I was in the market for an electric bike. I had tried a number of different types of rear hub motor…read morebikes including fat tire and mountain bikes, with different motor wattages. For some reason I wasn't quite settled on a rear hub fat tire style electric bike...something inside me kept telling me it was more like a scooter or motorcycle than a bicycle. It felt like the bike was controlling me more than I was controlling it. Not that I wouldn't have probably purchased one and enjoyed it, but for some reason and I'm not exactly sure why, I decided to see who in the Portland area was selling mid drive bikes that were affordable. (Fully aware of the specialized and similar $5,000 + bikes, I was wanting something in a more reasonable price range.)
Somehow - and I'm still not sure how except by divine providence, I ended up calling up Pxcycle to ask a few questions. Gunther, the owner, answered the phone. We proceeded to have a thoughtful, informative, and quite delightful conversation about ebikes, bicycles, motorcycles, and who knows what all else for 45 minutes, and I made the decision right then that I had to ride one of his bikes. At the time I didn't realize he had designed a new model of his mid drive mountain bike called the Cascadia, and it was so new that some of the parts had not even arrived in Portland yet. He invited me to come out anyway and test ride his own personal bike, which I gladly took him up on a few days later.
Just as he described, once I rode Pxcycle bike, there was no turning back. You see, Gunther has written motorcycles on trails, highways and byways, as well as mountain bikes on all different kinds of tracks, everything from a leisurely ride to single track stuff that I would never attempt. Along the way after moving to Portland, he described how he jumped into the crazy burgeoning ebike culture with both feet, along with other crazy bike builders who are connecting on the Internet to trade info about what was working. The rest is history as they say, but needless to say, the bike that Gunther builds is literally the bike he would want after all of his crazy adventures and after trying every different type of ebike motor, battery, controller, frame geometry, tire width and thickness...the list goes on and on but you get the idea.
And for me at least, he totally nailed it. I really love his bikes, and they are very affordable for what you get once you look into the ebike market and learn about how it all works. Not only that, he supports his products. It's not an online purchase with online customer service. (By the way, I have yet to figure out how an online bike mechanic would actually work.) he has been at his little shop in Portland Oregon for years, and loves what he does and loves connecting with customers and supporting them. That adds an incredible value to his bicycles that you don't get with just about any other ebikes I have found in the same price range with the same specs.
So to get to the end of my story....soon after my test ride, the parts came into Portland and he and his son Ben began constructing bikes and putting them out on the floor for customers. I drove over and jumped on and give it a try and sure enough, I was in love. After purchasing the bike I ordered some custom accessories and Gunther was happy to install them before I came back to pick up the bike.
Now that I reread this review, I realize it sounds like I'm Gunther's cousin or something. Ha ha, not true... But honestly has been a pursuit of mine for a number of months, and to be honest there could not have been a more perfect ending to my quest then happening upon PXcycle and meeting Gunther and Ben, and purchasing a Cascadia ebike.
