The Priority Current Plus E-Bike Is a Versatile, Zippy Commuter
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The Good
- Belt drive keeps your bike maintenance-free
- Responsive handling and light weight
- Surprisingly powerful motor
The Bad- Questionable design decisions
- No suspension
- Little customization of settings
Table of Contents
Manhattan-based Priority Bicycles got their start with a successful kickstarter campaign for the Priority Classic, a stylish, low-maintenance, non-powered bike. It has since expanded to electrics. The company's newest offering in that space, the Priority Current Plus, retails for $ 3,299.00 and aims to bring Priority's ideals to the e-bike space. The Priority Current Plus is a great commuter bike when it comes to build quality and overall riding enjoyment. It's powerful enough to be fun, but light enough to handle well. This go-anywhere-paved e-bike is fun to ride, and the belt-drive keeps maintenance to a minimum—but its overall design feels a little thrown-together.
Rider experience of the Priority Current Plus
If you're looking for a higher-end commuter e-bike, and your only concern is how well it rides, I highly recommend the Priority Current Plus. It's a balanced, versatile bike that will serve you well on any road, street, or paved bike path.
There are two poles in the world of e-bikes, with power-heavy basically-mopeds on one end, and lighter bikes with lower power on the other. The Current Plus lands right in the middle: It's light for an e-bike at 54 pounds, and its geometry and balanced weight make riding one feel like riding a "normal" bike. But it's equipped with a 500-watt mid-drive motor with a throttle control so you can goose the engine if you don't want to pedal. It's a class 3 e-bike, capable of assisted speeds up to 20 mph with throttle alone and 28 mph if you pedal. The result is a nice balance between the zippy torque of an electric vehicle and the responsiveness and handling of a traditional bike.
Rider position is upright enough to be comfortable, but not so much that you feel unbalanced, and the frame's flexibility and the cushy saddle smooth most bumps. Front wheel suspension would have been nice, though, for the bigger jolts.
Mid-drive bikes generally feel more "organic" to pedal than bikes with rear or front drive, but even among mid-drive bikes, the Current Plus stands out for the fine-tuning and subtly of the interplay between pedaling and motor assist. Riding it feels like you have stronger legs, not like an engine is helping you. I didn't notice any lag between pressing the pedals and the motor turning on, and it's quiet. When you start going up a hill or hit a headwind, you hear the slight hum of an electric motor kicking in to help you out, but other than that, the bike just smooths things out.
If you don't want to pedal, the Current Plus' throttle gets you up to speed quickly and smoothly. It's just "zippy" enough to be fun, but it's not so quick that you feel out-of-control. It would have been nice to have a more control over the bike's power levels and acceleration, though. You can change the top speed, but other than that, you have to live with Priority's configurations.
Hill-riding stress test
I rode this bike for over 100 miles in all kinds of conditions, and it responded admirably no matter where I rode it, but to test out the outer limits of the Priority Plus, I took it on a two-mile ride with a 1,300-foot elevation gain. That's not the biggest climb ever, but I didn't pedal at all. I used myself as dead weight, hit the throttle, and let the bike's tiny engine haul me up Mount Hollywood.
Even under these borderline abusive conditions, the Priority Plus proved a workhorse. The motor whined quietly, but didn't conk out or explode, and I got to enjoy passing all the skeleton-skinny, latex-clad bike guys huffing and puffing on their way to the summit. I tested the bike's stability at higher speeds on the way down, topping it out at about 35 mph, and the bike felt totally under control. The battery performed well too: Even after putting that amount of strain on it, I was able to ride for over 30 more miles. Very impressive.
The Priority Plus drivetrain features a belt instead of a chain
The Priority Current Plus offers a choice of drivetrains: an Enviolo automatic shifting unit or the more traditional Shimano five-speed drive. But both are belt-driven, so they don't require the maintenance of a chain drive—no lubing required and no grease stains on your pants.
I went with the Shimano set because I like choosing my own gears. Even though five is only half of the gears I had on my first Schwinn, it's plenty for an e-bike. The granny gear plus pedal assist will get you up steeper hills smoothly, and the top gear is high enough to not feel spinny, even at the bike's top-assisted speed of 28mph. The gears change smoothly and quietly, and I particularly liked the way they're controlled with a twist instead of paddles—easy to use and easy to understand.
Priority's tech support and warranty
My Current Plus arrived with the gears misaligned. Not a big deal—something probably happened in shipping—and it gave me the chance to test out Priority's tech support. I didn't tell them I was a reviewer, but they couldn't have done a better job patiently talking me through the adjustment so I could fix my gears and get back on the road. As a terrible mechanic, good tech support is a huge selling point for me. Because the Current Plus is built from largely brand name parts, you could take it to a local bike shop for mechanical repairs, and the company offers a five year warranty against workmanship defects and a two year warranty for manufacturing defects.
