Riding an E-Bike in Winter: Better Than You Think

The clocks go back on Sunday, so for most people the ride home from work is about to be in the dark. The last time I did that regularly was my commute to Kingsbridge on the Superdelite5, through the lanes in the cold, the wet and the dark, and it taught me the two things that change most when the days shorten: riding in the dark, and riding a heavy, powerful bike on lanes covered in wet leaves and mud.

Riding an e-bike in winter is a different job from riding the bike you had before, and mostly a better one. A bike like a Riese & Müller or a Moustache comes with its lights, mudguards, rack and kickstand already fitted, so the kit you used to bolt on in October is just there. It weighs anywhere from about 25 kg to nearly 40 kg for a cargo bike, so it stops and corners differently in the wet, and the motor will push you up a greasy climb whether or not you have chosen the right gear. And because efficiency stops mattering, you can dress for the weather rather than for the bike. This post covers the first two in detail, and the third because people underestimate it.

We have already written about looking after the battery through the winter, well worth a read to get the most out of your battery, particularly in winter.

Riding an e-bike in the dark

The thing I noticed first on those rides was how little I had to think about lights. On every Riese & Müller we sell the front and rear lights are fitted at the factory and wired into the bike's own battery, so there is nothing to clip on, nothing to remember and nothing to charge separately. The same goes for the Moustache Xroad and Lundi ranges and the Clutch SUV, which run their lights from the main battery.

What you get depends on the bike and the build. Most of the range, including the Delite5, Homage5, Superdelite5 and Load5 and the higher-spec Charger5 and Nevo5 builds, carries a Supernova M99 Mini Pro headlight and a Supernova TL3 Pro rear light, and on many of those builds the rear light has a brake light built in: it brightens when you brake, the way a car's does, which matters on a bike that stops as hard as these do. The Touring and Vario versions of the Charger5 and Nevo5 come with a Supernova Mini 3 Pro headlight and a simpler Axa Juno rear light as standard, with the TL3 Pro as an option, and the entry-level CORE builds have a smaller Supernova headlight and no brake light. If the brake light matters to you, ask which lights your spec has before you order.

Are the built-in lights good enough for unlit lanes?

Yes, with room to spare. The Supernova lights on our Riese & Müllers are seriously bright: enough to ride unlit Devon lanes at full assisted speed, and to ride off road in the dark. On those Kingsbridge lanes, how much safer it felt at night than in the day surprised me.

 

"It was safer riding through the lanes at night than it is in the day. With that massive light on the front, people think there's a motorbike coming, so all the traffic was stopping and waiting for me to ride past. In the daytime they wouldn't see me coming round the corner, and when they could see me they weren't going to stop, because I'm just a bike."

Dan, ebikeist

The Supernova headlights on most of our bikes have a dipped beam for the road and a main beam on a button by your thumb, so on an empty lane or a bridleway you can light up everything ahead and dip it for oncoming traffic, the way you would in a car. The M99 Mini Pro on most of our Riese & Müllers puts out 450 lumens on dipped beam and 1,200 on main beam as standard, and the Mini 3 Pro on the Touring and Vario Charger5 and Nevo5 gives 450 and 650. They are built for riding at the speed the bike will happily do, not just for being seen.

Two cheap additions make a big difference, and they are what I ride with. First, a second rear light, high up and pulsing: I clip a small CatEye to the back of my helmet, because the light on the mudguard sits low. I notice the difference most in town, where there is more going on behind you. Second, something reflective. My waterproof jacket has reflective panels that make you stand out like a sore thumb, and a band on your ankles is worth having too. Every Riese & Müller we stock comes as standard on Schwalbe Reflex tyres with a reflective sidewall, and the Moustache Xroad range runs reflective Schwalbe Smart Sams, so from the side the wheels light up in headlights. Moving ankles are what a driver's eye picks out first.

The reason I keep going on about lights that are part of the bike is that the alternative catches people out. Our Amflow TL Carbon is a lovely bike, and I have said so at length in our comparison with the Charger5, but its lighting is the one thing on it I would change.

 

"The front light is wired into the battery. The back light is on its own rechargeable battery, so you have to take it off the bike, plug it in to charge it, put it back on and switch it on separately. If you are going out and riding at night, you need to know that it is switched on and it has not just died a mile down the road."

Dan, ebikeist

So if you ride an Amflow through the winter, charge that rear light on the same evening you charge the bike, and check it is on before you set off. Everything else about the bike in winter is as good as the Riese & Müllers.

