CleanTechnica Review: The Snapcycle Pegasus Fat Tire E-Bike Is Great (If You’re Tall)

Last year, we reviewed the Snapcycle R1, a fat tire e-bike. I’ve been in touch with the company since then working on a minor user-caused issue (I didn’t secure a bike rack properly), and the team offered to send out two more bikes for us to review. One of these new bikes was the Pegasus, a step-thru model with all of the bells and whistles.

I know everybody doesn’t read the whole review, so I’ll sum it up real quick here. It’s a pretty decent bike, with good features and parts, but there’s one thing readers should watch out for: the size. It’s not immediately obvious unless you dig deep into the product page, but it has a “larger than average” frame size, and is supposed to be suitable for riders about 5’8″ to 6’7″ in height, but in my experience it’s really suitable in stock form for riders 6’1″ and above. But, there are some workarounds if you’re shorter and really like the bike that I’ll get to in the article.

First, let’s take a quick look at the specifications and features.

Snapcycle Pegasus Fat Tire E-Bike Specifications & Features

The Snapcycle Pegasus is a fat tire electric bike that offers riders a powerful and robust ride. It is equipped with a 750W hub motor (1056 watts peak) and has a range of up to 45 miles on a single charge (w/ pedal assist used, 25 miles on throttle), reaching speeds of up to 28 mph in Class 3 mode. The lightweight aluminum alloy frame is designed for durability and reliability in any terrain, but given the size of the bike, it’s still somewhat heavy.

The Snapcycle Pegasus includes an LCD display that shows important information such as speed and battery life. It also features five levels of pedal assist, providing riders with flexibility and control over their ride. The Tektro hydraulic disc brakes offer superior stopping power in all conditions, ensuring a safe and secure ride.

On top of the decent parts (hydraulic brakes, decent gears, etc), the bike comes with several accessories many other manufacturers charge you extra for. It has mud guards/fenders, front and rear racks, and a suspension seatpost standard.

Adding a brake light is easy. The bottom of the frame has a box that opens with four screws (pictured upside-down here).

The only thing I saw the company not include is a brake light. It comes with a tail light mounted to the rear rack, but it runs on AAA batteries and doesn’t light up brighter when you get on the brakes. If that’s a problem for you, Snapcycle does sell the brake lights separately and the motor controller has a plug open for a brake light. The plug is accessible by removing four screws at the bottom of the frame.

The Elephant In The Room

As I warned readers about in the beginning of the article, the bike’s got a pretty big frame, which is a odd choice for a step-thru bike. While step-thru bikes aren’t considered women’s bikes like they once were (women don’t typically wear skirts on a bike these days, they’re popular for delivery riders of all genders, and men who don’t want to ride a traditional bike like them), the choice to make a step-thru bike that doesn’t accommodate most women does seem a little weird.

On the other hand, a taller man (or very tall women) could get a lot of good out of this bike. Being able to load larger things on the cargo rack and not having to swing your leg over it is helpful. For outdoors, hunting, or cargo/delivery use, the bike is a good option.

Snapcycle exacerbated the large frame choice with the suspension seatpost. Because the suspension is built into the post, you can’t lower the seat all the way to the frame. I’m 5’10” and struggled with the bike at its lowest position, and my wife (5’6″) couldn’t ride it at all.

We ended up asking Snapcycle to send us a non-suspension seatpost, but those aren’t available with the flip-up mechanism that makes the battery easier to remove. What we ended up doing was gutting the seatpost suspension mechanism by removing the spring from it, which allowed the seat to lower several more inches. This made the bike usable by both of us, but probably still wouldn’t make it a suitable bike for shorter women.

One feature my wife liked was the adjustable handlebar height. Being able to raise and rotate it made it possible to put the seating arrangement as vertically as she’d like, making it easier for her to feel comfortable on longer rides.

How It Rides

Once we got it working well for us, we found that the Pegasus does give a pretty good ride. It’s got a decent feel and seems like it will be durable for its price range.

In the city, the large frame and weight make for a very stable ride that soaks up all of the bumps and jumps with ease. The cargo racks left us with plenty of room not only for things, but a little backpack pod if we wanted to take a cat along for a ride. The frame also has plenty of real estate to attack a Bike Tow Leash if you have a canine friend who needs some exercise.

Away from pavement, the bike has some capability, too. We took the bike on some Jeep roads, through some deep sand, and on some basic singletrack. It did fine and was comfortable for all of that. I wouldn’t take the bike out on the more technical trails, because its size and weight would make that challenging, but for easy to medium trails, the Pegasus does the job.

If you head out on a trail that’s easy for most of the ride but still has some technical sections, the bike is not so heavy that it can’t be walked or pushed through them. So, if you’re using the Pegasus to explore and aren’t out seeking a challenge, it’s a good option.

Overall

I’d generally say that the Snapcycle Pegasus is a decent bike in its price range, but only if you’re tall enough for it. If you’re not, the R1 Step-Thru accommodates riders 5’2″ and up, and the Stinger (another bike we’ve reviewed) is good for 5’3″ and up.

All images by Jennifer Sensiba.