A true beach-neighborhood cruiser ebike with a lot of comfort and style to go around, a lot of cushy touch points, relaxed riding position, capable hill climbing motor, and a twist throttle
This really is a comfort bike, thanks to these swept back yet long handlebars, angled stem with a high rise, faux leather Velo saddle with rubber bumpers, and stitched leather ergonomic grips
A powerful 500 watt motor specifically tuned with torque in mind, great for climbing those steep hills, Shimano Tourney drivetrain and Tektro 160mm mechanical disc brakes
Display is on the basic side, battery charging can be slower with 2amp charger, rear light is not integrated with the main battery so you have to USB charge it separately
KD58C, Fixed, Greyscale LCD, Backlit, Buttons: -, m, +, Hold + to Adjust Brightness, Hold - to Enter Walk Mode, Hold + and - to Enter Settings, Hold + and - Again to Enter Deep Settings
Readouts:
Battery Indicator (5 Bars), Assist Level (0-5), Speed, Average Speed, Max Speed, Tripometer, Odometer, Ride Timer (Advanced Settings: Clear Trip, Set Unit, Set LD, Set LS, Set Voltage, Power Set, Current Set, Assistant Num, Speed Sensor, Slow Start, Backlight Set, Password Set)
Display Accessories:
Half-Grip Twist Throttle on Right, Rocker Switch for Headlight, Push Button for Horn
To run the forums, host the website, and travel, I charge a universal service fee for my reviews. This review was sponsored by Tower. My goal is to be transparent and unbiased, this video and written review are not meant to be an endorsement of Tower products.
Today we are looking at the Tower Beach Bum, a true beach/neighborhood cruiser bike with a lot of comfort and style to go around. It comes in just 1 color (matte black), but it looks sharp with brown accented accessories including this brown and whitewall tires. Beyond looks, these tires are pretty high-end… they are Schwalbe Fat Frank balloon style tires at 26” x 3.5”. So with that higher air volume, you get a lot of cushion, good tread, and even puncture protection and a reflective sidewall stripe. This really is a comfort bike, thanks to these swept back yet long handlebars, angled stem with a high rise, faux leather Velo saddle with rubber bumpers, and stitched leather ergonomic grips. This all makes for an extremely relaxed riding position, perfect for looking at the scenery go by. Beyond all the comfort is quite a bit of utility too. The bike weighs 51.5lbs or so, which is actually not as bad compared to other beach cruisers out there. It has an interesting frame design meant to hold a U-lock in between the mid-tube (shown in the video), rear mounted kickstand to eliminate annoying pedal lock, rear rack provisions, and even a battery integrated headlight. There is a rear light here included too, but it does not operate off the main battery, instead it has its own USB charging independent battery. A minor detail, but I do sometimes forget to turn these off and drain the independent battery which is kind of annoying. Speaking of details, I love the grip tape platform pedals here. They are comfortable and have a premium feel… they even work better when barefoot, something we all do at the beach from time to time.
Driving the bike is a 500 watt rear hub-motor. This motor has been specifically tuned for Tower, with a higher torque rating in mind. This makes it fantastic for more difficult hill climbs. The top speed here has been limited to 18mph, however, you can easily change that rating yourself as a user in the display menu settings if you wish to go faster. Electrically, the bike is propelled by either the twist throttle on the right, or the 12 magnet sensor reading your pedal cadence. Both work great… it should be noted that the throttle is always live and active. Lucky for us, Tower included a throttle lock-out button right below the twist throttle that lets you disable that, a good safety feature if you got kids around or someone trying out the bike for the first time. Mechanically, you have a 7 speed Shimano Tourney system with a 44 tooth chain ring in the front, rust resistant chain (great for salty sea air), and a 11-34 tooth cassette in the rear. Stopping the bike is a set of Tektro Aries 160mm rotor mechanical disc brakes as well as motor inhibitors built in to cut power to the motor when stopping. Mechanical brakes take a little bit more hand actuation than hydraulic brakes, but are easier to adjust and maintain.
