GoTrax Tundra Fat Tire EBike – Test and Review

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A high powered fat tire electric bike with a great torque sensor and a super long range 20 ah battery.

Manufacturer and Model: Gotrax Tundra
List Price: $1499

Summary

The Gotrax Tundra is a fat tire electric bike that delivers more performance for its price than any other fat tire electric bike out there. You get a 750 watt hub motor, 48 volt 20 ah battery, torque sensor, hydraulic disc brakes, and color LCD display. It’s torque sensor has a cadence sensor like mode so you can get the natural easy to control feel of a torque sensor and get the easy to pedal high speed and climbing performance of a cadence sensor. Gotrax left nothing on the table when they designed this bike.

Gotrax Tundra Review and Test

The Tundra is the first fat tire e-bike from GoTrax. GoTrax bikes and scooters always shoot above their price point for performance. The Tundra continues that tradition packing in features that no other e-bike out there matches for the price. They not only throw in a 20 ah battery but also give you a torque sensor and a color LCD display.

We picked up a green step over Tundra to try out. The Tundra is available in 2 colors in both a step over and step thru frame. They only offer one frame size for each frame type.

There were a few surprises we found with the Tundra when we started riding it. The first is that the top speed for pedal assist is 28mph, not 20mph as published by Gotrax. The second is that this bike has a torque sensor that acts like a torque sensor for PAS modes 1-4. For PAS mode 5, the bike acts like a cadence sensor and will let you ghost pedal up to max speed.

I see a lot of complaints from Aventon Aventure 2 owners who don’t like how hard you have to pedal to hit high speeds and go up steep hills. Gotrax solved that problem on the Tundra with the PAS level 5. You get all the benefits of a torque sensor for range, control, and a natural feeling bike. When you want to go fast and don’t want to put in any effort, you can do that too.

1 – 750 watt geared rear hub motor

The Tundra has a Bafang 750 watt geared rear hub motor. This is a reliable motor used in a lot of ebikes that produces good power.

2 – 48 volt 20 ah removable battery

The Tundra comes with a 20ah battery. Most bikes in this price range come with a 14-15ah battery. This means you get 25% more range with the Tundra than a bike with a 15ah battery. This can save you from needing to carry a second battery. It means you can go faster speeds without worrying about draining the battery too fast.

3 – 4 inch wide fat tires and front suspension

The Tundra comes with 26 x 4 inch fatbike tires and a coil spring front suspension fork. The front fork is a generic coil fork with a lock out and a preload adjustment. I cranked the preload up as high as I could on my bike. I didn’t notice the fork feeling that much stiffer. A coil sprung fork will never have the tunability of an air sprung fork.

4 – Torque Sensor and Cadence Sensor

Gotrax publishes that the Tundra has a torque sensor and makes no reference to a cadence sensor in the manual or website. PAS levels 1-4 act like a typical torque sensor with a nice, easy to control, natural feel. In PAS 5, the bike behaves like a cadence sensor bike. It will ghost pedal in 1st gear up to just under 28mph. It will stay there as long as you keep the cranks moving.

One big complaint I see about torque sensor bikes is that they make you work harder to go higher speeds. They can make hill climbing more difficult. This is true in a lot of cases. The pedal drivelines aren’t geared for going much over 20mph so you have to pedal like a maniac to get the bike to go 28mph. Our Aventon Aventure 2 and Level 2 are both this way. As we mentioned earlier, the Tundra operates like a cadence sensor bike in PAS 5 and will let you easily go 28mph or zoom up hills. This is a huge advantage for the Tundra over the Aventure 2.

5 – Power (9.5/10)

The Gotrax Tundra has a good range of power for the different PAS levels. It is a very mild e-bike on PAS level 1 and 2. Level 3 feels like a good balance of power without being too aggressive. Level 4 starts flexing the bikes muscles. Level 5 gives you everything the bike has got as soon as you push the cranks.

Top Speed

Gotrax publishes a top speed of 20mph for the Tundra. As delivered the bike has a throttle only top speed of just over 20mph. In pedal assist the bike will go up to 28mph. In PAS 1-4 you have to pedal to get it there. You can hit speeds over 25mph in PAS 4 pedalling hard. In PAS 5 which acts like a cadence sensor. the bike will easily go just under 28mph.

• Throttle – Max Speed GPS – 19.3 mph
• Throttle – Max speed shown on display – 20.3 mph

• Pedal Assist – Max Speed GPS – 26.36 mph
• Pedal Assist – Max speed shown on display – 28.2 mph

Hill climbing

I have a standard hill climbing test I do with every e-bike. This is a half mile climb with a few sections of 10% grade. It is a challenging and tiring hill to ride on a non-ebike. I do this test with a 250 lb rider. I do it twice. Once using throttle only. Once using maximum pedal assist.