Wet leaves, mud and a heavy bike

A Riese & Müller weighs from about 28 kg for a small Charger5 to around 35 kg for a Superdelite5 and close to 40 kg for a Load5, before you and a pannier are on it. Add a motor that will put out more torque than your legs ever did, and winter lanes ask two things of you that a lighter bike never did.

Climbing on a greasy surface

On the road, wet leaves are less of a worry than people expect. Even the steepest lanes round here are not steep enough for the motor to break the back wheel away on a climb. Off road it is a different story: on a wet, greasy bridleway the motor's torque will spin the back wheel if you stamp on the pedals, and once it has gone it does not come back.

 

"You'd think, really steep hill, I'm going to whack this in Turbo and fly up there. It does the opposite. With Turbo you get all that torque at once, the wheel snaps away from the ground, and once you've lost traction you're not getting it back until you stop and start again. You're better off in one of the lower modes, in a lower gear, putting in more effort yourself."

Dan, ebikeist

So drop a gear or two before the slippery bit, come down an assist level so the motor feeds the power in rather than dumping it, and pedal. Turbo is for the dry.

On the very steepest climbs, road or track, the problem flips: the back wheel grips but the front wheel wants to lift, and the more powerful the motor, the more it does. Move your weight forward over the front to hold it down. That takes a conscious effort on a Riese & Müller, because the upright position that makes them so comfortable on a tour puts your weight back as soon as the road tips up. A dropper post helps more than you would think, because with the saddle out of the way you can move backwards and forwards on the bike.

There is a longer-term reason to ride this way too. A big motor lets you sit in the wrong gear and get away with it, and it is a habit I see in the workshop: a worn sprocket from riding off every junction in the highest assist mode, with the chain, the cassette and the battery all taking the strain. Hub gears and the Pinion gearbox make this easier, because they change gear while you are stopped, so you can always set off from a junction in a low gear; the Rohloff and the Nevo5 automatic will even change down for you. On a derailleur bike it is down to you.

Stopping a heavy bike in the wet

Braking distances grow in the wet on any bike. On 30 kg of bike with a rider on top, they grow more, and the hills we ride mean a lot of winter riding is spent holding speed down on a blind descent. Our bikes come with hydraulic disc brakes that cope with this, and Bosch ABS is a £369 option on most of the Bosch CX Riese & Müllers (not the Pinion or CORE builds).

The bike where it matters most is a cargo bike. On a normal bike, braking hard pushes your weight over the front wheel and pins it to the road. On a Load your weight stays in the middle of the bike, and the front wheel is a long way out in front with an empty box over it, so it is the easiest bike there is to lock up. On a Load I would always have ABS, or Magura's Integral Braking System (a £139 option that brakes both wheels from one lever; you can have one or the other, not both).

On the other bikes it depends on you. If you are new to riding, or coming back to it after years, have ABS. If you have ridden all your life you will rarely feel it work. It is a neat, discreet part now rather than the ugly box it used to be, and I would still spec it on my own bike, partly so I can tell everyone I have ABS. I have written about what Bosch ABS does separately; in winter, its job is to stop the front wheel locking on a wet painted line or a cattle grid.

Whether you have ABS or not, three things help. Brake earlier and lighter than you would in July. Stay off the front brake on anything painted, metal or covered in leaves, and get the braking done before the corner rather than in it. And keep your tyre pressures a touch lower than your summer setting, because a bigger contact patch is grip you can have for free.

Tyres

The Schwalbe Super Moto-X that most of the Riese & Müller range comes on is a road tyre with a bit of tread, and on tarmac in the wet it is good. You can ride it all year round. On a muddy bridleway, though, the mud packs into the tread and the tyre turns into a smooth muddy hoop you are trying to push uphill. If your winter includes tracks as well as lanes, the Schwalbe Johnny Watts is a £46 option on the Charger5, Nevo5, Homage5 and Superdelite5 (the CORE builds do not offer it), and it is the tyre I would spec for anyone who rides the kind of ground we have around the showroom. The knobbles bite into the ground, and because they are spaced apart, the tyre flings the mud back out once the wheel is turning, so it clears itself. The Moustache Xroad range comes on a Smart Sam, which already leans that way.

Why a bike like ours suits riding an e-bike in winter

If you are weighing up a bike like ours against something lighter and cheaper, winter is where the full-equipment bike wins by a distance, and it is not about the motor.

