First Ride on the Simple Glide Fat Tire E-Trike: A Guest Rider's Honest Test Drive

A Morning Test Ride on the Simple Glide Fat Tire

Some of my favorite videos on our channel aren't the ones where I stand next to a trike and walk through a spec sheet. They're the ones where somebody new climbs aboard for the first time and just says what they feel. This is one of those. A guest rider came out to see us, opened with a cheerful "good morning," thanked the sixthreezero team for letting him sample our trikes and e-trikes, and then settled into the seat of a Simple Glide Fat Tire.

I'm Dustin, and I've spent nearly 20 years in the bike and e-bike industry. In that time I've learned that the first ten minutes on an e-trike tell you more about a machine than any brochure can. Nobody is an expert yet. You hear exactly where the learning curve sits, which controls make sense right away, and which ones take a second try. Our guest narrated all of it out loud, and I want to walk you through it, because if you're thinking about buying an electric trike, his first morning is probably a lot like what yours will look like.

What he was riding

The Simple Glide Fat Tire is our recumbent-style e-trike built around 4-inch-wide tires, a high-back seat with armrests, and a 750-watt rear-mounted motor. If you want to see where it sits in the lineup, it lives in our fat tire electric trike collection and alongside our other recumbent electric trikes.

Our guest summed it up in plain language before he even rolled forward. This was the fat tire version, it had a bit more power, and "all the concepts are still the same." I like that framing, because it's true and it's reassuring. The controls on this trike follow the same logic as the rest of the Simple Glide family. Once you understand the basic idea of gears in one hand and pedal assist in the other, you understand the trike. The rest is practice.

Then he said the words every first ride should start with: "Let's go for a test ride. We're ready."

A parking lot, a little traffic, and a quick start

The ride happened in a parking lot. There were a few cars moving around, and he noticed them right away. His take was relaxed: there's some traffic, but we can maneuver around that, we're not worried about it. That's a good attitude, and it's also a good sign about how the trike felt under him. Three wheels and a low, supportive seat take a lot of the balance anxiety out of slow, tight riding, which is exactly what a parking lot demands.

About a minute in, he got his first real taste of the motor. His comment made me laugh when I watched the footage: he didn't know what the speed limit was in the parking lot, but he probably just exceeded it, and very quickly.

I hear some version of that from almost every first-time e-trike rider. People expect a trike to feel slow and heavy. Then the motor engages and the trike gets up to speed faster than they expected. It isn't wild or twitchy. It's just more capable than the picture in their head. If you've never ridden with electric assist, that first surge is the moment you realize you're not on a regular tricycle anymore.

My advice, if you're heading out for your own first ride: start with the lowest assist level and give yourself plenty of space. You can always add power. It's much harder to relax once you've surprised yourself.

"Oh, I went the wrong way"

Shortly after, he took a wrong turn in the lot. He said so out loud, corrected course, and carried on. I'm keeping that moment in, along with a couple of others you'll read about later, because I think honest first-ride moments are more useful than polished ones. Nobody rides a new machine perfectly on day one, and you shouldn't expect to either.

What's worth noticing is how little a wrong turn costs you on a trike. On a two-wheeler, a sudden change of plan at low speed means slowing down, putting a foot out, and managing your balance while you figure out where you're going. On three wheels, you can slow to a crawl or stop completely and simply sit there. The trike holds itself up. Our product page puts it simply: there's no balancing required at stops or slow speeds. For a lot of riders, especially anyone who has had a fall or worries about one, that's the entire reason to choose a trike in the first place.

Why a first ride sounds the way it does

If you watch the full video, you'll notice that most of it is our guest thinking out loud. He's steering a three-wheeled machine, managing a motor, shifting through gears, reading a display, and working out which button does what. That's a lot of new inputs at once, and he works through them one at a time, sometimes getting it right immediately and sometimes not.

I'd encourage you to treat your own first ride the same way. It's a learning session, not a performance. Pick an empty, open space, talk yourself through what you're doing if it helps, and don't worry about looking smooth. If you're near us, you can come visit our store and test ride before you buy, which is exactly the kind of low-pressure first ride this guest got to enjoy.

Now let's get into the part of his ride that I think will help the most people: how he figured out gears and pedal assist together.

If there's one lesson in this video that applies to almost every e-trike rider, it's this: there are two separate systems helping you move, and they do different jobs. One is the gears, which is the same mechanical system you'd find on a regular bike. The other is pedal assist, which is the motor adding power while you pedal. Our guest spent most of his ride learning how those two work together on the Simple Glide Fat Tire, and he did it in real time, on camera.

Finding a gear he liked

Early in the ride, he settled into fifth gear and announced that he liked it. A moment later he mentioned going up to seventh. Then the parking lot tilted slightly downhill, and he dropped into third, where he said he was "spinning here good."