Powering the bike is an upgraded 48v 14ah lithium ion battery pack. This is what I would consider a high capacity battery and compliments the system well… when you want to focus on a comfortable ride, being outside, and the scenery, a battery like this is just what you want. It is secured via lock and key and mounts behind the seat post on the bike. This keeps the weight very centered and is appreciated for stability. There is an LED charge level indicator here on the battery too and charging is done through this 2amp charger. To really care for this and other lithium-ion packs, I have heard that storing in a cool dry location vs. extreme heat or cold will extend the life and try to keep it about 50% full when not using for long periods so you won’t stress the cells. Try not to let it run down to zero, because that’s really hard on the cell chemistry.
The display here is a compact little grayscale display. While the display may not be removable, it does have a backlight to make it easier to read. To power it on, press and hold the M button. Once the display is on, you will see a battery infographic in 5 ticks, so 20% increments. Pressing the M button will scroll through trip-set, odometer, and a timer. The speed is shown in MPH and the + and – buttons will raise or lower that pedal assist level. Press and hold + and – together and you will get a settings menu to change things like that top speed we mentioned. I appreciate this small display staying out of the way, but I do feel it is pretty basic, so it really depends on you as a user if this is a negative or a positive.
I really liked the comfortable and relaxed ride. I must say, the Tower Beach Bum is an attractive bike and rides just as good as it looks. There are some tradeoffs to consider though. As I mentioned before, the display is small and minimal. This can be a bonus for some, but it lacks deeper features, connectivity, and even definite battery percentage remaining that others may be looking for. The wiring is a little tight, and there are no bottle cage bosses… Finally, the large battery is amazing, so it is kind of a trade off that it comes with a slower 2amp charger. Charging a battery from dead to full could take some time given that high capacity battery rating. However, these can sound like nitpicking. The Beach Bum is really a fun cruiser and will likely serve your needs well if it falls under you consideration. I want to thank Tower for letting me check out the bike and I look forward to working with them again.
As always, I welcome questions and feedback in the comment section below. Whether you own a previous version of the bike, have taken a test ride, or are brand new to the space, my goal is to provide an objective and honest resource. You can also join the Other Brands ebike forums and share your own photos, videos, and review updates to help others! Have fun out there, and ride safe :)
Pros:
A true beach/neighborhood cruiser ebike with a lot of comfort and style to go around, a lot of cushy touch points, relaxed riding position, capable hill climbing motor, and a twist throttle
High quality Schwalbe Fat Frank balloon style tires at 26” x 3.5” with a lot of cushion, good tread, and even puncture protection and a reflective sidewall stripe
This really is a comfort bike, thanks to these swept back yet long handlebars, angled stem with a high rise, faux leather Velo saddle with rubber bumpers, and stitched leather ergonomic grips
Has an interesting frame design meant to hold a U-lock in between the mid-tube as shown in the video
Some utility here too with rear a mounted kickstand to eliminate annoying pedal lock, rear rack provisions, and even a battery integrated headlight
I love the grip tape platform pedals here, they are comfortable and have a premium feel… they even work great when barefoot, something we all do at the beach from time to time
A powerful 500 watt motor specifically tuned with torque in mind, great for climbing those steep hills, the cadence based pedal assist and twist throttle make it even better
Reliable Shimano drivetrain with Tektro mechanical disc brakes make maintenance and adjustment easy
Super powerful and long lasting battery with the 48v 14ah rating, this is great for those that want to push the throttle to the max or even just go out on a bike all day without worrying about charging as much
I think it is great that both the top speed and throttle can be limited for safety, the top speed is 16mph and the throttle has a lock out so it is not live, either of these can be changed easily for those that want to go faster and really take advantage of that throttle
Cons:
The display is small and minimal, this can be a bonus for some, but it lacks deeper features, connectivity, and even definite battery percentage remaining that others may be looking for
The large battery is amazing, so it is kind of a trade off that it comes with a slower 2amp charger, charging a battery from dead to full could take some time given that high capacity battery rating
I love the included rear light, but it does not operate off the main battery, instead it has its own USB charging independent battery, make sure not to forget to turn this off and so you don’t drain the independent battery
Very comfortable setup, but the fork is rigid and so is the seat post, I would maybe upgrade the seat post to a suspension seat post to get the ultimate cruiser
Yeah, it seems that the actual price is $1,695 but they have this MSRP of $3,750 just so they can mark it down and create an anchor point to perceived value. We almost always list the MSRP, but since they are the only ones that sell this bike… I just changed it to $1,695 to be more honest with our readers. I’m not a huge fan of this marketing approach, perhaps they will move away from it someday because they appear to be in the minority of companies that use it and it can rub consumers the wrong way and feel a bit deceptive and patronizing.
