It's been six months since I got a Urtopia Carbon One e-bike,
the world's first e-bike integrated with ChatGPT.
On their blog, the company states that "with the power of ChatGPT,
the e-bike delivers real-time assistance based on users' needs.
The bicycle with a mind makes every journey full of surprises and joy."
What? There's nothing concrete about how this improves the user experience.
It just comes across as a marketing gimmick designed to get stupid clickbait headlines.
Which is such a shame, because there's actually a lot to like about this e-bike.
It is one of the most technologically advanced bikes I've ever encountered.
It has 4G LTE and GPS integrated into it, so you can geolocate it if it gets stolen.
The battery is locked into the bike with a key, making it hard for thieves to try to
remove the battery to stop the geotracking. If they even know that it's a feature of the
bike at all. You can connect to the bike via the Urtopia app on your smartphone.
Once you do, you get quite a few controls for the bike. You can control its integrated lights, which
turn on automatically depending on the time of day. You can put the bike into alarm mode,
adjust the volume for the integrated speaker, and vibration, which can activate in situations
like a faster approaching vehicle coming up from your rear. You can play music on the integrated
Bluetooth speaker, do firmware updates, and of course, set up the fingerprint sensor.
This is also part of the bike's outstanding security features suite. With alarm mode on,
if someone tries to roll off with your bike, the bike will blare an alarm constantly. It can only
be turned off via the app or by authenticating into the bike with your fingerprint.
I have accidentally bumped my bike a few times in the garage and set off the alarm. And yeah,
that could be kind of a hassle to then go in and make sure you authenticate them
to shut the alarm off. But I'd rather have that alarm still than not have it.
Setting up the bike was incredibly straightforward. Urtopia has videos
you can watch that go through each step of the process,
as well as purchase accessories for your Carbon One. Like I did, I bought both the kickstand and
a drink holder. But a kickstand really should have come with this bike by default, given its price.
The bike's design is also just beautiful. It's made out of carbon fiber,
which drastically reduces its weight. It only weighs 33 pounds, and it has a
Gates Carbon belt drive. I haven't had to do any maintenance on this
bike in the past six months, except for inflating the tires to the proper limit.
Overall, it's been great. It has a sleek, futuristic look to it with very few wires.
And the control bar is quite sleek looking. It'll display a variety of icons for different things,
like the motor settings, when you lock the e-bike, the turn signals, which are on the
rear of the bike and actually project down onto the pavement for night riding, which is very cool.
Having your speed on that display in a really prominent position is actually really helpful.
Regardless of if you're riding on a city road or on a bike path. With a normal bike,
I'd have no idea how much faster than the speed limit I was actually going on
a given bike trail. And a voice control icon, which works, but is still a bit gimmicky.
In my opinion, maybe that's what the ChatGPT thing is for. I don't know. In terms of how
the bike rides, it rides pretty well. There are three modes of intensity,
and then a rocket mode that really kicks the motor into
high gear. Having to bike with a motor and battery certainly has its benefits.
I find you can bike much farther with an e-bike than with a regular bike,
and the rated range for the Urtopia Carbon One is anywhere from 25 to 60 miles, depending on
what mode you have the bike in. However, there are no different belts for different
speeds like some bikes have, which you might be used to with the electric motor going up hills.
I really missed having a 10-speed or 7-speed bike. The motor has been able
to do hills very well for me. The Apple Health app can record your bike rides,
and there are now integrations with both Strava and Apple Health. You can actually
sync your Beat from your Apple Watch to the bike directly during your workout.
I did have some issues originally with the seat not staying put. But
after I made some adjustments, Urtopia sent me out another locking mechanism,
which seemed to fix that. I like that the bike has a quick release for the front wheel,
making it easy to throw it into one of my cars to take the bike somewhere.
And that actually leads me to one of my personal downsides with this e-bike. All bikes and e-bikes,
really. Where I live here in North Carolina, I don't have very good biking infrastructure
that is safe. I live near grocery stores and shops, but to get to good,
safe bike paths, I have to drive and throw my bike in the car to get to those.
If I try to get to some of those destinations that I now currently have to drive to, I have to share
the road with motor vehicle traffic. And even though this bike has some great safety features,
I still don't want to die. Also, because the tires on this bike are made for pavement,
it's not really meant for gravel trails, like the one I have in a nearby forest.
Because I have to drive the bike somewhere in order to ride it,
it kind of defeats the purpose of being able to use this e-bike to replace car trips. I found
that at the start of the review period, I used it quite a bit. But as the review period went on,
I used it less and less because it's just a hassle to throw it in a car to
go drive somewhere. And you know, with the weather here, there's pollen, it gets hot.
So I didn't end up using it as much as I thought I would. So having nowhere to ride it has been
the biggest downside for me, but that's not going to apply to everyone. There are other downsides
though that I've encountered with the Carbon One that will apply to everyone who rides it.
One, there's no suspension. So you're definitely going to feel
the bumps in the road. The bar itself is not height adjustable. And lastly,
there's the battery. Urtopia uses batteries made by Samsung, and everything with the battery module
appears to be high quality. And I mean, it better, given that it costs like $2,000 USD.
Now, when I first got the e-bike from Urtopia, I asked them if it had
UL certification. The company has sent me their UL certification for both the e-bike, as well as
the battery module. And you can see that they're up on the UL site as well, which is a good sign.
Why the company doesn't actually market the battery modules or the bike as UL
certified on their website, though, is a bit more concerning. And something I
think they should definitely do to alleviate any concerns here in the US that this bike is unsafe.
E-bike battery fires have become a pretty big story here in the United States. There have
been a string of them in certain cities, like New York City, for example, that have
happened over the past year. And that's caused some concern around this category of devices.
And when you go to authorities and local governments, the advice you typically get is
to only buy e-bikes that have been UL certified. So the entire bike or at least that battery pack
and charger. But even if you do, if you damage the battery, submerge it, it gets impaled,
you charge it incorrectly or don't follow the manufacturer's guidelines for battery storage
and charging, all of those can still lead to battery failure and or thermal runaway.
Urtopia does list the operating temperatures for their batteries. And because the batteries
themselves are pretty expensive, at almost $500 USD, that should at least somewhat
indicate their quality. So for me, even with the UL certification, I'm very cautious about
charging e-bike batteries. I make sure I'm always around when the battery is charging, and I monitor
the charger and battery for any deformation in shape or any odd smells coming from it. I
never charge the battery near an exit in case of fire, and I never charge it overnight. All
of these steps can be a bit of a hassle, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.
So, recommendation time: Do I recommend the Urtopia Carbon One e-bike? Yes, but only for those
who I really think will benefit from the lightness of the carbon fiber design and the high-tech
features, which do actually work. I thought they were going to be kind of gimmicky when I first
got this bike, but overall, over the past six months, I'm actually pretty impressed with them.
Now, if you just want an e-bike and you care more about the ride quality and just the motor assist,
but you don't need all the technology, the Carbon One probably is not going to
be the bike for you. You're going to be better off shopping around a bit,
and you'll likely find a bike that costs a little bit less. Urtopia does often have sales, though.
If you have any further questions about the Carbon One, leave them in the comments below. I'll try to
answer as many questions as I can there. Or, if you have experience with e-bikes or this e-bike,
let me know what you think in the comments as well. And if you like this video and found it
helpful, consider giving it a thumbs up. It really helps out the channel. And for
any other updates I have on the Urtopia Carbon One, I'll make sure to leave those in our free
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For 6 Months Later, I’m Josh Teder, thanks for watching!