That word, spinning, tells you a lot. In a low gear, each pedal stroke takes very little effort, but it doesn't move you very far. Your legs turn quickly and lightly. On a downhill, where gravity is already doing some of the work, that can mean your feet are moving fast without much resistance at all. He noticed he was using a little power assist and immediately said he didn't need it, because he was going downhill. Good instinct.

A little later he was in sixth gear, still heading slightly downhill, and he said something that I think every rider can relate to: "You got to push on it." Higher gears give you more distance per pedal stroke, but each stroke takes more force. When the pedals start to feel heavy, that's your cue to shift down. So that's exactly what he did. He went to fourth, and after a moment he decided that "gear four seems right."

That's the whole skill of shifting in a nutshell. You're looking for the gear where the pedals turn at a comfortable, steady rhythm. Too easy and you're spinning without getting anywhere. Too hard and you're grinding. Somewhere in the middle there's a gear that just feels right, and on a given stretch of ground, you'll find it by shifting until the pedaling feels smooth.

Once he was in fourth, he gave the trike a little battery power. His reaction was two words: "Yeah, baby."

The reminder from off camera

After a U-turn, someone off camera suggested he try switching the pedal assist too. He reached for a button, and the voice corrected him: no, the one on the left. His answer was the most honest line in the whole video. "Oh, okay. Got it. All right. I forgot about that."

I love that he said it out loud, because it's the most common thing that happens on a first ride. People get absorbed in shifting gears, which they may remember from riding bikes years ago, and they completely forget the motor has its own set of controls. On this trike, he worked out that the pedal assist was on his left hand. From that point on, he started using both systems together, and you can hear the difference in his reactions.

In fourth gear, he added a little assist. "Oh, I see. Oh. Oh, yeah. That's nice."

That's the moment it clicked for him. His legs were in a comfortable gear, and the motor was now adding power on top of his own effort. That combination is what makes an e-trike feel effortless without taking the pedaling away from you entirely.

Going slightly uphill

A bit later he was in sixth gear on a slight incline, and he added assist again. His reaction: "Oh, yeah. Got to love that." He pointed out that he'd only pressed the power assist button one time, and on the flat stretch that followed, that was plenty.

This is a useful detail. You don't need to jump straight to the highest assist level to feel a real difference. One press changed his experience on that incline noticeably. If you're new to electric assist, I'd suggest getting comfortable at the low levels first. They may be all you need on flat ground, and they give you room to step up when the road tilts.

The Simple Glide Fat Tire offers five levels of pedal assist, according to our product page, and it also has a twist throttle on the grip if you'd rather let the motor do the work without pedaling. Our guest didn't use the throttle in this video, but if that's a feature you care about, you can browse our electric tricycles with throttle control.

How I'd pair gears and pedal assist on your first ride

Watching our guest work this out, I'd boil his experience down to a few simple habits.

• Choose your gear for your legs. Shift until the pedals turn at a steady, comfortable pace, the way he did when he settled on fourth.
• Choose your assist level for the terrain. Downhill, you may not need any. On flat ground, a low level is often plenty. On an incline, add a level, ideally before you start to slow down.
• Change one thing at a time. Shift, feel the result, then adjust the assist if you need to. Changing both at once makes it hard to tell which one helped.
• Know where the buttons are before you roll. Our guest found the assist controls on the left only after a reminder. Take thirty seconds at the start of a ride to put your hands on every control.

None of this is complicated, and our guest picked it up within a few minutes. But there was one more lesson waiting for him, and it's one I want every new rider to hear.

About three minutes into the ride, our guest had a moment that he didn't try to hide, and I'm glad he didn't. He'd been pressing the minus button on the pedal assist control, and he went further than he meant to. His words: "I went too far in the minus button and I think I put it in reverse. That's not recommended. That won't happen again."

I want to be careful here, because the video doesn't show exactly what the trike did in that moment. What we know is what he said: he stepped the assist level down further than he intended, and at the end of his ride he described it as going "negative on the power assist" while also putting the brakes on. Whatever he felt in that instant, it surprised him, and his advice afterward was short and clear: "Don't do that."

I'm passing that advice along, and I'll add a little context about why it's good advice.

Don't mash buttons while braking

When you're new to a machine, your hands can get busy. You're steering, you're thinking about gears, you're adjusting the assist, and then something in front of you changes and you reach for the brakes. If you're still pressing buttons at the same moment, you're asking yourself to do two very different jobs at once, and that's when surprises happen.

My rule is simple. When you want to slow down or stop, stop fiddling with the controls and just use the brakes. Make your assist and gear changes when you're rolling along at a steady pace with open space ahead of you, not in the middle of a stop. The Simple Glide Fat Tire comes with front and rear mechanical disc brakes, per our product page, and they're there to do one job. Let them do it without anything else competing for your attention. If braking confidence is high on your list, take a look at our electric trikes with disc brakes.