I noticed it was a Mark Cuban company, Shark Tank. Which reveals how the obtuse marketing ploys become acceptable. A special thank you for responding!
Stephan
5 years ago
Hi Thomas, thanks for the comment. It is a beautiful frame though, design almost like a fine sports car, huh? Haha ;)
There actually is suspension designed into the Tower Beach Bum. If you really take a good look at this bike, you’ll notice a lot of things are designed in, in a subtle fashion. It’s minimalistic design, but don’t mistake that for weakness on the design front. The Beach Bum is a highly considered eBike. We developed and refined a regular (non-ebike) belt drive, lightweight aluminum beach cruiser with innovative (and patented) passenger pegs called the Tulum, that we coined, “The world’s finest beach cruiser” a few years back. It sells for $499. You’re in the bike business – you’ll appreciate the attention to detail put into the Tulum. Bike fanatics love that bike. Much of the design of the Beach Bum is based on that bike.
Premium Schwalbe Fat Frank balloon tires (and tire liners for extra flat protection) come standard on our the Tower Beach Bum eBike and we recommend riders inflate them to only about 35 PSI (but varies with rider weight). They are rated up to 60 PSI, but around the beach and frankly on most city bikes no one has/wants/needs shock abosorbers on the front forks or frame rear as it’s just overkill. This isn’t a mountain bike (as much as my son likes to off-road with it ;) after all. The whole point of a balloon tire set-up is for beach cruiser friendly pneumatic shock absorption, and we spared no expense in production to achieve that.
On the price, it looks like Court took care of correcting that. Comparable eBikes sell regularly in major retail in the $3700 range. And the lightweight aluminum frame is really just a side note on all the premium features packed into the Tower Beach Bum eBike. The cost of a high-end eBike has little to do with the frame or the shock absorption system. The real cost drivers are things like:
Having a premium and high capacity battery (ours comes standard with a 14ah Samsumg battery, which aren’t cheap). We don’t even currently offer (and frankly may never offer) a lower capacity or lessor brand battery pack as we weren’t targeting a certain price point with this eBike. We just wanted to create the best and how we would want it set-up for ourselves. We felt that was the best way to ensure customers love their purchase so much they tell their friends. So no corners were cut. Everything went thru that design lens.
A specially deisgned high-torque motor so it can be a hill climbing beast, and go head to head against and beat the competition on that front with regularity.
Things like the controller integrated into the battery dock, so the final design looks like a beautiful bike a high-end car designer would design, not something an engineer would tack together.
Premium components everywhere possible. We never go to the production lead and ask “What’s the cheapest we can do this piece for?”, rather we ask, “How high-end can we go on this area? What’s possible?” And we really try to stretch their imagination on that front, which lead to things like adding tire liners at extra expense to what is already top of the line Fat Frank tires. And we don’t just say give us “disc brakes”, we say what do you recommend, and then if they give us 3 options we go for the most premium (and often also the most expensive) one where ever it makes the eBike better.
Anyways, that’s a long winded way of saying, the pricing (and more important the quality of the offering here) has little to do with the frame or shocks.
