Learning Curves with the Urban Arrow - The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
- Feb 23
- 6 min read
It’s been a few weeks since we got the Urban Arrow and with the snow finally melting a bit and the bike lanes cleared, I got a chance to take it out for a spin. Man, it was a decently eventful ride so let’s get into it.
The Good
Riding for Fun Again
Overall, the ride was great. The best part of the whole journey was just how nice the bike was to ride. It’s easy to shift gears and to use more or less effort. My speed is very much in the 15-20km/hr zone though because I ‘m just not used to going super fast and there’s enough debris in the bike lanes that I don’t feel comfortable going super duper fast.
Goodbye Headwinds!
One thing I especially loved was that I didn’t notice any headwinds while riding an e-bike. When I ride a regular acoustic bike, even a light 15 km/hr headwind can sometimes make life so difficult so I really appreciate having the pedal assist and how seamless it all felt.
Nice and Slim Profile
The bike, while being gigantic and almost 100lb is also fairly slim and barely wider than my regular bike. This is great because as long as you can see the headlight, you can fairly easily navigate narrow channels. And this came in super handy today because of the lil' paths of ‘cleared’ snow on the bike lanes.
Awesome Bucket Capacity
The bucket at the front is awesome too. Just so spacious and easy to use and fill. As I was doing my errands downtown, for the first time ever, I was not so much limited by the capacity of my bike to carry things home but my own capacity to carry the item from the store to the bike. For example, I wanted to bring some road salt home from Canadian Tire, but unfortunately they only sold quantities in 20kg bags. I was able to pick up the bag and carry it for a bit but being in my 3rd trimester, it was just too heavy for me to carry it safely out of the store. If I’m running errands with my partner, this would be less of a problem and the capacity of the front bucket will really open up some great options for local Ikea and Home Depot runs.
Parking
Parking was also not that big of an issue. Maybe it’s because much of the snow has buried the existing bike rings and less people are cycling overall, I found it fairly easy to park and lock up, despite the bike being extremely large and bulky. For future T&T and Ikea runs at the Eaton Centre, I would not hesitate to bring the Urban Arrow again.
The Bad
Turning
With how long the bike is, it’s fairly hard to make any sharp turns or U-turns. The people at the Bike Shop warned that we’ll have to learn how to make 100 point turns and … sadly they were not joking. We park the bike front-in in the shed and with how narrow the path is to the shed because of the snow, it was decently hard to back out and make a U-turn to the street.
Snow
The Urban Arrow just does not do well in any kind of snow conditions and while I did not expect it too, even a small patch of packed snow is enough to stop it in its tracks. It can crush through snow balls of fist/apple sizes fairly well but anything bigger, you’d get stuck and it’s hard to shift a 100lb bike stuck in snow, while in traffic. This wouldn’t be a problem 95% of the time but unfortunately we had a once in a generation snow storm with super bad snow clearing so this is the reality I live in 😢.
The Potholes
Toronto just has really horrible roads and with the latest storm, the usual freeze thaw cycle has made it even worst. The ride home today was very bumpy. We’re planning to ride with our infant in the bucket seat so we’ll need to carefully plan for some less potholed streets in his early days, which is fine. Our main destination will be the grocery store with him and there’s a decently paved path to get there. I would want to wait til he’s a bit older with better neck strength before we attempt to go to further, unknown destinations.
The Ugly
The Bike Cover 👎
One of the worst things about parking a bike with a basket/ trailer in downtown Toronto, besides the possibility of theft, is that people love to throw garbage in your basket. It’s really horrible and has unfortunately happened to me many times over the years. Some kind of a cover is a must and this is one of the things I miss most about cars - it’s very easy to lock them and properly secure items inside. We bought a cover for the Urban Arrow and wow, this thing just sucks. It took me and my partner about 30 minutes to put it on because it was just so tight and hard to fit on. At first, I was unable to see the front light and it just made the steering a nightmare. We re-adjusted and managed to get it somewhat on but it was just so hard to put on and take off properly.
My hope is that the cover is new and that’s why it’s so stiff but my hopes are not high. It seems like many of these cover type accessories from the Urban Arrow are just not well made and very expensive which is a shame. Many of the existing owners talk about the poor quality of the rain cover, which I also have and while it’s useful for kids, I’m not looking forward to installing it for next winter.
The Wheel Lock/ Locks in general 👎
[I will preface this section to say that I’ve always been horrible at unlocking anything so some of this may be user error]
The Urban Arrow comes pre-loaded with an Abus Wheel lock which is more common in places like the Netherlands. I’ve used wheel locks before and it was fine but I just found this particular one to be so finicky. Once I got to my destination, I was struggling with locking up the lock for a good 20 minutes before breaking down and giving my partner a call for help on the phone. It really should not be so hard to lock up your bike. At one point, I was even contemplating riding home empty handed but I figured I’d give him a call before I fully abandoned ship. Luckily he helped me with it over the phone and I was able to lock up but it was just a horrible experience in general.
Wheel locks also require you to keep the key in place while riding to keep it unlocked. It’s a good feature but it also risks the key potentially falling out and now you’ve lost all of your keys. The bike and lock are new so I’m not super worried about this yet but I’ve heard it happen to others that I’m feeling a bit paranoid and will be keeping the wheel lock key in its own key chain.
The battery locks with the same key and it has a similar problem of being hard to use though it’s less bad than the wheel lock. I find myself turning and re-turning the key many times to not hear any clicks and the battery not being installed properly. Locking up is so fussy that I’m going to give myself a 20 min head start before I make any trip for the next few months.
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Wow this post got way longer than I expected but I hope you’ve enjoyed my lil’ mini review from my first ‘real’ trip. I’m still really glad we have an Urban Arrow and while it’s unusual to see in the city of Toronto, I feel like I’m living life on a hack mode with how much capacity it gives me, and the ease of getting around even if I hate the built in locks.
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