Pacific E-Bike

They never answer customer service questions or requests. Also, they have become WAY to busy for the 1 person who works there. And they don’t have a mechanic.
If you’re buying a expensive complicated product like an e-​bike, I would highly suggest going to a more reputable store. Or getting cheaper prices online (e.g. alibaba express).

This is a small outfit selling electric bikes. There’s only one salesmen and he is arrogant and not that knowledgeable. If you do buy, their customer service is non-​existent, hey won’t even respond to messages to tell you they won’t fix anything. So, be warned, if you buy a bike there and something goes wrong (which is common on e-​bikes), you’ll have to find somewhere else to fix it, which is EXTREMELY hard to find.
Summary: avoid this place, you’re much better off buying from a reputable store.

Preston is very thorough, honest and knowledgeable. Great business, highly recommend.

I purchased a Terra electric bike from electric bike specialist Pacific E-​bike 4 years ago for about $ 1000. I use it to commute daily, 4 miles each away. I go up a fairly steep hill for a mile on the way home each day.
I have been very happy with the bike and the service I’ve received over the years. The Terras of that time were about 50 pounds but I understood I was getting that extra weight in return for the good price. The bike has met my daily commuting needs perfectly.
In the past year, Pacific E-​bike has moved towards more powerful and expensive models, in response to demand, so it’s probably not going to be possible to get $ 1000 new models going forward. They do sell refurbished, used models at a lower price.
An electric bike has more things that can go wrong with it than a regular bike, so service is why I purchased the bike locally. I have had issues and the service has been great. I had a problem with my battery a couple years ago that turned out to be a faulty ignition. This was quickly diagnosed and replaced at a low cost. A few days ago I got a spoke on my back wheel repaired promptly and for a very fair price.
At some point I may decide to by a lighter, more expensive model. If I do, I will buy it from Pacific E-​bike.

I was recently looking for an electric bike to purchase and found this location on Unilocal.I am so glad I decided to check this place out. Not only did I get an awesome electric fat bike that I love, but the customer service I received from Preston was OUTSTANDING! He was a huge help in finding something that I like and that was in my budget and his knowledge base is also impressive and reassuring. Before you cross that bridge and go to San Francisco, check this place out. You won’t regret it!
— Keith

Love my new ebike!
Got the eliminator/​dominator…
GONNA DOMINATE THEM HILLS!
Really excited about my new commuters bike. Also really excited about the power.
Got a great deal.
Great place.
Great vibe.
THANKS FOR MY NEW BIKE.

Great place to buy and electric bike!

I wandered in to Pacific e-​Bikes when I made the decision to let my car go after it was totaled in an accident. At the time I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to go with an electric moped or an e-​bike. Preston took his time introducing me to the category and what to look for. I evaluated their stock and set my heart on the Terra, then gave myself the weekend to look around and think about it. I was back on Tuesday to make the purchase. No regrets at all. Who knew it would be so much fun riding a bike with super powers. In time I have a feeling I’ll be upgrading, but for now this is the perfect balance of economy and features. As for the shop, they’re smart, careful, and thoughtful about the value they’re delivering to their customers. Buying my new bike I felt like I’d signed up for membership. I tip my hat and put on my helmet. Bravo.

My spouse and I bought Cloud e-​bikes here, and wow are they are fun to ride. We cruised home along the Bay Trail and then up our steep hill with the electric boost, what a blast. I am looking forward to commuting to work on the bike and leaving the car at home. Preston was great to work with, patiently explained every detail and provided us with fantastic bikes at a great price. Can’t ask for more than that.

I just want to thank Preston for running a great business. Your prices and customer service are refreshing and your price point on your bikes is really fair. The new batteries I purchased a few weeks ago are great and we have been enjoying riding them up and down the hills of the east bay. Best wishes for continued success. Michelle

Awesome little bike shop. Bought my Fuji there, which is really the only brand they carry outside of electric bikes. Best price in the area, super friendly and good people.

I really didn’t want much from a bike outside a seat, two wheels, and pedals (my need to impress people with my fancy bicycle didn’t last past my tenth birthday, a fact which inspires conniptions in friends who’ve spent upwards of $ 1200 on bikes) and, instead of being the type of douchey «You’re not worth wasting my breath on» bike snob I’m accustomed to dealing with in the Bay Area, the gentleman who helped me (Preston) was extremely friendly, chill, and knowledgeable – frankly answered my questions about the what I could get at different price levels but didn’t try to upsell or pressure me at all. Couldn’t be happier with the service and I love my new bike!

