Pedibal Navigata with throttle

The Pedibal Navigata may not strike you as highly unusual at first glance, but it is. It takes a well known design – the 20in wheeled e-folder specced out for commuting and leisure – and adds a throttle that can be operated independently of pedal action. How and why they can do this when e-bike law suggests throttle only e-bikes are illegal we will get to shortly. More important for most readers will be what Pedibal are offering: a nice quality e-folder with many practical touches that rides well and has power on demand at the twist of a throttle. 
 

The background

Our news story on Pedibal and their road legal, throttle controlled e-bikes may have caught your eye as it describes how you can legally ride their range of e-bikes, even though they are fitted with a throttle that can be used without pedalling. 

Before diving into the details of the bike itself, it’s worth looking at the background to pure throttle power on e-bikes in the UK (i.e. throttles that operate at full speed without the pedals turning) and why they are generally regarded as illegal.

Pedibal Navigata certificate, by Richard Peace

E-bike law stipulates that a throttle is only allowed to operate at full speed provided the bike’s pedals are turning. Most e-bikes therefore dispense with a throttle altogether. 

There is, however, a fully legal, but rarely exploited exception. For quite some time now there has been a class of vehicle called a 250W LPM – with LPM standing for low powered moped. Okay, legally speaking this is now a moped not an e-bike, but throttle aside, this is an e-bike in all respects: it is restricted to a maximum speed of 15.5mph and a 250W motor and can be ridden anywhere a bike or e-bike can, including bike lanes and bridleways (where other classes of moped are not permitted).

To qualify, a vehicle must pass a test for basic safety aspects at a DVSA centre. Pedibal organise this for you, which means the bike comes with a certificate indicating it is legal for the road and bike lane. No retesting is required and nor is there any red tape like needing insurance or licence plates. You just keep the paperwork with the bike and it’s legal for evermore with no extra costs or bureaucracy involved.

This is not the case with other more powerful or faster ‘out of class’ e-bikes like speed pedelecs which carry more onerous ongoing legal requirements, such as insurance.

For more on the various light electric vehicle classes (including 250W LPMs) see our ‘Alternatives to e-bikes’ feature.
 

The Navigata

The Pedibal Navigata is a neat looking folder of the common fold-in-half design. It has maintenance free mag wheels and on first inspection looks well made with strong frame hinges and, given the reasonable £1,399.99 price tag, a decent spec for the money.

This includes a frame-integrated but removable 345Wh battery, hardwired lighting, seven derailleur gears, cable-operated disc brakes, a brightly colourful and highly visible LCD display, alloy mudguards and a kickstand. There are also mounting points for a pannier rack, which would make this a fully-featured commuter with the added bonus of that fold-in-half design. 

This is the MkII spec with new features aimed at improving the bike, including a full colour display, integrated seat suspension, stronger anti-puncture tyres, integrated brake lights, full-length mudguards, a sleek flat-welded frame and an integrated cadence sensor.
 

Riding and folding

Seeing the big selling point of this particular model is the ‘pure throttle’ control, lets start there. As long you are in one of the five power levels (i.e not zero) and the red button is pressed in, the throttle will function. Once you start to twist it, you get nicely modulated power that, on the flat at least, will take you all the way up to about 15mph without pedalling. If you hit a steepish hill, the speed will drop – by how much will depend on just how steep the hill is. 

Of course the bike is also designed for you to pedal whilst using the throttle if you need or want to. You can also ride it with pedal assistance only, the same as a conventional e-bike.

The cadence motion sensing itself is good if you want to pedal under power without using the throttle. It comes in and drops out quickly in time with your pedal action. Unfortunately, the power level controls were less impressive. They regulate the speed at which the power cuts out, rather than the amount of power delivered, meaning you will usually pedal along in level 5 out of 5 and so may end up using more power than you want to. 

In contrast to this rather basic approach to pedalling power delivery, I was delighted to have legal use of pure throttle on an e-bike. Of course, there are plenty of pure throttle e-bikes (and kits) out there – instantly findable on Amazon and the like – but the vast, vast majority are illegal. Use one of these and you risk three points on your driving licence or worse should you be involved in an accident and found liable. So the first major gain is that you are riding a fully road legal machine. The DVSA certificate proves it. 

