How to Use Your eBike and eTrike Display: A Simple Walkthrough of Three Controls

Different Screens, Same Basic Job

Walk into a shop full of electric bikes and trikes and you'll notice that almost every model seems to have its own display. Some are small and tucked off to the side of the handlebar. Others are large, bright, and mounted dead center where you can't miss them. Some have three buttons, some have five, and a few rely on a separate button pad near your thumb. It's easy to look at all that variety and assume each one is a whole new system you'll have to learn from scratch.

The good news is that it really doesn't matter much whether the screen is small or large. On nearly every sixthreezero electric bike and electric trike, the display does the same handful of things. It turns the electrical system on and off, it tells you how much battery you have left, it shows which pedal assist level you're in, it shows your speed, and it keeps track of how far you've gone. The differences come down to where the buttons sit and which ones you press, not what the display is actually for.

In this article we're going to walk through three different displays found across our eBikes and eTrikes, point out what each part of the screen means, and then take one of the trikes out for a short ride to show how the display, the throttle, the gears, and pedal assist all work together once you're moving. If you've just unboxed a new ride, or you're trying to decide whether an electric model is right for you, this should take a lot of the mystery out of it.

Every display we're looking at starts the same way: with a press and hold of the power button. That word "hold" matters. A quick tap usually won't do anything, which is by design. Manufacturers set it up this way so the system doesn't switch on accidentally when you bump the handlebar while parking the bike or loading it into a car. Press the power button, keep your thumb on it for a second or two, and the screen will light up.

On the first display we're looking at, the power button is clearly marked and sits on its own. On the other two, which are center-mounted units, the power button is the middle button. In both cases you hold it down and the screen wakes up. If you're ever unsure which button is the power button, look for the familiar circle-and-line power symbol, or simply try holding the center button first, since that's where it lives on a lot of designs.

One more thing worth knowing: the display is usually only half of the equation. Most eBikes and eTrikes also have a battery that needs to be switched on or locked into place before the display will respond. If you hold the power button and nothing happens, check that the battery is seated firmly, that any key switch on the battery is in the on position, and that the battery has some charge. Nine times out of ten, a blank screen is a battery connection issue rather than a broken display.

Once the display is on, the first thing most riders look at is the battery level. On all three of the displays in our video, the battery reading sits along the top of the screen or in a corner, usually shown as a set of bars or a segmented battery icon. Full bars mean a full charge. As you ride, the bars drop off one at a time.

A couple of practical notes here. First, the bar reading is a good general guide, but it isn't a fuel gauge accurate to the mile. The reading can dip when you're climbing a hill or using the throttle hard, because the battery is working harder in that moment, and then bounce back up a bit when you ease off. That's normal. It's better to watch the overall trend over a ride than to react to every flicker.

Second, how far a charge takes you depends heavily on how you ride. Higher pedal assist levels and heavy throttle use draw more power. Riding mostly in a lower assist level and pedaling steadily will stretch the battery much further. If you want to get a sense of your own range, take note of the bars at the start and end of a few familiar rides, and you'll quickly learn what your bike can do on your routes. If your battery ever needs replacing down the road, we carry batteries and chargers for our models.

Right next to the battery reading, every display shows your current pedal assist level, usually as a single number. This is the setting you'll interact with most often, so it's worth understanding well.

Pedal assist means the motor adds power while you pedal. You're still turning the cranks, but the motor helps out, and the pedal assist level controls how much help you get. Level zero, or off on some displays, means no assist at all, and the bike rides like a regular bicycle that happens to be a little heavier. Level one gives you a gentle boost. As you move up through the levels, the motor contributes more and more, and the bike will carry you faster with less effort from your legs.

You change the level with the up and down buttons, often marked with plus and minus signs or with arrows. Tap up to add assist, tap down to reduce it. Unlike the power button, these respond to quick taps. You can change levels at any time, including while you're riding, which is exactly how you're meant to use them. Coming up to a hill? Bump it up. Cruising on a flat path with a tailwind? Drop it down and save battery.

If you're new to electric riding, start in level one. It's the best way to get a feel for how the motor engages without being surprised by a sudden push. Once you're comfortable, try the higher levels on an open stretch where you have room to adjust.

The largest number on most displays is your speed, shown in miles per hour on our bikes. It's the one reading you can glance at quickly without really taking your eyes off the path, which is why it's usually given the most space on the screen.