Three frame sizes
Many e-bike models are advertised as "one size fits all," but if you're short or tall, you quickly learn what a lie that is. The Priority Current Plus, though, comes in three frame sizes, ensuring a better fit and a safer, more comfortable ride for the small and the gangly.
Reliability and sturdiness
For this review, I purposefully ran the Current over potholes, took it down curbs, and generally didn't treat it nicely. Everything stayed in place. The build quality seems high, the bike feels solid, and it's made of brand name components. Will it still ride like this in five years? There's no way to tell, but I'm confident.
The Priority Current Plus' look: beauty is in the eye of the bike-rider
It's obvious a ton of thought and care went into perfecting the rider experience on the Current Plus. But the same attention to detail doesn't seem to have been applied to its visual elements.
Check out this photo:
You could see the overall profile of the Current Plus in one of two ways: It's either an unpretentious, friendly looking ride—cute, maybe—or it's squat and uninspiring, the e-bike equivalent of a Honda Civic. The lack of sleekness may come down to utility: The Current Plus has a big 720Wh battery in its downtube, a nice size battery for a commuter bike and a big step up from the original Current's 500wh battery, but still, it requires a bulky downtube, and that adds to the overall squat look. The goofy-looking, overly padded saddle doesn't help either.
Flaws in the overall design aesthetic of the Priority Current Plus
A case could be made for the Current Plus's profile but not for its cord management: It's ass. Dealing with a jumble of cables is a challenge for any e-bike designer, but Priority's solution of sticking the cords in hardware store cable wrap and calling it a day is definitely not the way. To see what I mean, check out the front-end pictures of the Current Plus and Specialized's commuter e-bike, the Turbo Vado 2:
The Current has an extra cord for the headlight, to be fair, but it shouldn't be there in the first place. Instead of a headlight integrated into the bike's design like is on the Vado (and, for that matter, many less expensive bikes, like the Tenways CGO Pro), the Current Plus' headlight is clipped onto the handlebars.
Ugly cabling and an afterthought headlight are not deal-killers, but they're janky, and it gets even jankier when you look at the Current Plus' display. If you don't care about aesthetics at all, it's fine. The mono-color tells you what you need to know, and it's readable. But man, it's just ugly. Look at this comparison of the display on a similarly priced commuter bike with a belt drive, the Vvolt Centauri II, to see what I mean:
Both screens present basically the same information—speedometer, odometer, pedal assist level, battery power–but the Vvolt's display is not framed by sloppy cables. It's set in a case with depth and subtly rounded corners. The case is part of the overall design of the bike. The Current's display is a two-dimensional, featureless rectangle; it's a slab that feels like like someone said, "We have to put in a screen, so here's a screen."
To get deeper: Note the difference in the slightly heavy, confident lines on the numerals on the Centauri; the font mirrors the slight thickness of the bike's frame. Now look at the Current Plus. Why would you choose such a skinny font for such a chubby bike? For that matter, why does the Priority's screen include a cheesy looking stick-figure of a guy riding a bike? Is that in case I forget what I'm doing during my ride?
I could probably teach a design class using only these two bicycles as examples, but you get the point: The Current Plus does everything you'd physically expect in an e-bike admirably, but design-wise, it feels hacked together and unrefined.
The Priority Current Plus is a great commuter bike when it comes to build quality and overall riding enjoyment. It's powerful enough to be fun, but light enough to handle really well. This go-anywhere-paved bike is fun to ride, and the belt-drive keeps maintenance to a minimum. But its overall design feels a little thrown-together. With a few tweaks, though, this could be a best-of-class commuter bike.
Stephen Johnson is a Staff Writer for Lifehacker where he covers pop culture, including two weekly columns “The Out of Touch Adults’ Guide to Kid Culture” and “What People are Getting Wrong this Week.” He graduated from Emerson College with a BFA in Writing, Literature, and Publishing.
Previously, Stephen was Managing Editor at NBC/Universal’s G4TV. While at G4, he won a Telly Award for writing and was nominated for a Webby award. Stephen has also written for Blumhouse, FearNET, Performing Songwriter magazine, NewEgg, AVN, GameFly, Art Connoisseur International magazine, Fender Musical Instruments, Hustler Magazine, and other outlets. His work has aired on Comedy Central and screened at the Sundance International Film Festival, Palm Springs International Film Festival, and Chicago Horror Film Festival. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.
