This is the new Urtopia Carbon e-Bike. It’s an electric bike made of carbon fiber and
packed with tons of high-end features: a torque sensor, carbon belt drive,
and smart tech like a built in Radar system with turn signals that project onto the ground.
It even has a smart bar with a built-in display, Voice control,
haptic feedback, and security features like fingerprint
unlock and a 4G connection with GPS for tracking and theft protection.
With a price at $2,800 – it’s a contender for other high end eBike like Van Moof
or the Cowboy electric bikes. Urtopia sent us a review unit for a couple weeks
so we could put all the components and features to the test. We’ll put links to this model eBike
along with deals and coupons to save you money in the description of this video.
Let’s get right into it. Unboxing the bike, it comes in a box that makes it easy to unpack. You
lay the box flat and pull open the box and remove the cover. Inside is the bike neatly secured in
the packaging, along with the charger, saddle, user manual, and the battery in another box.
The bike is 90% installed, all you need to do is install the handlebar and front wheel. Urtopia
made a great assembly video that shows it step by step.
Looking at the design and build quality of the electric bike, it has a sleek look with
most of it made of Carbon Fiber: the frame, fork, handlebar and even the seat post tube
are made of carbon fiber, with a twist design underneath the seat post-
giving it a futuristic look while allowing the seat post to be adjustable. All that carbon
makes the entire bike super lightweight, making it 30lbs - including the battery.
The bike frame comes in 2 sizes, Medium and Large,
and the review model we got is medium- which is suitable for riders up to 5 ft 11 or 180cm.
Looking at the components, the motor is a smaller 250 watt hub motor in the rear wheel.
The drivetrain is single speed with a Gates Carbon Drive CDN belt. Having a belt instead of a chain
means it’s smooth, quiet and clean with no oils- meaning no more grease stains on your pants.
It’s also maintenance free and Urtopia says it should last up to 30,000km,
or about 18,000 miles of riding before being replaced.
The Urtopia also features a Torque sensor. These are found on higher end eBikes,
whereas many lower cost eBikes use a cadence sensor. The Torque Sensor determines how much
force the rider is applying to the pedals, and applies power to the output accordingly. This
means the motor engages quickly, and when riding you almost forget the motor is there helping you.
Now, keep in mind the Urtopia doesn’t have a throttle, so it’s a pedal assist bike only.
Riding the Urtopia, it feels light and nimble. It has a top speed 20mph and once you reach the
top speed, the motor effectively stops helping you and you’re pedaling on just human power.
But since it’s a single speed you’ll be limited by how fast your legs can pedal.
When riding up hills, it will take on moderately steep hills, but you’ll want
to turn on Turbo mode and add some extra leg power to push it to the top for steeper hills.
For braking, It has hydraulic disc brakes, with no branding on them
so we’re not sure who manufactures them. But they work well to bring the bike to
a quick stop and you can easily lock up the tires.
The battery is a 360 watt hour, removable battery that sits flush into the frame of the bike,
with a key lock. You can either charge the battery in the bike, or remove it to charge inside. The
charger is a 4amp fast charger, so it can fully recharge the battery in 2 and a half hours.
Looking at the range, Urtopia advertises a 30-80 mile range that will vary depending
on factors like your weight, the mode you ride in, and terrain you ride. In our range tests,
we found that you can get around 30-40 miles of range going fast riding in mode 3,
while you’ll get the 60 to 80 miles of range when riding in Eco mode.
Getting into all the smart tech this ebike has to offer, the SmartBar is well designed,
with the LED dot display integrated inside. The display is bright and easy to see, even during
the daylight and shows you relevant details: current speed, battery level and speed mode.
For the controls, On the left hand side is the multi button control.
Pressing the up or down button will change between the 4 pedal assist modes- Comfort,
Sport and Turbo. You can also turn off the motor altogether if you want to go all manual.
Pressing and holding the left button for 3 seconds will turn on the headlight and tail light.
The headlight is also integrated into the smart bar, and is a StVZO headlight- meaning it’s
designed to keep the beam focused directly on the road and out of the eyes of other riders or cars.
On the right hand side of the handlebar is the fingerprint sensor.
You program your fingerprint using the app when you first setup, and you can unlock
the bike either using the fingerprint sensor, or with the app using bluetooth.
The fingerprint sensor also functions as a button. Pressing it once beeps
the horn. You can also customize the horn with different sounds in the app.
To turn on the turn signals, you press either the left or right button. It will show you
on the display the turn signal is on, and the rear tail light will emit a projection of the
signal onto the ground. But unfortunately the projection light isn’t very bright,
and cars are probably not going to be looking out for those on the ground.
We wish the turn signals were placed directly on the back with bright arrows or lights blinking.
When you use the turn signals, it will automatically turn on the built-in millimeter
wave radar to check for cars behind you. If it detects a car, the handlebar will vibrate to
alert you. While this is useful, it’s only activated when you have the turn signal on.
If you press and hold the circular button it will activate the voice controls. You can give it
commands to change volume levels, ride modes, and even turn on and off the headlight. It’s useful,
but in our tests we found that it doesn’t always capture the voice commands,
so you can’t rely on it consistently.
Looking at the phone app, it has a clean UI and lots of different features including a dashboard
that shows bike details like battery life, an interactive map, a detailed ride report of each
ride, and you can even go in and re-play your ride path. It even has a calorie counter and Co2 saved.
The bike even has Over the Air firmware updates,
and you can expect Urtopia will keep rolling out new updates and features for the bike over time.
For example, later this year they will add the ability to see turn by turn GPS
notifications inside the Smartbar LED. They will also improve the voice commands in the smart bar.
For locking, you press and hold the down button, or using a voice control. Once the bike is locked,
there’s a gyro and accelerometer so it knows if the bike is moved
and will turn on the alarm– which is a loud alarm and vibration. However,
we found that the alarm didn’t seem to always come on, after locking the bike and trying to move it.
The Urtopia even has a 4G eSIM built in, so it can track the location of the bike using
its own cellular connection. This makes it perfect for theft prevention, and the 4G
service is included for 1 year. After that, it’s $30/year, which is a reasonable price to charge.
There are a few features we wish the Urtopia had included on the bike. For example it doesn’t
have any fenders or mud flaps, so you definitely don’t want to be riding in the rain or puddles.
Also, the seat post adjustment does need an Allen key, so you won’t be able to adjust it on the fly.
But overall, we think this is a great eBike packed
with tons of features that most other Electric Bikes don’t even include.
It’s certainly a contendender to others like the Van Moof or Cowboy eBikes.
Alright that’s it for now. Next- be sure to check out
our other eBike reviews and comparisons videos.