Raleigh One e-bike review: redemption tour

Two bully things person travel from the 2023 bankruptcy of VanMoof. The first is the all-new VanMoof S6 e-bike that precocious launched nether caller ownership. The 2nd is simply a caller commuter e-bike developed for Raleigh by VanMoof’s departed founders, Ties and Taco Carlier.

Like a VanMoof, the Raleigh One e-bike comes pinch anti-theft features for illustration GPS search and an alarm, cables routed done the aluminum frame, wide tires, mudguards, integrated lighting, and hauling options needed for regular commutes crossed a city. It besides comes packed pinch lessons learned astir reduced complexity and serviceability, including a bevy of off-the-shelf parts and a single-speed, belt-driven transmission connected to a rear-hub centrifugal pinch a artillery that tin beryllium quickly removed for indoor charging. The motorcycle besides emits pleasant sounds erstwhile doing things for illustration powering on, enabling the lights, and arming information without being each hey, look astatine maine and my fancy motorcycle like VanMoofs of old.

I’ve been testing the Raleigh One successful level Amsterdam for the past fewer weeks. That’s important to cognize because this single-speed e-bike produces conscionable 35Nm of torque from its 250W centrifugal pinch a max velocity of 25km/h (16 mph). It really suffers connected hills without the boost fastener recovered connected VanMoofs and the Tenways CGO009 this e-bike resembles.

Nevertheless, it is simply a very bully e-bike priced astatine £2,399 / €2,699 (around $3,000 USD) for the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands. That’s costly for a Raleigh, but it’s still adjacent to the €2,681 average for European e-bikes and cheaper than section competitors for illustration Cowboy and VanMoof.

The Raleigh One is the first premium, connected e-bike from the British marque established measurement backmost successful 1887. Unfortunately, successful 2025, Raleigh is fundamentally a logo connected apical of a trading strategy aft respective acquisitions and mill closures. The marque is presently owned by the Accell Group, an manufacture behemoth responsible for brands for illustration Batavus, Sparta, and Carqon’s electrical cargo bikes.

Most group that bargain a Raleigh One will return transportation astatine a section motorcycle shop wherever it’ll beryllium assembled and prepped for handover. I asked to person excavation shipped to my location to trial the direct-to-customer route. I had it fresh to thrust successful 30 minutes pinch the thief of fantabulous illustrated instructions and businesslike packing. That’s accelerated for a DTC e-bike!

The astir silent Mivice motor, wide 27.5 x 2.2-inch Innova tires, and 21kg (46.3lbs) motorcycle weight harvester to nutrient a sturdy ride. The pedal assistance feels intuitive, pinch the Gates Carbon loop thrust delivering powerfulness commensurate pinch the unit exerted by my legs. The Tektro hydraulic disc brakes bring everything to a extremity pinch assurance and control. Everything feels very serious, lacking the nosy felt connected much torquey e-bikes.

The Raleigh One performed good connected slopes up to astir 5 percent, allowing maine to support the 25km/h apical velocity without excessively overmuch further effort connected my part. The single-speed transmission was utterly defeated by a 10 percent slope communal successful cities for illustration Lisbon and San Francisco. Starting from a dormant extremity connected a 3 percent slope was doable but required a beardown push from my quads. It was my testing connected hills that made maine really miss that boost button.

I felt comfortable riding successful that azygous cogwheel astatine speeds up to 30km/h connected the downhill broadside without emotion for illustration a clown. That’s bully because galore single-speed belt-driven e-bikes will person your legs spinning wildly astatine speeds that high.

Raleigh claims a scope of up to 80km successful the lowest pedal-assist mode, aliases person to 50km successful max power. I did each my testing astatine level 5 of 5 and managed 47.7km earlier depleting the battery. Most of my scope trial was ridden into a 10 to 15 knot headwind, pinch an hr spent trying to update the e-bike’s firmware from a problematic type 1.8.0 to a overmuch much unchangeable type 1.9.0.

The artillery recharged to 50 percent successful 55 minutes from the bike’s ample 5A / 42V charging brick, 80 percent successful 92 minutes, and afloat astatine 2 hours and 40 minutes — comparatively speedy numbers for a 360Wh battery.

The package connected a connected e-bike needs to beryllium arsenic robust arsenic the conveyance itself and here’s wherever Raleigh presently falls a small short. My reappraisal motorcycle suffers from artillery drain of astir 3 percent each 24 hours erstwhile parked successful my surviving room. A small drain is normal for connected e-bikes that regularly cheque successful connected proprietor proximity and usage GSM/GPS to way location, but 3 percent (about 10.8Wh) is excessive. I besides recovered the app to beryllium a spot buggy, displaying the occasional “this cognition can’t beryllium completed” correction aliases conscionable going unresponsive if near unfastened excessively long. These issues are concerning for a institution offering subscription services highly reliant connected its mastery of software. Accell Group is alert of the issues and is addressing my concerns.

“Our engineers are presently refining the powerfulness guidance algorithms,” says Darren Smith, Senior Category Manager astatine Accell Group. “A firmware update will beryllium released soon to optimize this standby mode, importantly reducing artillery drain while the motorcycle is idle without compromising its information features.” Likewise, the bugs I’m seeing successful the app are attributed to its relationship state. “Our app squad is implementing a much robust relationship handling protocol to resoluteness these circumstantial bugs and an update addressing these stableness points will beryllium released very soon,” says Smith.

To beryllium clear: you perfectly don’t request a subscription to thrust the Raleigh One aliases to use firmware updates, but you besides won’t beryllium capable to way your motorcycle if it’s stolen. For that you’ll request to salary €7.99 per period which besides gets you theft alerts sent to your phone, autumn discovery to alert loved ones of a crash, and more. You tin moreover salary €14.99 per period to adhd theft security for what Raleigh calls “peace of mind” — a statement lifted from VanMoof — that lets you record a declare pinch Raleigh to grip replacement of your stolen bike. Arranging theft sum from your e-bike institution is surely the easy route, but you’ll apt prevention immoderate money pinch an AirBell and backstage theft insurance, instead.

Subscriptions suck, but they’re progressively the norm for premium e-bikes. And pinch truthful galore motorcycle companies going nether aliases posting dire losses, I’m not going to bemoan the Accell Group’s business model. For each its resources, the bicycle elephantine isn’t immune to the forces of bikeaggedon that took down VanMoof and Cake, and astir wiped retired Cowboy, Ampler, and galore much European micromobility brands.

Other observations:

Overall I for illustration the £2,399 / €2,699 Raleigh One for European commuters surviving successful comparatively level cities. Sure, I wish the anti-theft features weren’t locked down a subscription and the motorcycle would use from a boost fastener to dress up for its anemic torque. The idle artillery drain will surely beryllium annoying if it’s not fixed successful a early firmware update arsenic promised, but astatine slightest you tin region the artillery and complaint it inside. I besides for illustration that each those off-the-shelf parts tin beryllium serviced astatine your section Raleigh shop.

Yes, the Carlier brothers grounded astatine VanMoof, yet galore of the lessons learned look to person been applied to the Raleigh One. But I’ve only had it for a fewer weeks and astir e-bikes execute good erstwhile new. Let’s spot really it does aft months of deterioration and tear successful crowded motorcycle racks, rain, dust, sand, snow, and the occasional autumn aliases attempted theft. Ties and Taco’s effort astatine redemption will return time, truthful let’s spot really things are going successful astir a year, shall we?

Photography by Thomas Ricker / The Verge