Speed is useful for more than curiosity. A lot of shared paths, boardwalks, and parks have posted speed limits, and the display makes it easy to stay within them. It's also a helpful way to learn how your pedal assist levels behave. Ride for a minute in level one, note the speed you settle into comfortably, then move up to level two and do the same. After a few rides you'll know roughly which level gives you which pace, and you can pick the right one before you even start pedaling.

For riders on trikes in particular, speed awareness is a big part of riding confidently. Three wheels give you a very stable platform when you're going straight, but turns should be taken at a sensible speed. Glancing at the speed before a corner is a simple habit that makes every ride smoother.

The last core reading is distance. On all three displays, the screen shows some version of an odometer, and on most models you can cycle through more than one distance reading.

On the first display we look at, you'll see a trip odometer along the bottom of the screen. The second display, a center-mounted unit, shows an odometer in a similar spot. On the third display, the default reading is the distance of your last ride, and you can cycle through additional screens to see more. Pressing through, we land on the total odometer, which on the trike in our video showed 7.3 miles in total, and the ride time, which showed the trike had been ridden for one hour and seven minutes.

It helps to know the difference between these readings. The trip distance is the short-term number, the distance for the current or most recent ride, and it can usually be reset. The total odometer is the lifetime number for the bike, and it keeps climbing no matter what. Ride time tells you how long you've actually been moving.

Why bother with all this? For one, it's simply satisfying to watch your miles add up, especially if you're riding for fitness or trying to build a routine. It's also practical. The total odometer is a handy reference for maintenance, such as knowing when it's time to check your brakes, tires, or chain. And combining trip distance with your battery bars is the easiest way to figure out your real-world range, as we mentioned earlier.

The exact button you press to cycle through these screens varies by display. On some it's a quick tap of the power or mode button, on others it's a dedicated button. Your owner's manual will spell out the sequence for your specific model, and once you've done it a couple of times it becomes second nature.

Two of the three displays we walk through are center mounts, meaning the screen sits in the middle of the handlebar, right in front of you. The other has its controls positioned differently. Both approaches work well, and neither is better across the board; they just suit different preferences.

A center-mounted display is easy to read at a glance, because it sits in your natural line of sight. The screen is typically larger, so numbers are bigger and clearer, which many riders appreciate, especially anyone who prefers not to wear reading glasses on a ride. The tradeoff is that the buttons are often on the display itself, so you take a hand off the grip, or reach a thumb over, to change settings.

Displays with a separate button pad or smaller side-mounted screens keep the controls closer to your grip. You can change pedal assist without moving your hand much, which some riders find more comfortable on longer rides. The screen itself may be smaller, but the information is the same.

If you ever damage a display or want to replace an older one, we stock eBike displays as replacement parts. And whichever style you end up with, the routine is the same: hold to power on, glance at the battery, choose your assist level, and ride.

With the displays covered, it's time to actually ride. On our test ride, we start the trike using the throttle to get going before settling into pedaling.

A throttle gives you power without pedaling at all. Depending on the model, it's either a twist grip or a thumb lever near the handlebar grip. Press or twist it gently and the motor pulls you forward. This is especially useful from a complete stop, where the first few pedal strokes take the most effort. A little throttle gets the trike moving, and then you can start pedaling with pedal assist and let off the throttle.

A good rule is to treat the throttle with a light touch at first. Squeeze or twist it gradually rather than all at once, particularly on a trike in a tight space like a driveway or parking lot. Once you're rolling you can navigate down a slope, around a corner, or onto the path ahead with full control. If a throttle is a must-have feature for you, take a look at our electric trikes with throttle control.

Keep in mind that using the throttle constantly draws more from the battery than pedaling with assist. Many riders use it the way we do in the video: to get started, to cross an intersection briskly, or to give themselves a break for a moment, and then go back to pedaling.

During the ride, we pull up alongside our rider and ask a simple question: does this feel like a regular bicycle? In a low pedal assist level, the answer is yes. You're pedaling, you can feel the gear you're in, and the effort is familiar. The motor is there, but it's helping rather than taking over.

That's an important point for anyone hesitant about electric riding. A lot of people imagine an eBike or eTrike as something closer to a scooter, where you just sit and get carried along. It can be that if you want it to be, but at lower assist levels it feels like riding a bike on a good day, as if the hills got a bit shorter and the wind died down. You're still getting exercise, and you're still in control of how hard you work.

We also ask our rider whether the experience matches what they expected. That's the real goal of a first ride: being able to hop on, know you're in pedal assist one, notice that you're still exerting yourself, and understand exactly what the display is telling you. Once that clicks, the controls stop being something you think about and become just part of riding.

