Published
Online reviews favor e-bikes sold online. Bike-shop e-bikes barely get reviewed
17 of the top 20 e-bikes in our ranking come from brands that sell mostly online, like Aventon, Velotric and Lectric. Brands you mostly buy at a bike shop, like Specialized, Trek and Gazelle, get 3. That looks like a verdict. Mostly, it isn't. Bike-shop e-bikes get far fewer reviews, and the reviews they do get are no more negative.
These numbers come from our live e-bike ranking.118 e-bikes ranked by 1,335 public reviews, with the quotes behind each score.
See the e-bike rankingEach dot is one model. Tap one to open its page.
3 models have no price and aren't shown.
| Measure | Sold mostly online | Sold mostly in bike shops |
|---|---|---|
| Models in the ranking | 74 | 44 |
| Median price | $1,649 | $4,950 |
| Median public reviews per model | 13 | 5 |
| Models with fewer than 5 reviews | 22% | 48% |
| Models in the top 20 | 17 | 3 |
Three times the price, under half the reviews
The Specialized Turbo Levo 4 EVO, a $10,500 e-mountain bike, has 2 public reviews and no complaints. It ranks #67 of 118. Same for the Specialized Turbo Creo 2 ($9,000, 8 reviews, #54) and the Tern Quick Haul P9 ($3,400, 4 reviews, #55).
See where every bike-shop e-bike ranksWhen they are reviewed, people complain less
| Opinions | Sold mostly online | Sold mostly in bike shops |
|---|---|---|
| All opinions | 24% (of 1,623) | 19% (of 554) |
| Owners on Reddit | 47% (of 497) | 36% (of 220) |
| Reviewers on YouTube | 14% (of 1,099) | 7% (of 303) |
Owners and reviewers alike complain less about bike-shop e-bikes. But among models with 10+ reviews the gap almost disappears (25% vs 24%), so read it as "no worse", not "better".
Why bike-shop e-bikes get talked about less
A ranking built from public reviews can only reflect what people have said in public. A bike with two good reviews has less behind it than one with fifteen, so it sits lower. The more interesting question is why so few people review a $5,000 bike. A few things in how these bikes are sold and used point the same way:
- Online brands sell through videos. They have no showroom, so YouTube reviews are where buyers first see the bike. 62% of the reviews of online-brand models are YouTube videos, against 45% for bike-shop models.
- Shop buyers try before they buy. Someone spending $5,000 at a bike shop can take a test ride and ask the staff. Someone ordering a $1,600 bike online can't, so they look for reviews, and that demand is what YouTube reviewers make videos for.
- They're different kinds of bikes. About two in three bike-shop models in our ranking are specialist bikes: e-mountain bikes, cargo bikes, road and gravel bikes, folding bikes. About three in four online models are everyday commuters. Specialist bikes have smaller audiences: the 10 bike-shop e-mountain bikes have a median of just 2 reviews. Even comparing commuter with commuter, bike-shop models have fewer reviews (a median of 9 against 12).
- Fewer people own them. At three times the price, there are fewer owners to start threads.
- Problems go back to the shop. When a shop bike needs fixing, the owner takes it to the shop that sold it. An online bike's owner is more likely to ask strangers on Reddit. That fits the numbers above: owner threads about online-brand models are more negative (47% vs 36%).
So the shop bikes aren't losing on what people say about them. They're losing on how many people say anything at all. Bike-shop models that do get reviewed widely can rank near the top: the Gazelle Ultimate C380 (14 reviews) is #6, the Gazelle Medeo T9 (12) is #10 and the Tern GSD S10 (13) is #17.
See the top 20 e-bikesIf you're about to buy
Check how many reviews a bike has before you read anything into a low rank: 2 reviews and no complaints is an unknown bike, not a bad one. For shop bikes, owner forums and your shop's mechanic will tell you more than YouTube.
The rankings
Now see who comes out on top
Each ranking shows every model's score, how many public reviews it rests on, and the quotes behind it.
- 1RAD POWER Radster Trail
- 2AVENTON Ramblas ADV
- 3AVENTON Level 4 ADV
- 1NAVEE ST3 Pro
- 2NIU KQi 100P
- 3GYROOR C1 Plus
- 1MOVA V50 Ultra
- 2ECOVACS Deebot X1 Omni
- 3EUREKA J15 Pro Ultra
- 1DE'LONGHI Eletta Explore
- 2BOSCH 800 Series VeroCafe
- 3LA MARZOCCO Linea Micra
- 1ULTRAHUMAN Ring Air
- 2RINGCONN Gen 2
- 3RENPHO LYNX Smart Ring
Method, caveats and data
- Who counts as "bike shop": Specialized, Trek, Gazelle, Tern, Brompton, Cannondale, Salsa and Santa Cruz. Everyone else in the ranking (Aventon, Heybike, Velotric, Gotrax, Lectric, Himiway, Rad Power Bikes, Segway, Blix, Ride1Up, Evelo, Cowboy and Infinite Machine) sells mostly online. Some brands sell both ways; we grouped each by where most of its bikes are sold.
- Sources: 1,335 public reviews of 118 e-bikes on sale: YouTube videos, Reddit threads and review-site articles. One review = one video, one thread or one article.
- What counts as an opinion: one review's positive or negative view on one topic of one bike; neutral ones are left out. An AI model files each opinion under a topic and marks it positive or negative; every opinion links back to the sentence it came from. The negative shares are out of 1,623 opinions on online models and 554 on bike-shop models.
- Scoring: a YouTube review adds or takes away 5 points on a topic; a written review or Reddit thread 1. Each review counts once per topic. Visitor votes add ±0.1. Ranks are among the 118 models on sale.
- Owners post when something goes wrong. Reddit opinions are more negative across the board (47% and 36% here), and bike-shop models get more of their coverage from Reddit, which works against them.
- Some YouTube reviews are sponsored. We count them like any other source and can't reliably tell which ones are.
- Prices are current online list prices; 3 models have none. Reviews as of Oct 7, 2026.
- Download the data: one row per model (CSV), with rank, brand, where it's sold, price, public reviews by platform, positive and negative opinions, and the score with and without the YouTube weighting. No quotes or usernames.
BettaScore ranks products by what public reviews say about them. No brand pays to be listed or to rank higher. If you own a bike-shop e-bike, you can vote on its ranking.