Being able to ride an e-bike on an assortment of trails is one thing. But being able to continue with overland riding once the trail has ended takes an entirely different type of e-bike. When you’re cutting your path through fields, forests and deserts, a powerful all-wheel drive e-bike like the Super Monarch Crown AWD 1500 can absolutely get it done.
The hunter edition of the Super Monarch Crown AWD 1500 adds functional utility and a camo paint job to help you blend in while silently blazing through nature.
You don’t have to be an actual hunter to enjoy this bike, though I hear it certainly is popular with that crowd.
Everyone from nature explorers to bird watchers to survivalists can benefit from a powerful e-bike that is armed to the teeth with extra battery capacity and full-suspension to tackle the worst that nature can throw in your path.
You’ll surely want to see this e-bike in action in my video review below. Then continue reading to learn even more about this go-anywhere fat tire e-bike.
Super Monarch Crown AWD 1500 Hunter video review
Super Monarch Crown AWD 1500 Hunter tech specs:
- Motor(s): twin geared 750W continuous (1,100W peak)
- Top speed: 32 mph (51 km/h)
- Battery: 52V 14Ah (728Wh) & 52V 17.5Ah (910Wh)
- Weight: 95 lb (43 kg)
- Weight capacity: 400 lb (181 kg)
- Frame: 6061 aluminum
- Front suspension: RST air suspension shock
- Rear suspension: RockShox Monarch RL
- Tires: Vee Bulldozer 26×4.25” MPC
- Brakes: Four-piston Tektro Dorado HD-E730 hydraulic disc brakes, 203 mm diameter and 2.3mm thick rotors
- Extras: Front and rear rack, LCD display with speedometer, power meter, battery meter, PAS level indicator, odometer, tripmeter, light status indicator, front and rear LED lights, left-side thumb throttle, Shimano Deore 10-speed transmission, three frame sizes available (M, L, XL) and an accessory pack including helmet, gloves, mirrors, cargo net, rack-mounted tool kit, electric pump, and two panniers
A big bike for big rides
The first thing you’ll notice about the Super Monarch Crown AWD 1500 Hunter Edition e-bike is the size. This thing is simply massive. It’s available in three frame sizes, but the bike is huge any way you slice it.
The wheels and tires are gigantic. There are big batteries seemingly everywhere. Front and rear racks add to the bulk. Basically, if you’re on the hunt for a small e-bike then you need to look elsewhere.
The good news is that the massive size also makes this e-bike the ultimate overlanding two-wheeler. As much as I’d love a cool AWD electric farm bike like an UBCO 2X2, the cost is still hard for me and many others to stomach. But a powerful e-bike like this one can perform the same role by allowing you to ride up, over, and through just about any obstacle, trail be damned.
At $4,295, this is of course not a cheap e-bike. But it’s also barely just an e-bike; it’s an off-road machine. When you need to push deeper into nature than you ever would on a typical e-bike, yet want to know that you can still get out (even dragging a trailer full of deer, firewood, or whatever else you can haul behind you), this is the type of e-bike for you. Plus, E-cells includes a pile of accessories like pannier bags, tool kits, cargo nets, helmets, electric air pumps and other goodies in with the bike, so you’re really getting a lot for your money here.
A pair of massive 52V-powered 1,100 W peak motors make just about anything possible. On pavement I can chirp the tires, they’re that powerful. With enough room to run I can easily break 30 mph (51 km/h). On the dirt I’m slinging earth as I accelerate. In fact, the optional single-wheel drive selector is actually quite handy because sometimes I don’t need all the power this e-bike offers.
And of course there’s a lot of battery power here too to make sure those powerful motors can keep running for your entire ride. The two packs add up to over 1,600 Wh of capacity. It’s hard to interpret that into a range rating because this bike is designed to cover such diverse landscapes. On the street that could net you over 60 miles or 100 km of range as long as you go easy on the throttle. Add some pedal assist and you could get even more.
If you really get into the dirt and ride hard, 30 miles might be a more accurate range estimate.
Suffice it to say that you’ve got a lot of battery at your disposal.
Full-suspension and fat tires combine beautifully
There’s something about a full-suspension fat tire bike that brings out the kid in everyone. It makes me go, “Ooh, I want to ride over that!” several times on each ride I take.
As an overlanding vehicle, the combination of fat tires and full-suspension are critical when the trail ends and you’re literally blazing your own path.
The fat tires almost float through loose terrain like sand. The suspension is actually quite high end, not like cheap suspension we’ve seen on other fat tire FS e-bikes, and is a big part of that higher $4K+ purchase price. When you’re dropping a 95 lb bike over logs though, you’ll be happy you have this nicer suspension.
Another high-end component I haven’t touched on yet are the brakes. Not only are these high quality four-piston hydraulic disc brakes, but the rotors are absolutely massive at 203 mm in diameter and even thicker than most at 2.3 mm. Those calipers might as well be biting down on freaking flywheels!
And for a transmission you get a 10-speed Shimano Deore derailleur. That’s a nice piece of kit right there, and is a far cry over the entry-level derailleurs you find on most other e-bikes that don’t have a mega-brand label on the side.
The bike of course isn’t perfect. I wouldn’t call it nimble by any stretch of the imagination, though few fat tire e-bikes are. I like to keep my tire pressure low in these types of giant tires and that only further reduces the response time for quick steering inputs.
But a bike like this isn’t built to be nimble, it’s built to make up for that with sheer power. Even if you don’t pick the perfect line through a gravel berm, you’ve got the power and grip to just power through anyways.
One other area I would have loved to have seen improved is the pedal assist sensor. It’s fine, but it’s just a cadence sensor. For this amount of money, a torque sensor would have been a nice upgrade. Torque sensors give you more immediate pedal assist response, while cadence sensors have that tell-tall lag when you first start pedaling.
On flat ground I don’t notice the difference after the first few seconds, but startups can be a chore on just cadence sensors. Of course you also have that throttle there when you need a boost getting rolling, even if you plan to use mostly pedal power for a nice workout.
Who are these types of e-bikes for?
There are plenty of dual-purpose e-bikes out there. If you simply need a bike that you can ride on both the street and the trails, you can look at other models. You don’t need this much e-bike. E-cells makes less ridiculously overpowered e-bikes as well. Half this much power is fine for most people.
But anyone who really wants to chart their own path and explore nature to the fullest extent, riding where no one has ridden before, this is the type of e-bike for you.
This is definitely for a specialty type of rider. Its huge weight rating and the ability to climb massive hills or pull massive loads speaks to that specialization.
This is an e-bike that could actually replace dirt bikes and farm bikes as a silent, environmentally conscious alternative. Instead of fiddling with a carburetor before every trip, you could simply unplug and ride.
These types of powerful e-bikes don’t just offer stealth to get you into nature unnoticed, they also do it without the annoying roar of an engine underneath you.
To me, e-bikes are the ultimate way to explore nature. And powerful e-bikes like these make it possible to simply choose a direction and go, no need to follow someone else’s trail.
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Author: Micah Toll
Source: Electrek