-Stephan
Hi Stephan, thanks for taking the time to respond to comments here! That’s surprisingly rare, and I think it shows that you care. Half of the equation is a brand explaining its vision, and the other half is listening to understand what customers want. When you can align your product and presentation to consumer needs… or a target group of consumers, success should be the result. Again, thanks for working with us and providing the opportunity to have this dialog.
Stephan
5 years ago
First off, thanks to EBR for the review! More importantly, major kudos to EBR for everything they do to curate good information and unbiased reviews in the eBike market and on the web. I’ve been on the business side of the online space since ’99. Sites like this are sadly too rare in today’s online world!
Hi Court. Working with Mikey and Tyson on submitting for this review was a great process. You’ve surrounded yourself with a great team!
I definitely hear your objection on the MSRP and “our price” issue, and share your dislike of any kind of deceptive marketing tactics. Definitely not our objective. We look more at what we’re doing with having an MSRP and an “Our price” as educational to consumers in general. We’re a direct to consumer (“dtc”) eBike brand and that confuses many consumers as the retail and e-commerce landscape has changed so much in the past 25 years. Comparing the MSRP price (or typical sale price, whatever you want to call it) of a direct to consumer brand bike side by side with the MSRP of an eBike brand sold thru a traditional retail distribution model (so eBikes one buys in a retail store like a Pedego or Blix or Trek) is, I’d argue, misleading. This is because for hundreds of years, consumers have been trained to believe “you get what you pay for”, because it was largely true for several decades. If you visit a bunch of stores and see bike A sells for $1000 and bike B sells for $2000, and bike C sells for $3000, consumers can (fairly safely) make assumptions about which is the better QUALITY bike in terms of components, brand, support, style, you name it. That’s how it’s always been… but then the Internet and specifically a brands ability to forgo the entire retail distribution channel (distributors, wholesalers, retailers, salespeople, etc.) and just sell direct to consumer only changed the equation. Especially, when you consider that in today’s global economy things tend to get cheaper over time while people get more expensive. Said another way, the cost of the distribution channel becomes more expensive than the actual production cost of the product being sold.
To sum it up, the accurate adage today should be “You get what distribution channel you pay for mostly, and then kinda what you pay for a bit too”. You’re probably grinning at this point, but this is today’s reality. The problem? Consumers are largely still in the dark that the world has changed under their feet. Still today, the #1 indicator of a products quality is price. It’s hardwired into society. Clearly, many people understand the nuance of direct to consumer brands, but society wide, It may be decades before people fully grasp what’s going on.
Maybe you’re skeptical reading this, but here’s a real world example that might explain things better. Tower Electric Bikes is a subsidiary of a larger brand, the Tower Group, which was founded in 2010 as a direct to consumer stand up paddle board company, about the same time Warby Parker and some other more famous DTC brands launched and the direct to consumer revolution got underway. We were basically selling Tower paddle boards thru the Internet direct to consumers for roughly half the price of comparable quality retail boards. For the first few years, consumers considered our paddle boards discount crap that was sold online. Not to be trusted. You get what you pay for type of thinking. This was even after we got an investment from Mark Cuban on ABC’s Shark Tank. Still people were suspect. But in a few years, people realized not only were we selling boards from the exact same factories as the major retail brands, but that our customer service was better not worse as you could pick up the phone and speak to us or me directly. The lightbulb went off in the industry, and things changed quickly. In 2014, we became the fastest growing private company in San Diego (a town of 3 million people). In 2015, we were on the INC 500 list of America’s fastest growing companies. Here’s the interesting part – in 2017 the Robb Report (kind of a consumer reports for luxury items) ranked our “Chris Craft” edition inflatable paddle board as the #1 paddle board in the world, ahead of industry behemoth’s Naish and Starboard’s paddle boards, which retailed for $3399 and $2439 respectively. The funny part is in their article they listed the price of our “Chris Craft” edition paddle board at $1785. Of course we were actually were selling it direct to consumer for $699. They got confused by our MSRP pricing and “our price” perhaps. Of course, you think they would have even considered our $695 paddle board to be in the same ballpark as a $2400 or $3400 paddle board? Of course not. You get what you pay for, right?