Okay. So as you can tell from my original posting I was NOT a fan of this place. HOWEVER, I will give credit where credit is due. My significant other decided to get me a new battery for my electric scooter and the only place that had batteries was Pacific. Of course he was hesitant to go back there as I had pretty much said I would rather commit hari kari than support the business. Now keep in mind he was doing this on the down low so it was supposed to be a surprise.
BOY WAS HE SURPRISED. The original ahem… d-​bag who worked there and caused me such pain NO LONGER works there. THANK JEBUS/​Cheezits. From what I’ve heard the place is now pretty cool. The person who has been helping him (btw yes I found out he was planning this so it is now longer a surprise and that is how I’m Unilocaling this) has been super awesome. IN FACT he has offered us a discount because of what happened before.
I haven’t gotten my new battery yet but I did need to update my Unilocal post to say, as far as I can tell the place is a okily dokily. The sales people have gone out of their way to make things right. AND they even looked at the battery to figure out how to order new batteries (30 mts which they did not charge for).
So to the owners I humbly tip my hat in recognition of the fact that you offer good service and products.

Neighborhood gem! My conventional bike was busted and the guy at this shop was super helpful with my repair. Their E-​bikes are beautiful and next time I ponder across this place, I will definitely check these E-​bikes out!

Since my review is long, I divide into two parts. You will find they really deserve 10 stars after you read my review to the end.
Part I.
Let me start from the beginning.
I wanted a very sturdy electric bike for my 13 mile commute. After learning all the pros and cons of various types of electric bikes from internet, I decided to try some of them (I mean, the well known brands such as IZIP and so on). Fortunately there were several e-​bike shops around my place and each of them kindly let me try. At first, I test rode only a couple of minutes but soon I found that I needed to test at least a couple of miles to find out the true nature of bikes.
It is very important to have an e-​bike which is really useful since the price is many times higher than the manual bikes. After reading 30+ purchasing/​selecting guides of e-​bikes I summarized the most important feature of e-​bikes as follows
(1) The battery should be Lithium ion. Lead batteries vary the performance depending on temperature. Usually high temperature leads to serious degradation on the lead battery’s capability. Since the summer here may reach the road temperature well over 100 F, I absolutely needed Lithium battery which has significantly less effect from the outside temperature. In addition, it is very tricky to maintain the performance of the lead battery. You need to stop charging when the battery is fully charged. Overcharging leads to a gradual degradation. Actually I read some of the bad reviews on e-​bikes with the lead batteries, claiming that the battery died after only 2 days of usage. I presume, the rider did not give a good care on the lead battery. On the contrary, the lithium battery will not suffer from even some degree of harassment. CONCLUSION: IT IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY TO GET LITHIUM BATTERY.
(2) The power of the DC hub motor. The brushed motor is out of consideration due to the wear of brushes after some time of usage. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to get a brushless DC hub motor. In addition, the power is extremely important, even to the person like me who will ride the bike on a relatively flat terrain. At any hills, you will feel frustration with the low power DC motor. I mean, 250W DC motors will give you endless frustration with 100 feet up hills. CONCLUSION: YOU MUST GET 350W MOTOR to enjoy the e-​bike ride.
(3) The battery capacity is enormously important for an e-​bike to be any useful. The 24 V 10 A battery will give you (practically) 10 mile range. I found that although many e-​bike manufacturer claims the range of 20 miles, it really depends hugely on how much you weigh and all other considerations. But, it is absolutely necessary to get a large capacity battery in order to cover a considerable ride distance. Come on. 10 mile means only 30 minute ride if your speed is 20 MPH. Will you recharge your battery for 4 hours after 30 minute ride? CONCLUSION: GET BATTERY WITH MUCH LARGE CAPACITY.
(4) The mode of operation is also very important. You can literally double your range by employing the so-​called ‘paddle assisted mode’ where your energy and battery’s energy both contribute to run the bike. If the bike has only the so-​called ‘throttle mode’, where you just rely 100% on the battery, it chops off the covering distance in great degree. CONCLUSION: GET AN E-​BIKE WITH PADDLE ASSISTED MODE of operation.
I actually testrode IZIP’s three models, FAST4WARD two models, and more expensive models. In total I think I testrode 7 models. I found that the models I was looking for, satisfying all the requirement above would cost me $ 2,400.
I found Pacific E-​bikes through google map searching, by simply typing ‘e-​bikes’ near me. When I first visited Jake (?), a manager, explained me everything I should know about. Their bikes are designed by themselves but are manufactured in China. It is not a big concern to be manufactured in China nowadays. Aren’t you using an Iphone, which was also made in China? Their model removed any price bubble by direct importing from their manufacturer. Also their lean design significantly reduced the cost and, thus, the sales price.
For example, their Terra model, which has 350 W DC brushless motor, 36 V 10 A LITHIUM battery, operates in two modes: PADDLE ASSISTED MODE and FULL THROTTLE MODE, whichever you can choose simply by a rocker switch on your right hand bar.
Their price? $ 947. A $ 947 bike has everything you need. It’s basically an amazing price, considering all the features and the specifications.

