Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Culture

Ride Back to the Future on a Classy E-Bike from Vintage Electric

TJ Carter
By

Vintage Electric e-bike
Image used with permission by copyright holder
The summer was made for riding bikes. The sunshine and breeze can stir euphoria in almost anyone. Sadly, too many people are deterred by the effort involved with riding a bike. Thanks to Vintage Electric — an  electric bike brand from Santa Clara, CA — you can enjoy the sweet liberty of an effort-optional bike ride.

Electric bikes aren’t new, of course, but Vintage Electric knows how to make them look good. They released their flagship model, the E-Tracker, in 2013. Last month, they released their second model, the Cruz. Both models are inspired by early motorcycles — specifically the board track racers of yesteryear.

e-tracker-2-1440
Image used with permission by copyright holder

We love how these bikes straddle the saddle between past and present. In addition to their slick art deco design, these puppies have a number of sophisticated features that boost performance, comfort, and safety. For example, the burly disc brakes deliver regenerative braking, the LED lights shed reliable light on any situation, and the comfy leather saddle and handlebar grips from Brooks make the ride as smooth as possible.

Recommended Videos

The most impressive feature of all is the electric battery. Each bike will take you 30 miles on a single charge, and it only takes two hours to reach full juice. In Race Mode, you can clock an astounding 36 miles per hour, making these bikes the fastest electric bikes on the market.

Related: The Manual’s Guide To Bad-Ass Bike Gear

The E-Tracker and Cruz probably won’t tear the world from its dependence on oil, but they will help. According to the specs on the Cruz, each charge costs just $0.18. If you charged your e-bike once a day, you’d only spend $65 in a year, or roughly as much as it costs to fill the tank of an SUV just once.

Both the Cruz and the E-Tracker sell for just under $5,000. While that may seem steep for a bike, it’s pretty good for an electric steampunk machine that will keep you rolling for decades. You can visit Vintage Electric’s website to get started building your e-bike and selecting the features that most appeal to you.

Editors' Recommendations

TJ Carter
TJ Carter
Former Digital Trends Contributor
TJ Carter wears many hats, both figuratively and literally. He graduated from the University of Oregon in 2011 with a degree…
How long should you let new cigars rest in a humidor?
Cigar humidor

Looking at those beautiful, oily cigars you've just unboxed or unwrapped, the calling to light up is real. I get it. I always want to smoke my cigars right away, too. But you shouldn't. Mail day is always exciting after you've ordered a slew of new cigars. When they arrive, the real fun begins. You'll probably need to organize your humidor to make the new sticks fit or arrange them for optimal humidification. As you're handling them, it's difficult to resist the temptation to crack open the cellophane or boxes and smoke one right away. While you can do that in most cases, I would recommend against it. Depending on where those cigars came from, where you live, and how they traveled, they might need a little time to rest in a humidor. They'll need to replenish some humidity and moisture or dry out a little.
How long should you let your new cigars rest?

When you put cigars in a humidor, especially one that's filled, they'll soak up and release humidity over time until they reach the average RH (relative humidity) that you have set inside your humidor. If you have a device like a that does this automatically, it will produce moisture and humidity to keep the levels optimal. You can also achieve the same thing with in smaller humidors, which release and soak up the humidity to match the levels on the label. Boveda packs come in a range of RH levels, from the low to mid-60s to the mid-70s.

Read more
The 11 best Kevin Costner movies, ranked
He has a full resume of films, but if you're a Costner fan, then you must see these movies
Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves

An all-American, blue-collar working man turned Hollywood essential, Kevin Costner has lived a life full of experience and dreams that some can only imagine. Starting out as a small kid -- 5'2" at high school graduation -- who moved around a lot, Costner was fond of things like poetry, writing, and singing in his Baptist choir. Outside of the arts, he was also very interested in sports of all kinds, which is reflected in his film career to this day. Also a man of the outdoors, Costner built his own canoe at 18 and paddled it through sections where Lewis and Clark ventured. Fun facts aside, Costner had a full and interesting life before the world got to know him as the charming and eloquent movie man we know him to be today.
From his past life, accomplishments, and hobbies, Costner was fully prepared to write, direct, and act for the screen as he fulfilled yet another lifelong dream. A man who was once called "The King of the Sports Movie," Costner has been able to act in films of a subject matter near and dear to his heart that became the films he is best known for. And that doesn’t include his many other successful movies having to do with politics, crime, and romance that also make for some of his best roles. Luckily, we’re here to talk about all of those films at once as we celebrate the man who has accomplished more in one lifetime than some could in many. Here are the best Kevin Costner movies of all time.

11. Open Range (2003)

Read more
The best Quentin Tarantino movies, ranked – Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and more
If you haven't seen these films at least one time, you need to ... and then watch them again and again
Scene from Pulp Fiction, John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson

Of all the contemporary film auteurs, perhaps no one’s work has permeated pop culture as thoroughly as Quentin Tarantino's. This director’s hyper-stylized, retro fantasy worlds have come to define cinematic coolness. His clever mashups of genres, exquisite sense of aesthetics, impeccable editing, uproarious suspensefulness, and impossibly quippy dialogue have been endlessly imitated.
Given the current political landscape, Tarantino’s work has undergone a serious critical re-evaluation from Black and feminist critics and scholars who point toward both his allegedly abusive behaviors and the offensive politics and rhetoric of his films. It’s true that in this new light, for many, there may be nothing redeemable about his entire oeuvre. 
However, to discard all Quentin Tarantino movies would discount the impossible talent of his frequent collaborators and stars, such as Sally Menke (who edited all of Tarantino’s movies until her death in 2010), Uma Thurman (who not only played the protagonist of Tarantino’s most iconic movies but was also credited as a co-writer on Kill Bill), Samuel L. Jackson (a frequent Tarantino star), and many more.
With that in mind, here’s our (subjective!) ranking of the greatest directed Quentin Tarantino movies of all time.

9. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)

Read more