Vvolt Alpha Electric Bike Review

The Vvolt Alpha is a simple single speed, belt drive electric bike that caught our eyes the second we saw it. We have been riding this bike around town and enjoying the simplicity of the single speed belt drive. This is the entry level bike in the Vvolt lineup and comes with a lot of great features.

The Lab

The Vvolt Alpha is a Class 1 electric bike with pedal assist up to 20mph. It has a 375 watt hour battery that powers a 350watt Acer rear hub. The battery takes 5.5 hours to fully charged. This is a single speed bike using a quiet Gates CDN Belt Drive. It has five levels of pedal assist plus a walk mode. The onboard controller shows speed, pedal assist level, distance, and shows battery levels. The controller is bluetooth compatible for pairing with the Xplova app. A USB outlet on the side of the controller taps into the battery to charge your devices on the go.

The wheels are are 27.5 in. wheels with 1.95. in tires that are slightly knobby. It has clearance for 2.4 in. tires and with fenders you can fit 2.2 in. tires. Hydraulic disc brakes are mounted front and rear with 160mm rotors. It comes with front and rear rechargeable lights are included with the bike and there is also a bell mounted on the bars. The bike weighs 44-46 pounds, depending on the size, and has an estimated range of 20-40 miles.

Advantages

The Vvolt Alpha was the easiest bike we have built straight out of the box. It was great pulling the bike out from the side of the box rather than having to lift it up and out. All you have to do is install the front wheel and the pedals and you are ready to ride. The front axle was even greased already, which is just a nice small touch for the whole build. This is a great looking bike, simple lines and a clean paint job. There are reflective hits on the decals of the bike and on the inside of the fork for added help with visibility in low light. You really can barely tell it is an e-bike at first glance.

The packaging was also nice and minimal. It wasn’t wrapped in a ton of plastic or synched down with a bunch of zip ties. There were some velcro straps holding everything together and you could keep those and use them for something else later on if you need. The frame was protected with cardboard, which you can recycle.

The single speed belt drive is very quiet and has good gearing, pedaling front the get go is easy, and once you pick the level of assist you like it is easy to continue to pedal. Having the 5 levels of pedal assist is somewhat like having 5 “gears” as the higher pedal assist you choose, it makes the pedaling easier as if you would be changing gears on a geared bike. The belt drive is also very low maintenance and much cleaner than a conventional chain drive. As long as you keep the belt clean, it will give you no issues for a very long time. Vvolt also offers a 3 year warranty against manufacturer defects with no mileage limitation, and a they have a crash replacement program if you happen to get in a crash.

Drawbacks

There aren’t many things we would could see different on the Vvolt Alpha. For the price of the you are getting a great bike build with many nice components. This is just a class 1 bike so that will limit you to 20mph, and with it being a single speed getting over 20mph is more difficult since the gearing is optimized for 20 and under. It would be nice if there were integrated lights on this bike, but included with the purchase are some nice bright rechargeable LED lights.

The Vvolt Alpha would be great for anyone looking for a nice simple, low maintenance bike to ride around town. Whether you are commuting to work, running errands, or just going for a leisurely ride around town the Vvolt Alpha is a great option. With the ability to add a front or rear rack this would be a great bike to run errands on as well.

From the simple and easy assembly to the quiet belt driven drivetrain, the Vvolt Alpha is an awesome electric bike to get you going around your city in style. Vvolt is a company that believes more electric assisted mobility will make a better world, and we look forward to seeing what they have coming in the future.