Review: Retrospec Jax Rev 

Have you ever ridden a bike without a pedal? It's not fun. It's especially not fun on a 63-pound bike without any electric assistance. I had to angle my foot on the pedal's crank arm, and when it inevitably slipped off mid-rotation, my leg swung wildly and kicked off the ground, as if I was riding a skateboard. I have the Jax Rev from Retrospec, a $1,600 folding fat-tire ebike, to thank for this predicament.

A few days earlier, I was riding the Jax Rev at 2 am on a dark street in Brooklyn. I was cruising at the 20-mph top speed, when suddenly—Clank! I rode over a large pothole. The bottom of the frame smacked the road; it took a few seconds for the vibrations rattling through my bones to dissipate. I was physically fine, but I quickly realized something was wrong: The bike lost power. 

It was dark, I was tired, and I couldn't figure out exactly what happened to it. The battery was still operational, but the ebike wouldn't turn on. I couldn't get any of that sweet electric assist. Oh well, I only had 10 minutes left in my trip to get home. Pedaling such a heavy bike without any assistance is, frankly, exhausting. That brings me to the broken pedal. I was huffing on it while heading to a bike shop to see if they could fix it when the pedal broke off the crank arm. Great. 

Photograph: Retrospec

All of this happened toward the tail end of a three-month testing period with the Jax Rev, which has been an otherwise fine class 2 ebike. I can't speak much about the setup process as the bike was fully assembled when it was hand-delivered, but I was happy to see it came with all the accoutrements you'd want, such as a rear rack, bell, front and rear lights, and fenders. 

It has the same pitfall as other fat-tire ebikes I've tried: It's freaking heavy, so good luck carrying it up and down flights of stairs. The folding process is easy, but due to the weight, it can be unwieldy. You also need to raise the kickstand so that the two halves can stick together. Still, it's a little more elegant than the folding process on the more affordable Lectric XP.

That elegance is evident in other parts of the bike. The battery is easier to remove, though you may need to twist the saddle out of the way (you don't need to remove it to charge it). You do need a key to turn the battery on and ride the Jax Rev, but it's situated right under the saddle, not awkwardly under the ebike like on the Lectric. 

It's also attractive, rivaling another fat-tire ebike I tested. The Jax Rev comes in a pleasant olive green or plain black. I had the former, and at least three strangers stopped to tell me how pretty it looked. 

There are five levels of pedal assistance to choose from (with level 5 offering the most assistance), and there's a little handlebar-mount display with buttons you can use to toggle through the levels. You also get a throttle, which is handy for when you quickly need to move at a traffic light, or when navigating past bumper-to-bumper traffic on narrow roads. 

The Jax Rev doesn't have any gears—no shifting needed. This makes things easier from a maintenance perspective, but it's a mixed bag. With ebikes, adding more gears doesn't always help with increasing resistance. At level 2 assistance, pedaling with the Jax Rev still felt like pedaling through air, which was disconcerting. I'd prefer if my legs felt like they were pushing through something. 

Photograph: Retrospec

The good news is that the Jax Rev is pretty comfortable. The fat tires and suspension do a lot of work to help with this, and I also never felt short on power thanks to the 750-watt motor (until it pooped out). Steep hills gave me zero trouble. Retrospec has a 500-watt motor option that'll probably suffice, though, and that will save you $200. 

But like the Lectric, this is a rear hub motor. It's fairly loud, and I ran into the same issue where the motor keeps pushing forward for two seconds after I stop pedaling. The assistance trigger is hair-sensitive, which is actually unnerving. At a complete stop, when I barely move the pedals forward to get closer to a crosswalk, the Jax Rev starts up and lurches forward. I had to squeeze the brakes to stop myself from driving into traffic and pedestrians. Neither of these issues was present on the Biktrix Kutty X. 

Speaking of, the front and rear mechanical disc brakes do the job of quickly stopping this ebike. But the front brake squeaks so loudly you will have anyone in a two-block radius glaring at you. Initially, I assumed the brakes needed some breaking in—that's what Retrospec and the bike shop I visited told me. But after three months, it's just as squeaky—and mine, unlike yours will be, came pre-assembled. I'd need to make another trip to the mechanic. 

One thing you don't need to worry about is range. I frequently was able to get around 20 miles on this thing on a single charge—and considering I'm 6'4 and close to Retrospec's weight capacity for this ebike, you can probably expect to put even more miles on it. A lot of this will vary on the level of pedal assistance you use and terrain, too. 

So what exactly happened to the Jax Rev after I hit that pothole? It turns out a wire got disconnected. The mechanic plugged it back and secured all the wires on the bike with zip ties as a precaution. As for the pedal? Well, that just broke off. 

It does make me concerned with its overall durability and reliability. I rode the Lectric XP for half a year and never needed to take it in to the shop. You shouldn't need to become an ad-hoc mechanic after three months.  

If you really want a fat-tire ebike, the Lectrix XP 2.0 delivers the best value at $1,000. That said, the Jax Rev is still a beautiful ebike that performed respectably, and it's still a good deal cheaper than many other competitors.