Review: Cowboy 4 ST

I like to think of myself as a cyclist, but bikes are incredibly complicated. They have a ton of different parts that move at high speeds and endure lots of stress, and those parts tend to break or squeak. The number of times I’ve boiled over about popped tires and other mechanical issues is too damn high for someone who, you know, gets paid to know these things.

This is why I adore the Cowboy 4 ebike. It has no gears, but it does have a built-in phone holder and wireless charger, gorgeous automatic lights, and sleek splash guards. It came in a recyclable box. All I had to do was turn the handlebars around, attach some pedals, adjust the seat, and pump up the tires.

On the road it works well, and it looks beautiful while doing it. The app asks you to name your bike, and I named my off-white review unit Wayne. I ride Wayne everywhere. He’s not as fast as higher-end bikes, and you’d need to grab something bigger if you really wanted to haul kids or any significant amount of groceries. But honestly? I wish more ebikes were such reliable stablemates.

Photograph: Cowboy

Many direct-to-consumer bike companies make things too damn hard. You order a bike, get a heap of parts in a box, and you have to put them together. It can be especially challenging if you've ordered a cheaper one. And of course, most people have no experience building an ebike before.

Building a motorized device in your backyard that could easily kill you or others has never sat right with me. So I was immediately skeptical when the Cowboy 4 showed up at my doorstep. But the packing job inside its large cardboard box eased my worries.

The gorgeous, off-white, step-through ebike came fully assembled, with the handlebar sideways but otherwise everything but the pedals attached. A box full of clearly labeled tools and a simple instruction manual had me fully ready to ride in minutes, after a quick tire pump and seat adjustment (things you’d do with literally any bike).

The Cowboy is an app-connected bike, which means you’ll need to pair your phone, and then lock and unlock it in the app to get the benefit of the 250-watt rear hub motor. You can ride the bike without unlocking it in the app, at which point it just becomes a rather cumbersome one-speeder, but it does have GPS tracking if someone nicks it. It also has crash detection and can share your location automatically with emergency contacts.

You likely won’t find yourself in an instance when you’re without juice on your phone, though, because the stem of the Cowboy 4 has a built in quad lock system and wireless charging. Buy a compatible phone case (they have them for nearly all modern devices) and you can pop your phone to your bike to charge it while you ride—a super-sleek option, and one that makes using Google Maps simply glorious while getting around town.

There is only one assist level to the Cowboy 4. It senses the torque that your feet are putting out on the carbon drive belt, as well as your cadence and other factors, and delivers you whatever level of assist it thinks you need.

The Belgian-designed steed isn’t the speediest ebike by any means, but the assist was comfortable. I was easily able to achieve speeds of 13 to 15 miles an hour while rolling casually around Portland, though the speed drops noticeably when you go uphill. You’ll want to consider a more powerful bike if you live somewhere hilly like San Francisco and don’t enjoy sweat baths.

Photograph: Cowboy

Still, for the vast majority of us flat-landers, the Cowboy has more than enough power and range (around 40 miles) to get you anywhere. I also like that once it’s paired to your phone, you can quickly log into the app to check how much battery is left—a nice touch that allows you to easily know you need to detach and charge the included pack overnight. Pop out the battery and plug it into the included charger, and you can ride another 40 miles after waiting about three and a half hours, which is pretty speedy.

I like devices that are single-use and mindless. They just do what you want them to do, and very little else. As I’m biking home from a buddy’s house in the early summer air, the lights on the bike detect that it’s gotten dark and automatically turn on. Why have I never experienced this before?

Then there's the limited maintenance. A carbon belt drive means I won’t ever have to oil a chain or fix a derailleur, and the hydraulic disc brakes mean I worry less about smooshing myself into the side of a red-light-averse F-150. Beyond tire and brake pad changes, you're likely to go years between needing any major work.

Cowboy also makes a non-step-through verson of the Cowboy 4 with the same specs, but to be honest there’s just no reason to get an ebike with a high top tube instead of a step-through frame. The Cowboy 4 is just over 40 pounds, which is light for an ebike but still pretty heavy. You’ll appreciate the ease of hopping on without swinging your leg like Tarzan. Trust me, I'm a large and reasonably fit man, and I still hate top-bar ebikes.

Other than that, to be honest, I have very little buying advice when it comes to this particular bike. If you want a pretty ebike that works very well, this is a very good option. It’s even pretty well priced. It's a very friendly horse to ride around town.