The display is your friend

Right after the minus-button moment, our guest made a discovery that I think solves most of this problem on its own. He noticed there was a number on the display showing which power assist level he was in. "I should have been looking at that," he said. "Now I'm on a one."

That's exactly the habit I'd want any new rider to build. Instead of pressing a button repeatedly and trying to feel for the result, press it once and glance down. The Simple Glide Fat Tire has a color display that, according to our product page, shows your speed, your battery level, and your power level. When you know what number you're on, you always know where you are, and you're never guessing whether the next press will take you up, down, or somewhere unexpected.

It sounds obvious written down, but it's not obvious when you're on the trike for the first time with a parking lot full of things to look at. Our guest figured it out in the moment, and he didn't repeat the mistake for the rest of the ride.

Why I kept this moment in

Some people might wonder why we'd leave a mistake like this in a video. The answer is that it's real, and it's useful. Every new e-trike owner will press the wrong button at some point. Seeing someone do it, laugh it off, figure out the display, and keep riding is more reassuring than a perfect run where nothing ever goes wrong. It also tells you something about the trike itself: a rider on his first day made a mistake, corrected it, and finished his ride happy. He came back saying he loved these trikes.

A first-day checklist

If you've just taken delivery of an e-trike, or you're heading out for a test ride, here's what I'd do based on everything our guest went through.

• Before you start rolling, find the pedal assist buttons, the brake levers, the throttle if your trike has one, and the shifter. Put your hands on each one.
• Look at the display and find the assist level number. Make sure you know what it reads before you set off.
• Start at the lowest assist level in an open, quiet space. A parking lot early in the day is ideal.
• Press the assist buttons one at a time and glance at the display after each press.
• Practice a few gentle stops with nothing else going on. Get a feel for the brakes on their own.
• Keep control changes and braking separate. Adjust when you're rolling steadily, brake when you need to stop.

Our guest admitted at the end that it was his first day and he just needed to get used to the power assist and the different combinations available. That's exactly right. A first ride isn't the time to master everything. It's the time to learn where everything is, and after a few sessions, the controls become second nature.

Our guest didn't only ride the fat tire version that day. Right at the start of the video, he described the Simple Glide Fat Tire as having a bit more power than its "smaller cousin," and once his ride was over, he shared how the two compared. Since a lot of shoppers end up weighing the same choice, I want to give his impressions their own space.

What he said, in his own words

His comparison was short, but it covered the things most people care about. The power was noticeably more on the fat tire. He liked the ride on it better, and he explained why: the extra weight made it feel more stable. He was also careful to say they're just different, not that one is good and the other is bad. For him, the bigger trike felt better. And he made a point that I think is important for anyone deciding between them: they both handle real easy.

That's a balanced verdict from someone who had just ridden both, and I'd take it at face value. This isn't a case of one trike being a clear upgrade in every way. It's a case of two trikes with a shared design that feel different under you, and one rider who preferred the heavier, more powerful feel.

Some context from our own comparison

We've compared the original Simple Glide 500-watt with the Simple Glide Fat Tire 750-watt in a previous video, and a few of the differences we covered there line up with what our guest felt. The most obvious one is the motor: 750 watts on the fat tire versus 500 watts on the original. The fat tire version also uses a rear-mounted motor, where the original uses a front hub motor. And the weight difference is smaller than you might expect. In that comparison, the fat tire came in at about 96 pounds and the regular-tire version at about 92 pounds, so roughly four pounds apart.

Four pounds doesn't sound like much on paper, but combined with the wider tires, it's enough for a rider like our guest to describe the fat tire as more planted and stable. Wider tires put more rubber on the ground. Our product page describes the 4-inch tires as giving more stability, and that matches what he reported.

"They both handle real easy"

I want to come back to this line, because it's the one I'd want a shopper to remember. Our guest's preference for the fat tire wasn't about the smaller trike being hard to ride. He said plainly that both were easy to handle. His preference came down to feel: more power and more weight gave him a sense of stability that suited him.

That's why I always encourage people to think about what they actually want from their rides. If the idea of a stronger motor and a heavier, more planted trike sounds appealing, the fat tire version is worth a close look. If those things don't matter much to you, the fact that our guest found both trikes easy to handle is a good sign that you won't be giving up comfort or control either way.

Same concepts, different feel

The other thing he said at the very start of the video applies here too: all the concepts are still the same. The way he learned to pair gears and pedal assist on the fat tire is the same way you'd approach either Simple Glide. The seating position, the general control layout, and the idea of a supportive, recumbent-style ride carry across the family. Moving between them, you're adjusting to a difference in power and weight, not learning a new machine from scratch.

