On my older e-bike (also a Schwinn) I get mongoose excursion about the same 20 miles of range at level 5, but I also get closer to 40 miles at level 3. The Coston e-bike is controlled with a handlebar-mounted LED panel with three buttons on the side. The panel displays your speed and power level, plus you can cycle through other functions like an odometer, tripometer, and other stats like average speed, max speed, and total ride time.
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The display itself is encased in black plastic and has sealed buttons built in that seem well protected from water and dust. It does leave something to be desired when you have experienced fancier ebike products, but it gets the job done. You won’t see your speed, average speed, trip time, odometer, trip meter, range estimate, or any other fancy stats… just your power level and battery schwinn electric bike level.
The middle power/enter button turns the bike on while holding it. The battery has to be on before turning the bike on which got me the first time I tried. The up and down are mostly for adjusting the pedal assist levels up and down. The Marshall looks like a mountain bike with a comfy cruiser feel to it. A step-thru version offers a slightly lower top bar than the regular version.
The Schwinn electric bike scored a 33 on our Tower ebike score. Lets get into the review and find what areas the bike struggled in. The standard batteries that come on our Marshall, Coston CE and Coston DX bikes are good for up to 45 miles of riding. But Schwinn knows many riders want to go farther, so we developed higher capacity batteries that are super easy to install (you’ll only need a screwdriver). These additional batteries extend the riding distance up to 80 miles on both our Coston and Marshall series of bikes. One of the valid concerns raised by riders of e-bikes is the ability of their e-bikes to hold a charge and provide pedal assistance when they’re out for rides of longer distances.
There are two menus here, the left chart shows five dots that indicate 0-5 level of pedal assist. The higher you go, the zippier and faster the motor will spin but it will also draw more power, depleting your battery more quickly. The second chart is a battery level indicator showing five dots, each representing a 20% drop.
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The grips are comfortable, the brake levers work fine with the Tektro rim brakes and the display console and thumb throttle are easy to reach and use. There’s not a lot of choice here, you just turn the console on with a 0/1 toggle switch and either begin pedaling or push down on the giant paddle trigger. This makes the bike easy to use for just about anyone and reduces distractions when riding. If you want to know how fast you’re going you will need to add an aftermarket LCD display as seen on the bike in this review and that could cost ~$25. I like that they included a bell with the bike and would love to have also had some lights for safety.