We’ve done over $30 million in paddle board sales. But everyday we still have to field questions about, “Why are these boards so cheap? What’s wrong with them?”
And that’s why we list an “MSRP” to educate our website visitors what a comparable product would cost in retail.
The bike market is no different. A respected brand like Pedego sells a beach cruiser in the $3700-$4100 range that is (in my opinion) quite comparable to our Tower Beach Bum. Different different distribution channels. That’s the real story. That’s the objective of us listing an MSRP and “our price”.
Hi Stephan, thanks for clarifying how your pricing works. I’m glad that we were able to work together for this review and wish you success in the space! Thanks, Court.
Quite a modern style Hailong controller and Plus size Hailong 48 V battery. There is no ugly controller boxes mounted on a frame like Rad Power that means less risk damage the controller box because it’s less exposed to direct blow or heavy rain. The disadvantage of this controller design however is limited to 500W power due to limited heat emission. The first gen of these controllers has 6 mosfets and 15 amp currend but second gen has 9 mosfets and 23 amp current , and about 80 Nm torque power for beach or cruiser type bike not so bad.
I like this bike.
Hi, Mr. Court Rye! I was read Your book about e-bikes and seen most of Your reviews. Talking with authorities like You is an honour for me.
Stephan
5 years ago
Hi Mossberry. Thanks for the comments and insight! Yes, we definitely loved the low profile of this style of controller and for this eBike’s purpose the limitations aren’t an issue.
An early prototype of the Tower Beach Bum had an 18 amp controller, but we ended up going for a 20 amp one at the end of the day. Combined with our motor optimized for high-torque, this bike has great mid-range acceleration and very capable hill climbing ability. Some eBikes jump off the starting gate a smidge faster, but we usually catch and pass them pretty quickly as we tend to outpace them in the mid-acceleration range. Then when we compare side by side on hill climbing, that’s where this bike really shines. Here near our showroom in Pacific Beach, San Diego, we have a great hill towards La Jolla that is a lot of fun to explore with this bike. That hill being in our back yard is why we were obsessively focused on hill climbing ability with the Tower Beach Bum.
Hopefully, you get a chance to check out this eBike for yourself someday!
As an aside, it sounds like you have solid knowledge on the eBike space. If you’d like, please email me directly any thoughts about how to improve our eBikes. We’re in the prototype and design phase of our 2nd model currently, a step thru beach cruiser that we’re pretty excited about. It’s probably still a year away from roll out, but any input you have would be appreciated. You can email me directly at [email protected].
Grin has a controller that fits in he base of a Hailong pack and is capable of shedding the heat AND powering 3 times the motor output of this bike. Give me a cruiser, with flat foot geometery excellent seat post suspension, 30Q or 35E cells powering an eZee or MAC geared hub and I’ll get interested. I’d buy that bike and not quibble over the pricing. 500W and I still didn’t catch whose motor. Pass.
Regardless of my criticisms, I’m duly impressed by the conversation and the willingness to respond. I’ll look around and maybe get lucky enough to trial this bike. As a flat foot cruiser fan boy, I do find it interesting.
Thanks for the comments and insights Thomas! I’m not familiar with all of your terminology, but I’m interested to better understand your suggestions. If you’re open to it, please email me directly at [email protected] with more details on that controller and the cells and hub motors you mentioned. I’ll take a good look at all that.
On the seat post suspension, we looked at this pretty seriously in the prototyping stage, but then decided to go with a regular seat post and just leverage good balloon tires for our suspension system. I personally didn’t like the feel of the suspension seat post. It was just a weird feeling. They’re pretty rare here on the beach in So Cal. Maybe it’s just personal preference. Another issue was the added minimum seat height, which we really didn’t like on this bike as we wanted it to be friendly for a wide range of rider heights. I think we achieve that pretty well with this bike with the pedal forward design and the raked back handle bars that can adjust up and down to accommodate a remarkably wide range of riders – we’ve got 5’2″ girls riding it comfortably and we’ve got one customer that’s 6’7″ and loves it!