It is the mudguards, which are proper full-length ones fitted at the factory, so the spray stays off your back and off the bike behind you. It is the rack, so your waterproofs and a change of clothes go in a pannier rather than on your back. It is the kickstand, so you are not leaning a wet 30 kg bike against a wall. It is the belt drive on the Rohloff, Enviolo and Pinion bikes, which does not care about road salt and wet grit the way a chain does. And it is the lights, which we have covered.

Then there is the clothing, which comes down to one change of mind. On a normal bike you dress for efficiency, because you are the engine. On an e-bike you are not, so you dress for the weather, and you arrive dry and not sweating because the motor took the hill. I have ridden in wellies.

The one thing I would spend money on is the jacket. If you have spent ten thousand pounds on a bike, spend two or three hundred on a breathable waterproof, because it makes more difference to the ride than anything else you wear. I have one cheaper "waterproof breathable" jacket and two better ones, one of them Gore-Tex, and on the same easy ride in, the cheap one leaves my clothes damp with sweat and the Gore-Tex one does not.

The rest is simple. Shorts under waterproof trousers, because you get warm. A thin thermal layer and a t-shirt under the jacket, and that is enough. Gore-Tex boots, because by the time you get to work the spray off the road has soaked whatever is on your feet; if I am in ordinary trainers, Gore-Tex socks do the same job. Two pairs of gloves, a lighter waterproof pair for the autumn and a thick thermal pair for the winter. And a buff, or a hood pulled up under the helmet, to stop the heat going out of the top of your head. AJ's winter kit list has more if you want it.

Three minutes after a wet ride

The one winter habit that pays for itself is a rinse. Salt and grit do more damage sitting on a bike overnight than the ride did. A watering can or a gentle hose over the frame, the brakes and the drivetrain, a wipe down, and a drop of lube on a chain if you have one. Belt bikes need the rinse and nothing else. Keep the rubber cover over the charging port closed; it is one of the small parts we replace most often, and water in that socket is an expensive way to find out why.

Two things to leave to us. If you have a full-suspension bike, the Fox forks and shocks on the Delite5, Homage5 and Superdelite5 want a service every 125 hours or yearly, and sooner if your winter is very wet or muddy. And if you want the whole pre-season routine in one place, our maintenance checklist covers it, in winter as well as summer.

Before the clocks go back

Ask me for one thing to do before the clocks go back, and my answer is: charge it up. The bike does not care whether it is light or dark. The thing to check is you: your clothing, how reflective you are, and whether you are ready for the winter.

And if your bike lives outside or in a cold shed, now is the time to start bringing the battery in overnight.

The battery in the cold

One line, because the owner's guide covers it: a cold battery gives you less range and must only be charged above 0°C, so on a freezing day bring it indoors and fit it just before you ride. Everything else about winter battery care is in that post.

Come and ride one in the wet

The showroom at Little Dartmouth is open until the end of November, Tuesday to Friday 9 to 5 and Saturday 9 to 1, and the test-ride route out of the yard is the same lanes and bridleway in November as in June, with more mud. A wet test ride tells you more about a bike than a dry one ever will: how it brakes, how the motor behaves on a greasy climb, and whether the lights and mudguards are the kind you would live with. Book a test ride, or call us on 03330 151 979.

If you are still working out which bike suits your riding, the Bike Finder on our buyer's guide takes about three minutes, and the answer comes with the winter kit already listed.

Common questions

Do e-bikes have lights built in? The Riese & Müller range and the Moustache Xroad, Lundi and Clutch SUV do: front and rear lights are fitted at the factory and switched from the bike. On the Riese & Müllers they are Supernova lights, bright enough for unlit lanes at full speed, and some models add a brake light at the rear. Off-road bikes like the Moustache Game and the Clutch 160s do not come with lights.

Can you ride an e-bike in the rain? Yes. The motor, battery and display are built for it, and the bikes we sell come with full mudguards. Rinse the bike after a salty or gritty ride, keep the charging port cover closed, and dry the battery contacts before you charge.

Is an e-bike harder to ride on wet leaves? On the road, rarely: lanes are not steep enough for the motor to spin the back wheel. Off road on greasy ground it can, so ride a gear lower and drop an assist level rather than using Turbo. A heavy bike takes longer to stop in the wet, so brake earlier and keep your tyre pressures a touch lower in winter.

Does cold weather reduce e-bike range? Yes. A cold battery holds less usable charge, so expect less range on a freezing morning. Store and charge the battery indoors and fit it just before you ride; the full guidance is in our owner's guide.