I Love This Mooncool Electric Trike! - CleanTechnica

I recently received a Mooncool electric-boosted tricycle to review. It’s a fun and interesting vehicle, and I have to admit that the light teal color I got it in helps a lot with that vibe. Overall, I love the thing, but one has to know that a trike is not a bike — it really is a different animal.

I had never ridden an electric trike before. I have a friend, an older lady, who had a normal trike for a short time and couldn’t get used to it so sold it. But I still figured it’d be like riding a bike. Of course, at the core, it is, but there are differences that make it a bit awkward. For one, when you are on a sidewalk that isn’t 100% flat (as is always the case), it feels like you are tilting a bit. You don’t have the natural self-balancing that you get on a bicycle. Also, you have to take corners really slowly. Well, those are the two “big” differences, and they aren’t that big, but they really make for a different feel and experience at times.

Aside from those things, though, obviously, it’s like riding a bike. On the surprisingly positive side, the trike was not nearly as heavy as I expected it to be. Electric bikes are not light, and I’m certainly not saying the Mooncool trike is, but it’s notably lighter than I expected it would be with the extra wheel, the two baskets, a big battery, etc.

Riding the tricycle without using the electric assist is also surprisingly easy. I didn’t feel like I needed the electric assist. The trike is not too heavy, battery and all, to ride comfortably and easily. Though, when going up a steep hill and when I ended up using the Moooncool to transport some heavy shingles, I didn’t mind getting a little battery-powered boost. Oh, also, the battery stores a lot of energy. I don’t think I’ll end up charging it for several months, especially since I don’t use it very much.

Yep, shingles — which brings us to what’s great about the tricycle. My wife asked me what use I had for a tricycle, what I would ever need it for. Then Hurricane Milton hit, and most of the homes on our street and in our neighborhood lost roof shingles. These flew all over the big grassy area behind our home, and our experience with the same thing happening after Hurricane Ian was that if the landscaping crew was ever going to collect them, it wasn’t going to happen fast. These shingles are surprisingly heavy, and it would take all day to collect them all and carry them around to the front to put them on the street for garbage collection. So, I had the perfect opportunity to make use of the Mooncool electric tricycle. Across several trips, I put the shingles in big black garbage bags, loaded them into the basket on the back of the trike, and brought them around front. It worked superbly (but also barely) thanks to the size of the back basket and the fundamental strengths and benefits of the electric trike.

I have tested out the electric assist on a few rides. I will say that levels 4 and 5 are well beyond the power or speed I think electric assist needs to (or should) provide. The trike just goes too fast on those levels. But you don’t have to use them. Level 1 provides a perfect amount of assist when you’re presented with a little too much steepness or exhaustion in the legs. Level 2 can really scoot you along. Level 3 is quite rapid, and allows you to just ride along using just the throttle. Using Level 4 and 5 as long as felt safe on some straightaways was really too fast for my taste, getting up to 16 mph. A trike shouldn’t go that fast.

I love that the trike has lights on the front and back and even turn lights. The seat is super comfortable, which is important to me as a non-hardcore biker who mostly uses two-wheelers and now this three-wheeler for 30-minute to one-hour rides with my wife and young daughters. Regarding those rides, I’m not going to lie — I now love using the Mooncool trike about half the time in place of an e-bike!

The brakes are solid. The baskets look slick and are very useful. The battery is tucked away nicely. I absolutely love the trike.

Getting into some more details for numbers nerds and those more into the specifics of the equipment, here are a few notable highlights regarding the Mooncool TK1 folding electric trike:

🟣 48V 15A Lithium Battery

🟡 500W High-Power Motor

🟠 Rear Differential Mechanism

🟢 95% Pre-Assembled with Free Front Basket & Rear Basket

Also, it is said that the trike has 35∼70 miles of range on a full charge, which is probably more than you drive on an average day and far more than I can imagine needing on any day of the year or decade, especially when you consider how easy it is to ride without the battery assist.

Oh, yes, and there’s also a parking brake, which I didn’t initially notice. There’s no kickstand, because it’s a trike, but there’s a parking brake added via the handlebars to keep the trike from rolling away when parked.

There is one other thing to get used to, aside from the two key notes at the top. When you get going on a bike, you have your lead leg and then one that might kick off or at least swing on afterward. My natural habit in this regard had me bumping my left leg into the back left tire or fender, or even running over my foot briefly on a couple of occasions. My wife had the same problem. It just took a little focus, breaking of habits, and I stopped running into this problem — or having it run into me.

I’m getting used to the “slanted sidewalk” issue, and there’s just no way around it if you want the benefits and fun of a trike. It’s easy to deal with the “turning corners” issue — just take them slowly. And, again, the great thing is that aside from these matters, the Mooncool trike feels a lot like a normal bike.

I’m planning to use the Mooncool EV in the future in some other utilitarian ways — biking to the tennis courts will all the necessary balls, drinks, rackets, and equipment; perhaps getting some groceries or something from the pharmacy; etc. I’ll cover those adventures when I get to them and let you know how the Mooncool does.

Any questions or special requests in coverage of this e-trike? Any experiences of your own that you’d like to share?

You can find all the specs, pricing, and usual details on the Mooncool website. The price is highly competitive for what you get, in my opinion. I’m not a nerd on specs and equipment, but can just say it’s everything I need or could want in an e-trike.

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