The Gotrax took 1 minute and 54 seconds to go up the hill on throttle only with an average speed of 16.65mph. This was very close in time to the Aventon Aventure 2 (1 min 53 sec) and Himiway Zebra (1 min 57 sec). This is about average for a 750 watt electric fat tire bike.

We set the bike to PAS 5 and repeated the hill climb while pedaling. The Tundra has a top speed of 28mph when riding in pedal assist mode. The Tundra completed the hill in a blistering 1 minute and 32 seconds with an average speed of 20.59 mph. This makes it the fastest bike to date climbing in pedal assist. The prior record being the Himiway Cruiser with a time of 1 minute and 44 seconds.

• Throttle Only – 1 min and 54 seconds. Average speed 16.65 mph
• Pedal Assist – 1 min and 32 seconds. Average speed 20.59 mph

The Gotrax Tundra is a very good hill climbing bike.

Acceleration

The bikes acceleration is proportional to the pedal assist level you set it in. It’s mild in PAS 1. In PAS 4 you get a lot of power. In PAS5 you get the full 750 watts non-stop until the bike hits top speed.

In throttle mode, the Tundra acceleration and power is comparable to other faster 750 watt bikes from Aventon, Himiway, and Ride1Up.

6 – Range (10/10)

I took the bike for my standard range test ride. This is a ride out to a nearby park, around a lake at the park, and back again. For bikes with a 20 ah battery that is going to have a longer range, I go around the lake twice. This route has a decent amount of climbing with 10% grades. I try to ride as close to 15mph as I can for every bike. I use a 250 lb rider.

I try to get a real world usage mileage out of the ride. A flat bike path going 10mph with a 125 lb rider isn’t the way most of these bikes will get used. It’s how a lot of e-bike makers figure out their published range.

Pedal assist

I used Pedal Assist level 3 for the range test. It gave enough assist on the hills to make them easy and maybe a little more assistance than needed on flat sections. I rode the bike at approximately 15-16mph for the entire ride. The Tundra went 55.0 miles with 1401 feet of hill climbing before the battery died. This is much farther than the 44 miles our Aventon Aventure 2 went. It was a few miles less than our Himiwa Zebra (also with a 20 ah battery) which went 63 miles on the same route.

Had I ridden the bike on PAS level 2 instead of 3, I’m betting I could have gotten over 60 miles. I would have had to put in a lot more pedaling effort for some of the steep hills on the route.

The battery remaining in the display is for the most part accurate. We were right around 30 miles into the ride at 50% to go. When you hit a hill with under 20% left you may notice a large sag where you lose 5 to 7% of battery left all at once. Sometimes it recovers if you ride on a flat or downhill after the hill. Sometimes it doesn’t.

This bike took a sudden drop from 8% to 0%. It went for about 1/2 mile with normal feeling power at 0% and then suddenly shut itself off. The moral of the story is that you want to be close to home when you go below 15%.

Throttle Only

I repeated the range test again on the same route using throttle only. The Tundra went 42.1 miles before the battery died and the bike shut itself off. This is slightly more than the Himiway Zebra which went 41.6 miles. It is about 7 miles more than the Aventon Aventure 2 went.

7 – Ride and Handling (9.0/10)

I took the Tundra out to ride on a variety of surfaces. I rode everything from paved bike paths and streets to offroad jeep trails to mountain bike trails. The Tundra is the SUV of bikes that is good at almost everything.

Comfort

The included seat is pretty cushy and comfortable for longer rides. The seat has a lot of cushion and provides good support. It has enough spring in it to absorb some cracks in the pavement and small potholes. You’ll want to lift your butt up off the seat for larger bumps or consider getting a suspension seatpost if you want to remain seated for the entire ride.

The riding position feels very upright. The bike has straight mountain bike looking handlebars. The reach is smaller on the bike so they are closer to you. As someone just under 6 feet tall I felt the bike was a very good fit size wise. My wife who is a 5’6″ had no problem riding it with the seat lowered.

Cornering

The bike feels very sure and steady when riding at higher speeds. With 25 psi in the tires, it felt solid carving around corners with a little lean. I never felt like the bike was going too fast right up to 28mph. It always felt stable and in control. The bike is fun to zoom around corners on the paved bike paths around here.

8 – Offroading with the Gotrax Tundra

The Tundra front fork does a decent job of absorbing bumps in the terrain. I didn’t find it bottoming out much going over roots and holes. The bike is easy to control with the torque sensor when you need it to go slow around tight corners and obstacles. There is no jump ahead when the motor turns on like a cadence sensor bike.

This bike is most fun to ride on dirt roads and wider jeep trails. It likes going fast tearing up fire roads.