Hopefully we can get you on the Tower Beach Bum one day to get your opinion on the ride!
-Stephan
Wow, thanks for the great followup here with questions here, Stephan. I appreciate it and am sure that it makes a good impression on visitors, that you care about the product and are open to feedback.
Thomas Jaszewski
5 years agoOUCH!!! $3700 for a cruiser frame, and no suspension anywhere!
ReplyCourt
5 years agoYeah, it seems that the actual price is $1,695 but they have this MSRP of $3,750 just so they can mark it down and create an anchor point to perceived value. We almost always list the MSRP, but since they are the only ones that sell this bike… I just changed it to $1,695 to be more honest with our readers. I’m not a huge fan of this marketing approach, perhaps they will move away from it someday because they appear to be in the minority of companies that use it and it can rub consumers the wrong way and feel a bit deceptive and patronizing.
ReplyThomas Jaszewski
5 years agoI noticed it was a Mark Cuban company, Shark Tank. Which reveals how the obtuse marketing ploys become acceptable. A special thank you for responding!
Stephan
5 years agoHi Thomas, thanks for the comment. It is a beautiful frame though, design almost like a fine sports car, huh? Haha ;)
There actually is suspension designed into the Tower Beach Bum. If you really take a good look at this bike, you’ll notice a lot of things are designed in, in a subtle fashion. It’s minimalistic design, but don’t mistake that for weakness on the design front. The Beach Bum is a highly considered eBike. We developed and refined a regular (non-ebike) belt drive, lightweight aluminum beach cruiser with innovative (and patented) passenger pegs called the Tulum, that we coined, “The world’s finest beach cruiser” a few years back. It sells for $499. You’re in the bike business – you’ll appreciate the attention to detail put into the Tulum. Bike fanatics love that bike. Much of the design of the Beach Bum is based on that bike.
Premium Schwalbe Fat Frank balloon tires (and tire liners for extra flat protection) come standard on our the Tower Beach Bum eBike and we recommend riders inflate them to only about 35 PSI (but varies with rider weight). They are rated up to 60 PSI, but around the beach and frankly on most city bikes no one has/wants/needs shock abosorbers on the front forks or frame rear as it’s just overkill. This isn’t a mountain bike (as much as my son likes to off-road with it ;) after all. The whole point of a balloon tire set-up is for beach cruiser friendly pneumatic shock absorption, and we spared no expense in production to achieve that.
On the price, it looks like Court took care of correcting that. Comparable eBikes sell regularly in major retail in the $3700 range. And the lightweight aluminum frame is really just a side note on all the premium features packed into the Tower Beach Bum eBike. The cost of a high-end eBike has little to do with the frame or the shock absorption system. The real cost drivers are things like:
Anyways, that’s a long winded way of saying, the pricing (and more important the quality of the offering here) has little to do with the frame or shocks.
Reply-Stephan
Court
5 years agoHi Stephan, thanks for taking the time to respond to comments here! That’s surprisingly rare, and I think it shows that you care. Half of the equation is a brand explaining its vision, and the other half is listening to understand what customers want. When you can align your product and presentation to consumer needs… or a target group of consumers, success should be the result. Again, thanks for working with us and providing the opportunity to have this dialog.
Stephan
5 years agoFirst off, thanks to EBR for the review! More importantly, major kudos to EBR for everything they do to curate good information and unbiased reviews in the eBike market and on the web. I’ve been on the business side of the online space since ’99. Sites like this are sadly too rare in today’s online world!
Hi Court. Working with Mikey and Tyson on submitting for this review was a great process. You’ve surrounded yourself with a great team!