I wish I had bought my electric bike here. They’re knowledgable, helpful and priced well. I bought an electric bike off of amazon from another manufacturer, and though love riding it, there are design flaws that make changing a tire very difficult. Pacific e-​bikes was recommended by several other shops as an expert on changing flats on electric bikes. The tech there, who’s also the salesman, is really great, explains the difficulty of the task, and offers advice on inexpensive ways to prevent flats. I love their selection of well designed e-​bikes. They’re attractive and more intuitively designed then mine.

I checked out this place last year when I was looking for a new bike because I had seen their fliers all over town and had grown curious. I didn’t realize that they mostly specialize in electric bikes (which I wasn’t looking for) until I got there, but the owner was super nice about showing me the non-​electric bikes that they had that worked for my 5 foot 2 self. Unfortuntely none of the bikes were what I was looking for, but the owner was really nice, sympathized with my anguish over having a bike stolen from me, etc. I felt kind of bad that I couldn’t buy a bike from this guy.

I saw a sign for some bikes on sale so I thought that it was a «sign». I’ve been wanting a bike for quite some time now and went to check the bikes out.
There were two bikes that caught my eye –one was a road bike ($ 130 out the door) and one mountain bike ($ 161 out the door). The bikes were all new and very reasonably priced for the reason that they were made from mediocre parts (the seat, plastic peddles, wheels, etc). The sales dude totally kept it real with me and told me the «what’s what». I didn’t mind the mediocre parts because I could easily get them changed. I ended up purchasing a mountain bike that fit my body frame perfectly (peep the photo!).
The frame, gears, handle bars, and build of the bike was totally in line with what I needed and that was good enough for me.
I’d suggest going to the real store location itself for a good deal –the bike that I got for $ 161 is actually listed as $ 250-​$ 300 on their website. I guess I got pretty lucky that day now that I know how much it was really worth.
In addition, the sign says that new bikes were on sale for $ 89.00 but that’s only for the bikes that you have to build yourself. It’s an additional $ 30.00 for someone to build it for you. In most cases, you can take home the bike that is already built and in the store itself which is what I did. Thank goodness I have a spacey PT Cruiser!

I haven’t purchased the Macaw (hybrid electric moped) from them yet, but it was a great place to test drive an electric bike. I learned quite a bit from them and only have one reservation… Their bikes are from China which is unsustainable. HOWEVER, the bikes are the best priced in the bay area and even on-​line. They have two locations now and this location is so easy to ride to and test a bike out.
If I were wealthier I’d buy an A2B electric bike because they are made in SF — although they are not as comfortable as the Macaw was for me. So, if you don’t mind the item being from China — go to this shop for your electric bike needs. At the time of this review, the electric hybrid moped is $ 697 which includes a «trunk» and «glove box». You can plug it in easily for recharging. The battery is lead acid which is heavy but I won’t be picking it up too many times. You don’t need to lift the battery out of the container for recharging. Although you can pedal, the distance from my knees to the pedals is a little short.
They sell great electric bikes with lithium batteries that are very light. I already own a regular bike so I don’t really want them (I may get a conversion kit). I really am excited about the moped and love the fact that it is so QUIET. One day I hope more local manufacturers spring up to make a more affordable electric bike and moped.

Holy crap. I LOVE Pacific E-​Bike! I decided to get rid of my car and get some sort of clean, fun, less road-​rage inducing form of transportation. After researching scooters, mopeds, and the electric bikes at Pacific E-​Bike, I decided to check out the electric bikes (you don’t need to register them, they don’t take gas, and you don’t need a motorcycle license). I talked to James, the owner, and he let me test drive a bunch of different models and styles. He was the opposite of a pushy sales guy. He went over how to safely ride and operate the bikes, as well as the technology and materials he uses to make the bikes, without any jargon or sales talk. They’re REALLY fun to ride! He has a few models that look more like scooters, and some that look like bikes. The bikes can go up to 25miles, go about 20mph with the throttle engaged, and can be taken on public transit. I ended up going back twice and finally got one of the bikes today. James totally worked with me on the price, monthly payments (they run anywhere from $ 700-​$ 900), and even threw in a helmet! I rode it around Oakland and finally back home with no problems. It even zipped up a hill near my house with no issues. It was easier to get around on than a standard bike and so much more fun!