adjustable though it feels like low quality as every time I ride, it gets shifted out of place.

Who's it for?

This bike is perfect for commuters and weekend explorers. I could see this being a great way to travel to work if your commute is under fifty miles or so. If you're just cruising around on the street, fat tires might be overkill but the pedal assist is strong enough to forget that they're bigger than normal. You wouldn't want to take this on regular mountain biking trails as the tires are too fat to be nimble, but the platform is run to kick it around most muddy conditions.

Comfort

The saddle is comfortable but I've found that it gets knocked out of position very easily. In fact this is one thing I'll probably replace first on the bike, everything is great but the fact that the seat is constantly moving out of place is annoying. The riding position is good though - I feel comfortable and at 5'10" I can reach the pedals easily and my arms feel good. The suspension has a shock absorber and I can attest to the fact that you can ride it hard and it'll hold up pretty well.

Handling (turns, balance, maneuverability)

She turns pretty well, despite the chunky tires and the big presence, it's pretty nimble. It handles jumps and bouncing very well too. On my $150 WalMart mountain bike I was always terrified of huge drops or riding through grass: the beefy suspension and the fat tires make both of those feelings a thing of the past. I'm not afraid to go from street to sidewalk to grass to deep mud without skipping a beat. The bike itself is strong enough to push through anything, and by increasing or decreasing gears and combining that with the Pedal Assist levels, that gives me another dimension of control.

Power Delivery (throttle vs pedal assist)

This bike has a torque sensor as opposed to a cadence sensor, which means that the bike gives you more electronic assist based on how hard you're pedaling. The bike is pretty responsive - it's not immediate power but within a second or two of pedaling, the power will flow through the bike and move you forward. It's actually really cool, and reminded me of surfing in several ways. The higher your pedal assist level, which goes from 0 to 5, the more power flows into the wheels and the faster you go.

Noise/Vibration

The beauty of an electric bicycle - the noise is at a minimum. the quiet whine of the electric motor and your brakes is all you hear.

Speed & Acceleration

It feels fast, but because of the 28mph speed limit, it doesn't feel like you're a rocket ship. But in most traffic scenarios, going uphill and downhill, this absolutely feels quick. When you're not doing Pedal Assist, you feel how heavy the tires are and low-speed maneuvers can be tricky occasionally, but nothing compared to a scooter or motorcycle as you can ride the clutch to get around. There is a Throttle button as well, which is really like a Boost button so you can get a one-second jolt of power when riding. Feels like how the surge of power comes on during Pedal Assist but it's given without pedalling. I find this useful when I have to cross busy roads quickly, but it could also be good for getting out of awkward situations quickly.

Display/interface

The display is bright and easy to read. You've got three buttons to navigate the user interface - it is not a touch screen. To turn on the display, you hold down one of the buttons for a few seconds, it'll display a welcome screen and then land on your speedometer. On this main screen, you can increase your pedal assist from 0 to 5. The screen is responsive and after one or two pedals, I can feel the change take place. You can hold down the buttons to enter a Settings mode, where you can increase the max-speed of the bike, which is limited to 28mph as a Class 2 eBike. I can promise you that you don't really want to be on a bicycle going 40+ mph. It'll burn on the battery and this suspension isn't built for extreme speed.

Security (key, lock, tracking)

There's no security features on the bike as far as I'm aware. But I bought an Airtag that I discreetly added to the bike to keep track of it. Would reccomend that as an easy way to keep control of the bike.

Tires, lights, display, accessories

It has 26.0" x 4.0" Fat tires. It's also got a front and rear light which are both pretty bright and visible. The front light is low to the ground though so you have to orient it properly, and with each bump in the road that alignment is going to get screwed up again. It also comes with a rear rack which was easy to install. It also came with fenders that were a little annoying to install so I removed them.

Water resistance?

I've ridden her through a few puddles and all seemed fine but I really don't want to goof around and find out. The battery sits low in the frame but it feels waterproof and tight.

Real-world battery life

Even after using it for days in a row and for several hours at a time, I haven't run out of battery once. Puckipuppy's website says the range is about a hundred miles and I'd believe them. Even with max pedal assist, I've never pushed the battery to it's limits.

Charging time

10 hours to a full charge is normal with this bike and a standard charging time for most electric bikes.

Charger design/port access

There's two ways to charge the battery - by removing the battery from the bike frame and plugging the charger directly into it, or by plugging the charger into the bike frame itself, which is connected to the battery. Both work pretty well, though you can only see the charge status on the battery block itself, which means it needs to be removed from the frame.

Swappable battery?

The 15ah battery is swappable since you can remove it from the bike frame. Puckipuppy sells new batteries on their website for $500. The cost of the bike was about $1500, so that's a third of the cost on a new battery. But overall, still a reasonable price. The battery is easy to remove - there's a place to use a key and then the battery will slide out of the frame.

If you're looking for a stylish, mid-range e-bike with solid range and comfort for city commuting and light trail use, the Puckipuppy Labrador Pro is a solid deal. If you're curious about electric bikes this might be a pricey start but any decently powered electric bike is a blast to ride. With eighty miles of range and a solid suspension, this is a do-it-all bike: use it for a morning workout, commute to school/work, hit the trails after the workday is done then get through all of your errands. Plug in overnight and do it all over again. It's truly a do-it-all bike.

Pros

• great power for the price, she's quick!
• five levels of Pedal Assist settings and eight gears means you can set up the bike exactly for your ride, on the fly
• Torque sensor makes electrically-assisted riding feel natural
• fat tires makes it easy to ride on any terrain without fear
• mechanical components are from mainline brands like Shimano so maintenance should be reasonable and doable by most bike shops

Cons

• relatively new brand, long-term reliability is unknown
• if the battery, motors or controllers go bad, would the warranty hold up?
• the battery is in a prime spot for mud and water so I hope it's super waterproof
• fat tires are heavy to move at pedal assist Level 0, so you're always required to keep it in at least Pedal Assist 1 or 2, 3+ is where it really gets moving
• the seat is terrible, doesn't stay in your set position
• Experienced riders will want more established brands, especially if they are pushing the platform to it's limits.

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