Super73’s stylish, retro products are the most visible among the popular moto-style e-bikes, which resemble 1970s minibikes or miniature motorcycles more than they do traditional bicycles. The Super73-R Adventure, is the top of the line in the company’s range of off-road-styled models, packing on all the extras: full suspension, a powerful rear hub motor and a sizable 960 watt-hour battery.
I took it out for more than 60 miles of riding across Chicago’s streets and some light off-road trails to see how it fares against the competition — and whether the features justify its nearly $4,000 price tag.
The Super73-R Adventure electric bike is a retro motorcycle-style electric bike that’s great for getting around in style and it’s better built than its competitors. It’s impractical and expensive, but it is a very enjoyable ride.
What we liked
It’s easy to assemble
Super73 certainly makes it easy to start loving the R Adventure. Rather than making you do a lot of the assembly like most direct-to-consumer brands, you get an almost completely assembled bike through a courier service that’ll coordinate delivery with you and ensure you receive the package.
Opening up the box, there’s just the matter of attaching the handlebars to the bike frame and screwing on the pedals. Within 15 minutes of receiving the Super73-R Adventure, I had it ready to ride, and about half of that time was just removing the protective foam. Assembly requires just two tools that come in the box. The only downside for new owners is that you’ll need to own (or buy) your own tools separately if you need to make adjustments on the bike.
A comfortable, peppy, even delightful ride
The Super73-R Adventure is set to jet. The bike comes ready to roll in its default Class 2 mode, which allows both throttle operation and pedal assist up to 20 mph, though you can switch to off-road mode, which is Class 3 — pedal assist only but with a top speed limit of 28 mph. Either way, the 750W motor (that’s the upper limit for e-bikes) is up to the task.
Rough pavement pits and potholes can pack a wallop, but the Super73-R Adventure’s full suspension and knobby, fat tires soak them up with aplomb. And if you want more or less support, the front- and rear-suspension elements have compression, preload and rebound adjustments, allowing for a stiffer ride for smooth roads or a more supple ride on bumpy roads and trails.
The setup gives you more leeway to get off the beaten path, though as Super 73 has told us, its bikes aren’t really meant for serious off-road use (most MTB trails are understandably off-limits to motorized vehicles, including e-bikes). On loose gravel, I could feel a little drift here and there, but the Super73-R Adventure cruised along securely on the sort of terrain I’d never have managed with the slick-tired Super73-R Brooklyn, which I almost took for a tumble turning through gravel a year ago.
Stacking the long, well-cushioned seat on top of it all keeps the Super73-R Adventure feeling especially comfortable for quick trips and long rides alike.
The beefy battery is good for some lengthy rides
A powerful motor on a heavy, 89.2-pound bike that’s not meant for pedaling — that’s a recipe for serious battery use. Fortunately, Super73 includes a 48-volt, 20-amp-hour battery good for almost 1,000 watt-hours of power. That’s about as big as they come on e-bikes. In my testing, that was good for 27.6 miles of almost pure throttle riding in Class 2 mode and a surprising 25 miles in off-road mode before the voltage had sagged enough that acceleration got sluggish and speeds dropped off. In Class 2 mode, I was able to stretch the battery out to 29 miles before the bike couldn’t muster enough strength to accelerate from a standstill. In Class 3 mode, that moment came at 26.7 miles.
This isn’t exceptional range for an e-bike. Competitors like the Ride1Up Revv 1 are able to go farther — on that bike, I got up to 36.1 miles of largely throttle-only when limited to 20 mph in Class 2. Still, this is a decent if not spectacular showing for Super73. If you’re eyeing round-trip commutes under 20 miles, it’s a safe bet the Super73-R Adventure can make the journey on a single charge.
A sturdy build that feels premium
What sets the Super73-R Adventure apart from the rest of the R-Series is its off-road design, which features deeply knobbled tires, a multispeed drivetrain and an extended seat to accommodate more riding positions.
There’s no denying that the Super73-R Adventure feels exceptionally well put together and is made with solid parts. Even riding it hard over potholes I’d never dream of hitting on a road bike, the Super73-R Adventure doesn’t creak or groan. Few components give off that uncertainty that comes from a lack of brand names. Only the front thru-axle fork lacked any clear branding (Super73 tells us it is supplied by LK suspension), but the dual-crown design and beefy stanchions and lowers seem solid and performed well.
The coil-spring rear suspension is from DNM and has 85mm of travel and some Super73 stylings pasted on top. The e-bike-specific Tektro Dorado hydraulic disc brakes are also reassuring, especially with an extra-large 203mm rotor in the front that provides major stopping power. Even the thumb throttle feels like a step up from some of the cheaper ones I’ve come across, like that on the Juiced CrossCurrent X or Ride1Up Turris. Admittedly, a twist throttle would have been a bit more fun.
A loud horn that says, “Hey, I’m bikin’ here!”
When I’m riding the Super73-R Adventure on the streets of Chicago, I have to contend with traffic. While the speed of the bike helps me keep pace with the flow of cars on most streets, I still face down the occasional car that fails to notice me or pulls a dicey move, like edging into the bike lane. To get drivers’ attention, the Super73-R Adventure includes a powerful horn that does a lot better job than just about any bell will. It’s loud enough that I feel a little guilty when I accidentally press it.