In what situations did I find the pure throttle most useful? Hill starts on particularly steep hills, getting away quickly in on-road situations (usually to avoid other traffic) and for tight manoeuvres where it’s just easier with a modicum of throttle power. If I was physically very tired or carrying an injury I could see it might also be useful.  

No doubt there will be plenty of takers for other reasons. Those whose pedal action is weak due to health reasons is one oft-quoted example, but I could also see that a pure throttle machine would be popular with any food delivery riders keen to stick within legal limits – ideal for nipping about quickly in city traffic and less tiring than pedalling all day long. 

Given that the law on pure throttle machines doesn’t seem likely to change any time soon, the Pedibal Navigata is one of the few options open to those who want pure throttle electric assist without the attendant cost and red tape of buying an electric moped.  

The Navigata sailed up my extended hill climb test (about 10% average gradient) at a steady 14mph – not the fastest out there but certainly one of the easiest. Gentle pedalling whilst applying full throttle was all that was needed to get it to the top with a minimum of physical effort.

It performed outstandingly on my ultra steep hill climb test, posting one of the best results I’ve had, even if I was reasonably out of breath at the top due to pedalling fairly hard in the lowest gear (here an even lower gear would have been welcome). It seems there’s plenty of torque in that modestly sized rear hub motor.

Range was about 25 miles over my regular very hilly commuting course with several hundred feet of climbing. That’s neither outstanding nor terrible, but if you are going to rely very heavily on the throttle, going up steep hills, that range will be significantly less.

I was very pleased with other aspects of the ride. The budget but ever reliable Shimano SIS shifter gave easy shifting that never missed a gear, with the added advantage you can change down from seventh to first gear in one long push of the lever – ideal for approaching junctions where you need to change down quickly.

The cable operated disc brakes, whilst a bit spongier than hydraulic discs, were plenty powerful and gave controlled stopping, whilst the padded seat, suspension seatpost and 1.75in wide tyres gave a comfy ride, even on easy off-road surfaces. In short, it’s a great e-bike for those who want something easy to ride.

The display is clear and has plenty of useful info at a glance, with graphic displays alongside numeric details such as the watts being used by the motor and the voltage level of the battery. The latter is particularly useful for keeping an eye on battery health as you can monitor its performance under load. Battery power starts to peter out very gradually from around 33.5 volts but with several miles of useful power left in the tank after that. 

Folding was pretty much as you would expect from a bike of this design – nowhere near as compact as the small wheeled Brompton of course, but on a par with the likes of Tern. Like the much pricier Tern Vektron, you need to exercise a little care when it’s folded to make sure the magnets attaching the two halves don’t disengage. Helpfully, there is a stand that means the folded package sits flat on level ground and doesn’t topple over – a weakness of some other folding designs. 

At 21.2kg on my scales the Navigata is about what you’d expect for a fully-specced bike of this design. If you remove the 345Wh battery, you can reduce that weight by a further 1.8kg. Note there is also a 378Wh option for an extra £50. Both have a useful USB-A output accessed by opening the rubber cover that also covers the charge port and battery off switch. This delivers a lowly 3.5 amps but at least it will stop your phone running out of power. The only disappointing aspect of the battery is the one year warranty – two years is really the industry standard. 
 

Summary and other options

Having tried hundreds of e-bikes without a throttle, the Pedibal Navigata is a refreshing change. It adds an element of pep to everyday riding and for many categories of rider it could be an extremely useful, practical aid.

Good on Pedibal for making the effort to offer individual testing at their local DVSA centre (that is the procedure they have to go through to get these machines legal for the road). Okay, you pay a premium of £200 over the pedelec-only versions, but that seems reasonable given the time and costs involved and aligns with what many other companies – for example in the motorbike world – charge for single vehicle type approval. 

Pedibal themselves offer models other than the Navigata that come with the option of pure throttle control, including the retro motorbike style E-Cruiza and the Maxima fat tyre cargo bike. If you are wondering about the rhyming names, they reflect the Geordie twang of founder Joe Mulachy. Joe also originated the Pedibal name in 2015 to reflect the balance bikes the firm originally offered.

The only other DVSA certified pure throttle options we could discover were from Wisper and they look to cover the hybrid design of e-bike. Together with Pedibal’s offering, those looking for a throttle-controlled ride have a decent choice of models. We hope there are many more to come as up until now it seems to have been an undeservedly overlooked segment of the market.

pedibal.com

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