We took the Tundra to a nearby mountain bike trail that allows ebikes. The bike is nimble enough for short turny trails. It is more of a flow trail bike than a technical trail bike. The tires give it plenty of suspension if you drop the tire pressure down to 10-15psi before going offroading. If you were going to ride on rough trails a lot, I would remove the fenders because they rattle a lot once the trail gets rough.

9 – Braking (9.0/10)

The Nutt brand hydraulic brakes feel good for this bike and it’s weight. They will bring the bike to a quick stop from 28mph. The brakes are quiet with only a little hint of squeal when you really lay into them. They are quiet compared to some other bikes we have ridden that screech up a storm on heavy braking.

10 – Controls (9.0/10)

The Tundra has a simple set of controls consisting of 3 buttons on the left handlebar and a color LCD screen in the middle. It has a thumb throttle on the left handlebar and a bell on the right handlebar.

LCD Display

The Tundra has an easy to read color LCD display. It is backlit and the level of backlight is adjustable in the settings menu. The basic display shows your speed, what level of assist you are in, trip mileage, and odometer. It shows your battery status at the top.

The battery remaining is very small in the top left corner. Since this is a color LCD display, it could have been made much larger and easier to read using the whole top of the screen. I’m not sure why they programmed it to be so small on the display.

There is an alternate statistics display you can view that shows things like maximum speed and calories burned for the last 12 minutes of riding.

Control buttons

The bike has 3 buttons for controlling functions. There is a power button and an up and down button. You get headlights by holding down the up button. You get walk mode by holding down the down button. You can switch to show some riding statistics by holding down the up and power button. (it only shows stats for the last 12 minutes of riding). You can access the settings menu by holding down the up and down buttons for a few seconds.

The up and down buttons are easy to hit while riding to change the PAS level. Overall the controls are simple but they let you do everything you need to do.

Pedal Assist and Throttle

The Thundra has 5 levels of pedal assist and also a thumb throttle on the left handlebar. As we mentioned earlier. PAS levels 1-4 give you a bike with a torque sensor that gives you proportionately more assist for each higher level. You only get a little help in level 1. You get a bike with aggressive acceleration in level 4.

PAS Level 5 is completely different and gives you a bike that behaves like it has a cadence sensor. It still has the sensitivity for starting out like a torque sensor. A little push on the pedals and the bike is off. Once activated the motor goes to full power and gives you full power acceleration up to just under 28mph as long as you keep the pedals spinning. You can ghost pedal from stop up to 28mph in gear 1.

If you stop pedalling the motor will cut out. You’ll need to get load on the pedals to get the motor going again so you’ll need a higher gear, than gear 1. PAS 5 acts like a cadence sensor once the motor is activated. It needs to see torque in the pedals to restart and then act like a cadence sensor again until you stop turning the pedals.

7 speed pedal driveline

The bike uses Shimano Tourney shifter and derailleur for the 7 speed pedal driveline. This is my biggest dislike about the bike. No bike over $1000 should ever have Tourney components. Tourney is found on every $150-$300 non electric bike at big box stores. It doesn’t belong on any bike marketed for offroad use. Other bikes in this price point almost always have a 1 step up Altus derailleur and sometimes an Altus shifter.

I can see why they do this. This bike has a lot of power and the pedal driveline isn’t going to take the abuse it would on a non-electric fat tire mountain bike. The Tourney shifter is over the handlebar and you can easily see what gear the bike is in. At the same time, it’s not the smoothest shifting system. A Tourney or Altus derailleur is not going to survive hitting a rock or root while offroading. You’ll still have throttle to get you home until you can get a new part.

The 7 speed driveline has enough range for going up to about 24mph easily in the torque sensor PAS modes. Above 24mph you have a really fast pedal cadence and it’s difficult to push hard enough to get much more speed out of the bike. Fortunately, there is PAS 5 that lets you ghost pedal up to 28mph with ease.

11 – Assembly Ease (8.5/10)

The Gotrax Tundra only requires a small amount of assembly to be ready to ride. It comes with all the tools needed. The bike comes in a large cardboard box. It uses a lot of white foam for padding. We prefer cardboard and other recyclable packaging materials. We throw out a ton of foam blocks and plastic wrap on review items here.

Assembly Time – 45 minutes

It took me about 45 minutes to complete the assembly process not counting a run to Home Depot for an M4 bolt to hold the display. The only assembly steps are:

• Mounting the front wheel
• Putting the handlebar on
• Mounting the front light
• Mounting the front fender
• Mounting the pedals.

The front wheel has a black plastic shield on it to protect the disc brake. There is a black nut on the end of the front axle that is used to hold the wheel to the fork. This black nut can get stuck in the black plastic disc when you remove it. I spun the plastic disc off the wheel and didn’t notice the nut was in the disc until I went to put the wheel on.