Many of our electric models have gears as well as pedal assist, and new riders sometimes wonder how the two relate. They do different jobs, and you'll get the best ride by using both.

Gears change how hard each pedal stroke feels. A lower gear makes pedaling easier but moves you less distance per turn of the cranks. A higher gear takes more effort per stroke but covers more ground. Pedal assist, on the other hand, changes how much the motor helps. You can be in a low gear with high assist, a high gear with low assist, or any combination in between.

In practice, think of gears as fine-tuning your pedaling comfort and pedal assist as setting the overall amount of help. If your legs are spinning too fast and you aren't getting any resistance, shift to a higher gear. If you're grinding and every stroke feels heavy, shift down. If you're comfortable with your pedaling but want to go faster or work less overall, raise your assist level. When we ask our rider what gear they're in during the video, the point is that they can feel it. Gears still matter on an electric bike or trike, and paying attention to them makes the motor's help feel smoother.

Toward the end of the ride, two more moments are worth pointing out. First, on a turn we lean a little into it. On a trike, shifting your upper body slightly toward the inside of the turn helps keep the ride feeling planted and balanced, since a trike doesn't lean the way a two-wheeled bike does. It's a small adjustment, but it makes cornering feel much more natural, especially at moderate speeds.

Second, as we head up an incline, we kick the pedal assist up a level. This is exactly the situation pedal assist is designed for. Rather than standing on the pedals or downshifting to the lowest gear and crawling, you tap the up button once or twice and let the motor carry more of the load. Once you crest the hill, you tap back down to a lower level for the flat or downhill stretch.

Getting into the habit of adjusting assist before a hill, rather than halfway up when you're already struggling, makes climbs much easier. It's also kinder to the motor and drivetrain, since they don't have to work against you from a dead slowdown. Combine an early assist change with a downshift and most hills stop being something you dread.

And yes, as our rider put it at the end of the video, it's fun. That's really the whole point.

Once you strip away the differences between screens, using any eBike or eTrike display boils down to a short routine you can repeat every time you head out:

Before you ride, make sure the battery is seated and switched on, then press and hold the power button until the display lights up. Glance at the battery bars to confirm you have enough charge for the ride you're planning. Choose a starting pedal assist level, and if you're new or in a crowded area, start low.

While you ride, check your speed now and then, especially before turns and on shared paths. Adjust pedal assist up for hills and headwinds and down for flats and descents. Use gears to keep your pedaling comfortable, and use the throttle when you need a boost from a stop.

After you ride, take a quick look at your trip distance and battery level so you learn your real range over time. Then press and hold the power button to switch the display off, and turn off or remove the battery if your model calls for it. That's it. Whether your display is small or large, center-mounted or tucked to the side, this routine covers nearly everything you'll do with it day to day.

Even simple systems occasionally act up, so here are a few common situations and what to check first.

If the display won't turn on, confirm the battery is charged, clicked fully into place, and switched on if it has a key or switch. Then try holding the power button a little longer than you think you need to. If the screen turns on but the motor won't assist, check that you're not in level zero, and make sure the brake levers are fully released. Many systems cut motor power when a brake lever is engaged, and a lever that isn't fully returning can keep the motor off.

If your numbers look strange, such as a distance reading that seems far too high or low, it may be that you're looking at a different screen than you think, for example the total odometer instead of trip distance. Cycle through the screens to find the one you want. For anything beyond these basics, your owner's manual is the best reference, and our support team is happy to help. You can also browse our assembly instructions if you're setting up a new ride, and review our warranty details for peace of mind.

The displays and controls are similar across our lineup, so you can choose a model based on how you want to ride rather than worrying about which screen is easiest to learn. If maximum stability matters most, our 4-wheel models offer an especially steady platform. If you'd like a laid-back seated position that's easy on your back, take a look at our recumbent electric trikes. Need something you can store or transport easily? Our folding electric trikes fold down for the garage or car. And for riders prioritizing comfort and easy mounting, we have a full lineup of electric trikes for seniors.

If you're not sure where to start, our fitting tool will match you with a model based on your body and riding style. Every purchase is backed by our 30-day test ride, so you can learn the display, try the throttle, and climb your own local hills before deciding it's the right fit.

The bottom line is simple. eBike and eTrike displays look different, but they all speak the same language: power, battery, assist, speed, and distance. Learn that language once and you can step onto almost any electric ride with confidence. For more walkthroughs like this one, browse our Video Blog or the full Bike Advice section.