ADB reader penned this awesome review of a recent trip to NZ and how his son reveled riding the big boy MTB tracks on his little "lectric" Sherco!
Traveling abroad with a sherco factory 16″ electric bike
Last year after a little convincing, we bought our youngest son Reid a Sherco 16-inch factory for his Fourth birthday. He is quite short, but confident on a pee wee 50 so it didn’t take long for him to adapt to the Sherco. I recall changing it to the fastest speed in about 15 minutes.
The freedom and places we have traveled since owning this bike is unreal, this bike does not compare to any other option on the market. The lad uses it to lap around the backyard, walk with me in the mornings and out on the MTB trails. He is besotted with it!
We have owned this Sherco for a little over a year and it has not skipped a beat. There has not been a day go by where Reid has not used it. The skills that I have seen him develop since owning this bike are incredible, especially his confidence. The homemade tracks made by his brother have allowed him to improve his coordination and bike control. Touch wood, the only injuries so far are to the bike tyres, which cop a good flogging! The bike is faultless.
We planned had trip to New Zealand and we had a pretty MTB orientated itinerary; it was a no brainer the “lectric” (that’s his shorted term for the Sherco) was to join us. The bike was straight forward to pack into a bike bag (it fitted in the same bag as my Mountain bike). We landed in Queenstown and began sightseeing. It was not until after lunch Reid and I were lining up to do our first shuttle run in central Queenstown. We loaded the bikes on the gondola where at this point, I was still loading the app for maps on my phone. We arrived to the top to where the Operations Manager said “he is the youngest fella to go down this downhill!” Well I didn’t tell him it was his first time to do an “official” down hill.. The MTB track was called Upper Hammy’s then flowed onto Lower Hammy’s track for a combined distance of 5.2km downhill. It had some real steep flowing drops! I said to Reid at one point “If only mum knew, we would be dead”.
These tracks were bigger and longer than our local MTB tracks, so for his first downhill both the bike and Reid handled it very well. That said, it would be a really good addition for Sherco to add an additional brake to the front to give it extra stopping power.
The second day we were pumped to find a flow track just on the other side of Queenstown near Arthur’s Point, the track itself was called Hot Rod. We dropped mum to a spa close by, then we hit the trail not knowing where or how far it was or where we were going to pop out, but it was a long way down and more worrying for me as I was thinking it would be a bloody long way back up if we got lost! The ‘lectric’ made 3kms down and almost 4.1 kms back up, running flat about 50 meters from the top. Lucky we purchased a second battery .. a 2×5.2 Amp hr, so with quick swap over we back on track ready to go back down one last time before mum picked us up at the bottom.
We continued our holiday around the South Island, had a rest day at Lake Tekapo then headed straight towards Christchurch Adventure Park where we put the Sherco to the test again. The Sherco was fine on the chair lift shuttles. First track to be put to the challenge was Duncan’s Donuts which was 4.5kms. The second time down we traversed down from the top to go down Locomotion back towards the carpark. Finally, Reid burnt the last of his energy burning up the kids’ skill and pump track.
After another rest we then made our way towards Dunedin where we went looking for penguin’s. Well.. its times like this the bike is priceless. We headed out towards where we had been told to go and there was a 3km walk to the beach. Lucky we had the bike – it honestly made the outing painless to conquer. And no, we didn’t see any bloody penguin’s..
The following day, we went to the Local Dunedin tracks from the bottom to the top. This was a 5km climb and up a steep hill, so I was impressed for the battery to last to the top. With a quick swap of the batteries, we had a drink and allowed me to recover before we went back down Design windows. Before we left Dunedin we promised Reid we would take him down one last time. This time I dropped the wife off at the top, saddled her up and assured her it worth it. For the last couple of days of our trip we made our way back to Queenstown, before our flight out breaking up the trip stopping in at a skate park or two to help break up the trip. The last day before we flew out, we burned down Hot rods a few more times trying to wear him out prior to the flight.
Wrapping up the trip, the bike was absolutely fantastic. I tell everyone theses bikes are fantastic and worth every cent, we would buy another in a hart beat. The places we have traveled with it is by far beyond what we would have gone with a 5-year-old on a 16 inch BMX.
Whether or not you’re a fan or a skeptic, electric bikes are coming into our sport faster than we think and my original hesitation and skepticism on reliability and how usable is the power delivery have all been answered with this bike. It really has changed my opinion on electric bikes and the freedom on where and how we ride, Not to mention the skills that Reid has picked up just in the back yard and riding more than we can with his 50 mini.
Check out the Sherco balance bikes here
Big thanks to Reid for the photos of his awesome bike and his Dad for putting the effort in providing this review.