For a rider who is still deciding, that's a nice position to be in. You're not choosing between two completely different experiences. You're choosing which version of the same comfortable experience fits you better.

How to decide for yourself

Our guest's comparison is one rider's opinion, and I'd treat it that way. What felt more stable to him might feel heavier to someone else, and what felt like the right amount of power for him might be more than another rider needs. The best way to settle it is the way he did: ride both, back to back if you can, and pay attention to which one you'd rather be sitting on an hour into a ride.

If you'd like to compare options across the whole range, you can browse all of our electric tricycles in one place. And if you're torn, our team is happy to talk you through the differences based on how and where you plan to ride.

After the ride, our guest sat back and gave his overall verdict. Beyond the power and the stability, there was one thing he kept coming back to: the seat. "The seat is real comfortable," he said. "I was trying not to doze off, it was so comfortable." Then he laughed it off, said again that it was really comfortable, and finished with a line I didn't have to coax out of him: "I love these trikes."

I've heard a lot of riders praise the comfort of the Simple Glide Fat Tire, but I don't think anybody has put it quite like that. When someone on their very first ride, in an unfamiliar parking lot, learning new controls, still finds the seat so comfortable that they joke about falling asleep, that tells you something.

Why the seat feels the way it does

The Simple Glide Fat Tire uses what our product page describes as an office chair style seat: an oversized comfort contour seat with a backrest and armrests. Instead of perching on a narrow saddle, you sit back into it, and your back, shoulders, and arms are supported while you ride. There's also an integrated footrest, so if you switch to the throttle, you can fold it down, rest your legs, and let the motor carry you for a while.

That kind of seating changes what a ride feels like. A lot of people who come to us have given up on regular bikes because of a sore back, sore hips, or an uncomfortable saddle. A supportive, chair-style seat takes many of those complaints off the table. If comfort is the main thing you're shopping for, have a look at our collection of the most comfortable electric trikes.

Getting on and off

Comfort isn't only about the seat. It's also about how easy it is to get onto the trike and off again. The Simple Glide Fat Tire has a low step-through frame, so there's no high leg lift involved in mounting. For riders with stiff joints, limited flexibility, or balance concerns, that matters just as much as how the ride feels once you're seated. We've gathered our trikes that share that design in our easy-to-mount e-trikes with a low step-thru collection.

Fit and capacity

According to our product page, the Simple Glide Fat Tire fits riders from 5 feet up to 6 feet 4 inches, and the seat and handlebars can be adjusted with quick-release clamps, so you can find a comfortable position without tools. It has a 350-pound weight capacity. If you're a bigger rider and want to see every trike built with that in mind, take a look at our electric trikes with high weight capacity.

If you're not sure whether a particular trike will fit your body, I'd strongly suggest getting fitted before you buy. Height is only part of the picture. Arm length, leg length, and how you like to sit all play into whether a trike will feel as good to you as this one did to our guest.

Range, storage, and practical details

A comfortable trike isn't much use if it can't get you where you're going, so here's what our product page lists on the practical side. The Simple Glide Fat Tire runs on a 48-volt, 15-amp-hour battery with a range of up to 50 miles per charge, and that battery is UL 2271 certified. The frame folds for storage and transport, which is handy if you live somewhere with limited space or want to bring the trike along in an RV or truck. You can see our other space-saving options in our folding electric trikes collection.

The current model also includes a rear hitch connector, which lets you add an extra subframe and then either a cargo basket or a passenger seat. Our guest didn't use any attachments in this video, but it's worth knowing the option is there if you'd like to carry groceries or bring someone along later.

Who I think this trike suits

Based on what our guest experienced and what the trike is built to do, I'd point a few kinds of riders toward the Simple Glide Fat Tire. If comfort is your top priority, the seat speaks for itself. If you want a trike that feels planted and stable, our guest's comparison suggests the fat tire version delivers that. And if you're a senior or a rider with balance concerns who wants independence without worrying about tipping, the combination of three wheels, wide tires, and a supportive seat is a strong fit. You can explore more options built with that in mind in our electric trikes for seniors collection.

What his first day really shows

Looking back at the whole video, what stands out to me isn't any single feature. It's the arc of the ride. Our guest started out unsure which button was which, took a wrong turn, overshot the minus button, and admitted he'd forgotten about pedal assist altogether. By the end, he had worked out how to pair his gears with the motor, learned to read the assist level on the display, and climbed off saying he loved these trikes.

That's what a good first day on an e-trike looks like. You don't need to get everything right. You need a machine that's forgiving while you learn, comfortable enough that you want to keep riding, and simple enough that the controls start to make sense within a few minutes. Our guest got all three.

If you'd like to find out how the Simple Glide Fat Tire feels for yourself, our 30-day test ride gives you time to ride it at home, on your own routes, and see whether you end up saying the same thing he did. Just try not to doze off.