Gears are helpful
Like most moto-style e-bikes, the Super73-R Adventure isn’t really meant for a lot of pedaling. It has pedals, letting it qualify as an e-bike, but you won’t want to use them much. The riding position and saddle aren’t good for effective or comfortable pedaling. This is probably why a lot of moto-style e-bikes just opt for a single-speed transmission. The Super73-R Adventure bucks the trend and slaps on an eight-speed cassette. It might seem pointless but I found the gearing actually helpful for a more confident ride. Whenever I had to start from a standstill, I pedaled out in the lowest gearing to give the motor some help and get the bike moving sooner. At high speeds, that kind of low gearing would make for awfully loose pedals that spin freely, so being able to shift to a high gear turned the pedals into slightly more assuring foot pegs. The low gear also proves useful when the battery dies, as I can get the bike moving much more easily with low gears available.
What we didn’t like
Style aside, not meant for mountain biking or motocross
In any kind of riding — bicycle or motorcycle — if you’re going to tackle anything aside from smooth pavement, you sometimes have to stand up and get your weight out of the saddle to go over an obstacle. But although the Super73-R Adventure is meant for rougher terrain, with a suspension and tires that do a great job absorbing jolts, they can’t soak up everything, and the riding position — a low saddle but with an awkward reach to the pedals — makes it harder to confidently stand out of the saddle than on a more traditional bicycle. When I took the bike off road I found myself in either a very low squat or standing with my arms almost straight down, neither of which was optimal. But this isn’t a total surprise, as the R-Adventure is really a lifestyle machine, meant more for fun fooling around on easy terrain than it is for serious off-road use.
The big battery takes forever to recharge
Having a nearly 1,000-watt-hour battery is great when it comes to range but not so great when it comes time to recharge. A battery that size is going to take some time to fill. That’s compounded by Super73’s inclusion of just a 2-amp charger with the R Adventure. It took a little over 10 hours to fully recharge. At that rate, you might be inclined to charge overnight to avoid losing a full day of potential riding just to recharge, but charging e-bike batteries while you are asleep or out of the house is discouraged due to the potential fire hazard. Super73 has its batteries certified to UL2271 and its bikes to UL2849 for its R- and S-Series models, especially since few e-bike makers have taken this extra measure. (It’s curious Super73 doesn’t advertise this anywhere, though — they should!)
By comparison, the Ride1Up Revv 1 includes a 4-amp charger for its 1,040-watt-hour battery that cuts charging time down to closer to five hours. It’s not UL certified, but it also doesn’t need to be babysat for long.
The lighting could be better
The Super73-R Adventure headlight has very little room for adjustment (it’s more or less a fixed-angle device), and the tail light is small and stealthily sandwiched between the frame and rear fender. The last thing you want from a taillight is stealth, though. It limits visibility, so vehicles behind you might not be able to see that you’re braking as easily as they would from a more exposed taillight. At least the light is responsive to the brake levers.
The fixed headlight may be more in keeping with the aesthetic stylings of the bike but proves less functional as a result. Where the Ride1Up Revv 1 I recently tested had a large headlight with an adjustable angle as well as high and low beams, the Super73-R Adventure just shines in one direction: straight ahead. It’s plenty bright, but being able to at least adjust the angle could have been beneficial for on-road and off-road riding alike, as it could have allowed riders to prioritize seeing the ground nearby on rough terrain or seeing farther ahead when they’re flying along at the bike’s top speed.
The lights are better to have than not, and it’s convenient that they’re integrated into the bike and can therefore draw directly from the battery. But it’s a little lackluster here for such an expensive bike.
The app isn’t perfect, but you need to rely upon it for important functions
To put it bluntly, Super73 doesn’t have the most impressive bike computer. It’s a small unit with a round screen no bigger than a smartwatch display. It can display one metric at a time and uses a ring around the circumference to show battery level. To make up for this, Super73 relies on a smartphone app that offers maps, bike statistics and customization of the bike’s speed mode. It all syncs with the bike over Bluetooth.
Unfortunately, I’ve run into trouble several times connecting to the bike over Bluetooth, and in each case, I’ve had to stop and re-pair the bike with my phone. With the app connected, the small display on the bike can show map directions, which sounds great in theory but proved next to useless as the directions would stop updating if my phone’s screen locked. Leaving my phone unlocked, it worked well enough, but it’s a waste of my phone’s precious battery life and every update to the directions interrupted audio playback from my phone. The bike also resets to Class 2 mode whenever it powers off, so if Bluetooth refuses to connect, you can’t put the bike in off-road Class 3 mode. Basically, the connectivity doesn’t seem polished enough or up to par with the fit and finish of the bike itself.
Bottom line
The Super73-R Adventure sits between two worlds: standard e-bikes and electric motorcycles. Between that and a $4,000 price tag, it runs into a lot of competition. The Super73-R Adventure certainly has style and it’s well built, but it costs almost twice as much as the Ride1Up Revv 1, which is a thoroughly compelling alternative with similar styling, decent quality, more power, more range and better accessories.
That said, with bikes like the R Adventure or the Revv 1, practicality and value for money may not be primary concerns. These are meant for fun, style and mostly motorized use and really have more in common with electric motorcycles. They aren’t meant for efficient pedaling or cargo lugging, so it may not be entirely fair to compare these bikes to more traditional electric bicycles sport or utility-oriented models like the Co-op Cycles Generation e1.1 or Velotric Thunder 1, which offer tons of features and practical accessories for far less money than even the Revv 1. But if you’re set on the style and willing to pay for the high-end build quality, you may want to check out the Super73-R Adventure.