The LCD display has 2 fasteners to tighten it and keep it from flipping around. I found one of the fasteners loose in the bottom of the box. I never found the second one. The fasteners are M4 x 12mm cap screws. You can get these in the hardware section at Home Depot for $2 or order some from Amazon.

Extra tools required

No extra tools are needed. A multi-tool and a pedal wrench are included. There is no step where you need more than one tool to tighten anything.

Adjustments needed

The rear derailleur on my bike was adjusted correctly out of the box. This is rare. We have had to adjust it on the majority of e-bikes we have gotten to get smooth shifting.

See Parktool for how to adjust a rear derailleur if your bike doesn’t shift smoothly.

12 – Accessories

The Tundra comes with front and rear lights and a set of fenders. It does not come with any racks. A front and rear rack are available from Gotrax.

Lights

The front light is mounted on the handlebar with a metal bracket that hangs it out a few inches. This is a much better headlight execution than the typical wire mount to the fork combined with the fender mount. The light is above the suspension fork so it doesn’t bounce around a lot.

The rear light is mounted in 2 of the seat stays. This means that the light isn’t attached to the rear fender. You still have lights even when riding without fenders on the bike. The rear light also functions as a brake light when you press either brake lever.

Fenders

The fenders are heavy duty and made of metal. They are holding up so far to our use off road. The rear fender comes installed. You have to install the front fender yourself.

Optional Front and Rear rack

The Tundra does not come with a front or rear rack. Gotrax does sell racks for the Tundra if you want them.

13 – Size and Fit

The Tundra does not have a published rider size range for the Tundra. The Tundra is very close to a regular sized frame Aventon Aventure or RadPowerBikes RadRover. The stepover frame will work for riders 5’6″ up to 6’2″. I am just under 6′ and my wife is 5’6″ and both of us can comfortably ride the step over version. The step-through frames are usually good for riders a few inches shorter than the step over frames.

14 – Gotrax Tundra vs the Aventon Aventure 1 and 2

The Aventon Aventure is the most popular electric fat tire bike out there. It’s clear that Gotrax wanted to be a serious contender in the fat tire bike category with the Tundra. How does it compare to the Aventure?

Price

Let’s start with price. The Gotrax Tundra retails for $1499. The Aventon Aventure 2 retails for $1799. The Aventon Aventure 1 retails for $1499 like the Tundra. The Tundra is the clear winner on price with a bigger battery and torque sensor.

Basic Specs

Both bikes have a 750 watt rear hub motor. Both bikes have a color LCD display. Both bikes have hydraulic disc brakes and coil spring front suspension forks. Both bikes have a 20mph top speed with motor power and 28mph top speed with pedal assist.

Battery

From there the Tundra brings out the big guns with a 20 ah battery. The Aventure only comes with 15 ah. The Tundra is the clear winner on battery capacity and range. In our tests, it went about 10 miles farther than the Aventure on the same route.

Pedal Sensor

The Aventure 1 has a cadence sensor and the Aventure 2 has a torque sensor. I have spent enough time on the Aventure 2 to know that it has a really good feel and performance under 20mph. Above 20mph it requires a ton of pedalling effort to go faster. The Aventure 1 has a cadence sensor and goes 28mph very easily. It doesn’t have the control and feel of the torque sensor.

The Tundra has an equally good feeling torque sensor for PAS levels 1-4. As we mentioned before, in PAS 5 it acts like a cadence sensor and you can ghost pedal your way up to 28mph and zoom up hills without any pedaling effort. The Tundra is the clear winner here over either Aventure.

Pedal Driveline

The Gotrax Tundra has a Shimano Tourney 7 speed pedal driveline. It has a Tourney derailleur and shifter. The Aventon Aventure has an Altus derailleur and shifter which are slightly better. Neither one is going to survive getting hit by a root or rock while riding offroad. The Aventon has a slight advantage with it’s pedal driveline.

Ride Quality and Comfort

When it comes to comfort and ride quality, there is no clear winner. Both bikes feel about the same. The Tundra brakes do not squeal as much as the Aventure brakes. Our Aventure 2 has a nice resonance hum at 16mph. The Tundra makes some motor noise and tire noise but is quiet otherwise.

Accessories

Both bikes come with similar level lights and fenders. The fenders are metal on both bikes instead of plastic. The Aventure’s come with a rear rack and have an available front rack and a few bag options. The Gotrax Tundra does not come with a rear rack but one is available. There isn’t much else in the way of accessories. If accessorizing is your thing the Aventon Aventure’s have a slight advantage.

Recommendation – Buy or No Buy?

If you want a lot of performance for the money, then buy the Gotrax Tundra. It has the best torque sensor system of any bike in its class. It has a 20 ah battery that gives it a really long range. It has a ton of power for climbing steep hills and riding high speeds.

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