1300 miles of Easy Rolling

K2 Easy Roller
In 2009, I saw a bike with blowout pricing at REI called the K2 Easy Roller. It is a cruiser style bike with a couple of interesting features: it has a 3-speed automatic transmission and it has a suspended seat. I had been looking for a cruiser bike for tooling around between home and downtown and the 3-speed feature and the low price made this an appealing candidate. I was skeptical about the effectiveness of the 3-speed automatic shifting, but with REI's generous return policy, I figured I would give it a try. Since it was a blowout of a discontinued model, my local REI only had size "S" in stock and online REI only had size "L" in stock. An "M" would fit me fine but out of the choices, I went with the large.

The bike is fairly lightweight given its equipment and intended mission. The frame, handlebars, and wheels are aluminum. The handlebars have a flat pulled back style that looks interesting as well as placing the handgrips in a position to allow fairly upright riding style. I've adjusted my handlebars to be parallel to the ground as opposed to the downward tilt shown above in the stock photo.

The tires were 700x50 Kendas, a thick heavy tire. While they proved fairly flat resistant (the main issue in this area is goatheads which are evil plant seeds which are able to disable bike tires quite effectively), after two seasons I replaced them.

I replaced the tires with Continental TopContact 700x47 which have anti-puncture features along with quite a bit less rotating mass. I like the built in reflector on the Continental tires also. I did pick up one goathead riding on a dirt trail, which just managed to cause a slow leak in the Continental front tire. The wheels are aluminum hoops and they are laced with just 20 spokes to the special Shimano hubs -a bit flimsy but okay for cruising.

I added an aluminum rack I had on hand from a previous bike, a flashing LED light in the rear, a low power LED light on the front handlebar, a bottle cage, and a CatEye wireless computer with speedometer/odometer features.


Riding the Easy Roller
After three riding seasons and significant time (split between my favorite mountain bike and not so favorite road bike) on the cruiser, I decided to write a blog about the bike. The tally so far is 1300 miles of pleasant riding. What I expected to use for occasional errands and maybe 100 miles per year has turned into almost 5x that. That speaks to the appeal of the bike. Whereas I expected to make sub-10 mile trips on the bike, I have gone on rides up to 30 miles covering some hilly terrain. Keep in mind, the perspective of the comments here are cruiser-centric, i.e. slow turning, slow stopping, mild paced biking.

Since the main differentiator on this bike is the automatic shifter, I will talk about that first. The front hub has a built in generator which supplies power to the control module via a frame routed cable that looks like a shifter cable. The control module decides when to shift and does so by actuating a cable to the rear 3-speed hub. The speeds at which shifting occurs are fixed once set, but are set via a screwdriver adjustment. I adjusted my shift points up a bit from the factory setting, resulting in 1st-2nd upshift at 9mph and the 2nd-3rd upshift at 13mph. There is a bit of hysterisis built in for downshifts, which at my settings occur at 12mph and 8mph. The upshifting work almost seamlessly which on the downshifts there is some hesitation and noise, especially under load. I set my shiftpoints based on a personal tradeoff of speed and pedal cadence, essentially matching the bike to my preferred cadence and effort. On the flats I tend to travel at 15-16mph on the bike at an estimated cadence of 90 strokes/min. My decision to keep or return this bike was based on the effectiveness of the shifter and it is a keeper.

Control Mechanism with Shiftpoint Adjustment

Rear Hub Front Hub

The suspended seat is another nice feature for riding the local greenbelt with it's cracks and heaves caused by tree roots. The suspension consists of a cantilevered spring which allows the seat to travel down inline with the seatpost. The 1" or so or travel really smooths out the bumps.

The riding position is fairly upright and I have my handlebars adjust flat to enhance the upright posture. I can pedal at a decent clip at moderate effort in comfort. When hills are approached, I can stand on the pedals and attack the hill for a short distance, although the bikes geometry and the slick flat pedals make this a challenge. I would estimate 6% grades are rideable for short distances on this bike, your quadriceps may vary.

Swept back handlebars adjust flat.

The weakest point of the bike, in my opinion, is the braking. A single anemic rear coaster brake is not something I have had to deal with since my childhood. However given the complexity and clutter of improved braking systems, and remembering the intentions of the bike, the coaster is probably a good fit.


Hiccups
I had one instance where I was transitioning from a road to a bike path, I rode across some grass and hit a 6" curb at too high a rate and popped a rear spoke. Given the sparsity of spokes, the rear wheel became quite dished due to the loss of this one spoke, and the rear tire rubbed severely on the frame for the 4 miles it took to get home. A visit to the local bike shop was able to repair the spoke and retrue the wheel for not much more than a regular bike. More judicious crossing of curbs has eliminated this as an issue.

Once when riding through downtown, a approached a traffic light which turned red. In my typical breaking style, I waited until close to the light and then applied the brakes fairly aggressively. This time, the chain popped off the sockets, which instantly released the coaster brake in the rear hub. After checking the nearby proximity for cars and quickly weighing my options, I elected to hop off the bike and run beside while bringing it to a halt. I could find no reason why the chain popped off, the links were fine, the sprockets fine, and the tension set by the rear axle nuts appeared fine. After reinstalling the chain, I have never had this happen again. Strange.