I definitely hear your objection on the MSRP and “our price” issue, and share your dislike of any kind of deceptive marketing tactics. Definitely not our objective. We look more at what we’re doing with having an MSRP and an “Our price” as educational to consumers in general. We’re a direct to consumer (“dtc”) eBike brand and that confuses many consumers as the retail and e-commerce landscape has changed so much in the past 25 years. Comparing the MSRP price (or typical sale price, whatever you want to call it) of a direct to consumer brand bike side by side with the MSRP of an eBike brand sold thru a traditional retail distribution model (so eBikes one buys in a retail store like a Pedego or Blix or Trek) is, I’d argue, misleading. This is because for hundreds of years, consumers have been trained to believe “you get what you pay for”, because it was largely true for several decades. If you visit a bunch of stores and see bike A sells for $1000 and bike B sells for $2000, and bike C sells for $3000, consumers can (fairly safely) make assumptions about which is the better QUALITY bike in terms of components, brand, support, style, you name it. That’s how it’s always been… but then the Internet and specifically a brands ability to forgo the entire retail distribution channel (distributors, wholesalers, retailers, salespeople, etc.) and just sell direct to consumer only changed the equation. Especially, when you consider that in today’s global economy things tend to get cheaper over time while people get more expensive. Said another way, the cost of the distribution channel becomes more expensive than the actual production cost of the product being sold.
To sum it up, the accurate adage today should be “You get what distribution channel you pay for mostly, and then kinda what you pay for a bit too”. You’re probably grinning at this point, but this is today’s reality. The problem? Consumers are largely still in the dark that the world has changed under their feet. Still today, the #1 indicator of a products quality is price. It’s hardwired into society. Clearly, many people understand the nuance of direct to consumer brands, but society wide, It may be decades before people fully grasp what’s going on.
Maybe you’re skeptical reading this, but here’s a real world example that might explain things better. Tower Electric Bikes is a subsidiary of a larger brand, the Tower Group, which was founded in 2010 as a direct to consumer stand up paddle board company, about the same time Warby Parker and some other more famous DTC brands launched and the direct to consumer revolution got underway. We were basically selling Tower paddle boards thru the Internet direct to consumers for roughly half the price of comparable quality retail boards. For the first few years, consumers considered our paddle boards discount crap that was sold online. Not to be trusted. You get what you pay for type of thinking. This was even after we got an investment from Mark Cuban on ABC’s Shark Tank. Still people were suspect. But in a few years, people realized not only were we selling boards from the exact same factories as the major retail brands, but that our customer service was better not worse as you could pick up the phone and speak to us or me directly. The lightbulb went off in the industry, and things changed quickly. In 2014, we became the fastest growing private company in San Diego (a town of 3 million people). In 2015, we were on the INC 500 list of America’s fastest growing companies. Here’s the interesting part – in 2017 the Robb Report (kind of a consumer reports for luxury items) ranked our “Chris Craft” edition inflatable paddle board as the #1 paddle board in the world, ahead of industry behemoth’s Naish and Starboard’s paddle boards, which retailed for $3399 and $2439 respectively. The funny part is in their article they listed the price of our “Chris Craft” edition paddle board at $1785. Of course we were actually were selling it direct to consumer for $699. They got confused by our MSRP pricing and “our price” perhaps. Of course, you think they would have even considered our $695 paddle board to be in the same ballpark as a $2400 or $3400 paddle board? Of course not. You get what you pay for, right?
We’ve done over $30 million in paddle board sales. But everyday we still have to field questions about, “Why are these boards so cheap? What’s wrong with them?”
And that’s why we list an “MSRP” to educate our website visitors what a comparable product would cost in retail.
The bike market is no different. A respected brand like Pedego sells a beach cruiser in the $3700-$4100 range that is (in my opinion) quite comparable to our Tower Beach Bum. Different different distribution channels. That’s the real story. That’s the objective of us listing an MSRP and “our price”.
Hope this clarifies!
-Stephan
ReplyCourt
5 years agoHi Stephan, thanks for clarifying how your pricing works. I’m glad that we were able to work together for this review and wish you success in the space! Thanks, Court.
ReplyMossberry
5 years agoQuite a modern style Hailong controller and Plus size Hailong 48 V battery. There is no ugly controller boxes mounted on a frame like Rad Power that means less risk damage the controller box because it’s less exposed to direct blow or heavy rain. The disadvantage of this controller design however is limited to 500W power due to limited heat emission. The first gen of these controllers has 6 mosfets and 15 amp currend but second gen has 9 mosfets and 23 amp current , and about 80 Nm torque power for beach or cruiser type bike not so bad.
ReplyI like this bike.
Court
5 years agoCool, good insights, thanks for sharing Mossberry :)
ReplyMossberry
5 years agoHi, Mr. Court Rye! I was read Your book about e-bikes and seen most of Your reviews. Talking with authorities like You is an honour for me.
Stephan
5 years agoHi Mossberry. Thanks for the comments and insight! Yes, we definitely loved the low profile of this style of controller and for this eBike’s purpose the limitations aren’t an issue.
An early prototype of the Tower Beach Bum had an 18 amp controller, but we ended up going for a 20 amp one at the end of the day. Combined with our motor optimized for high-torque, this bike has great mid-range acceleration and very capable hill climbing ability. Some eBikes jump off the starting gate a smidge faster, but we usually catch and pass them pretty quickly as we tend to outpace them in the mid-acceleration range. Then when we compare side by side on hill climbing, that’s where this bike really shines. Here near our showroom in Pacific Beach, San Diego, we have a great hill towards La Jolla that is a lot of fun to explore with this bike. That hill being in our back yard is why we were obsessively focused on hill climbing ability with the Tower Beach Bum.
Hopefully, you get a chance to check out this eBike for yourself someday!
As an aside, it sounds like you have solid knowledge on the eBike space. If you’d like, please email me directly any thoughts about how to improve our eBikes. We’re in the prototype and design phase of our 2nd model currently, a step thru beach cruiser that we’re pretty excited about. It’s probably still a year away from roll out, but any input you have would be appreciated. You can email me directly at [email protected].
-Stephan
ReplyThomas Jaszewski
5 years agoGrin has a controller that fits in he base of a Hailong pack and is capable of shedding the heat AND powering 3 times the motor output of this bike. Give me a cruiser, with flat foot geometery excellent seat post suspension, 30Q or 35E cells powering an eZee or MAC geared hub and I’ll get interested. I’d buy that bike and not quibble over the pricing. 500W and I still didn’t catch whose motor. Pass.
Regardless of my criticisms, I’m duly impressed by the conversation and the willingness to respond. I’ll look around and maybe get lucky enough to trial this bike. As a flat foot cruiser fan boy, I do find it interesting.
ReplyStephan
5 years agoThanks for the comments and insights Thomas! I’m not familiar with all of your terminology, but I’m interested to better understand your suggestions. If you’re open to it, please email me directly at [email protected] with more details on that controller and the cells and hub motors you mentioned. I’ll take a good look at all that.
On the seat post suspension, we looked at this pretty seriously in the prototyping stage, but then decided to go with a regular seat post and just leverage good balloon tires for our suspension system. I personally didn’t like the feel of the suspension seat post. It was just a weird feeling. They’re pretty rare here on the beach in So Cal. Maybe it’s just personal preference. Another issue was the added minimum seat height, which we really didn’t like on this bike as we wanted it to be friendly for a wide range of rider heights. I think we achieve that pretty well with this bike with the pedal forward design and the raked back handle bars that can adjust up and down to accommodate a remarkably wide range of riders – we’ve got 5’2″ girls riding it comfortably and we’ve got one customer that’s 6’7″ and loves it!
Hopefully we can get you on the Tower Beach Bum one day to get your opinion on the ride!
Reply-Stephan
Court
5 years agoWow, thanks for the great followup here with questions here, Stephan. I appreciate it and am sure that it makes a good impression on visitors, that you care about the product and are open to feedback.