E-bikes offer tremendous freedom. The ability of the battery and motor to output power continuously to your wheels allows you to ride longer, faster, and harder than you otherwise would, unlocking destinations and trips you might have struggled with without the added juice. The Juiced RipCurrent S and the Aventon Aventure lean into that idea.
Their rugged tires, comfortable suspension, big motors, and durable frames work together to create a package that can ride anywhere in comfort, allowing you to traverse wilderness trails or urban streets with ease.
But what’s the difference? Which bike should you buy? Here’s a quick rundown of all of the important differences between the Juiced RipCurrent S and the Aventon Aventure. At the end of the day, these bikes are quite similar, but there are a few interesting nuances that help set them apart.
Overview Of The Bikes
The Aventon Aventure is a fat-tire e-bike that offers comfort and durability while enabling you to tackle any sort of terrain. It’s got a huge motor, a big battery, and incredible range for its power and weight. It’s priced competitively, but it’s definitely not the cheapest e-bike on the market.
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The RipCurrent S competes in the same narrow niche. While it’s got a more angular and straight frame than the Aventure, it’s got a big motor, a big battery, big fat-tire wheels, and range and power that rival the Aventure.
Importantly, it comes with racks and fenders in the box, while the Aventure only comes with fenders. It’s in the same price ballpark, but at the time of writing this article, its MSRP is a fair bit higher than the Aventure’s.
Weight, Design, and Build Quality
Aventon is one of several e-bike manufacturers to use a similar-looking cross-over frame as the base for many of its e-bikes, including the Aventure. The Aventure has the standard swooping top tube and a battery sitting on the underside of the down tube.
The frame seems thicker and bulkier than on some other e-bikes, but that’s likely due to the big 4″ wide tires making the whole package seem hefty. With fenders on, the Aventure is very reminiscent of a dirt bike. The bike feels solid and durable when ridden, likely due to the added heft.
The Aventure weighs 73 lbs and is available in small, medium, and large. The weight is on the higher end as far as e-bikes go, but the large motor and battery make up for this with the pedal-assist engaged. More on this later.
The RipCurrent S employs a more standard bicycle frame, with straight tubes. The top tube slants slightly down, but not as much as the Aventure, making the standover height about 6″ higher than the Aventure for comparably sized frames.
The battery sits on top of the down tube and is somewhat exposed. It’s visually similar to a large, angular water bottle in terms of appearance. While the down tube is quite thick, most of the other tubes are more normal in width.
The RipCurrent S weighs 80.4 lbs. It comes with racks, which influences this figure a bit, and its battery and motor are both significantly larger than the Aventure. While this translates into some amount of performance gain, it’s not necessarily in the places you expect. Again, more on this later.
Components
In terms of bike components, these bikes are ridiculously similar. Both feature 180mm hydraulic disc brakes, midrange Shimano derailleurs, and front suspension forks with 80mm of travel and lockout.
Both feature 26″ x 4″ wide tires, with both bike manufacturers preferring Kenda tires when they’re available.
The biggest difference here is probably the displays. The Aventure has a full-color LCD display with some pretty cool stats displayed by default. The battery meter changes color and displays percents, not bars.
The RipCurrent, by contrast, has a small, drab black and white LCD display that might remind you of an old digital watch. It definitely gets the job done, but not in style.
There are two important points to make here. One, your phone blows both displays out of the water. If you wanted to look at a pretty screen while you were riding, you’d pull up GPS on your phone and get a phone mount.
Two, you probably shouldn’t stare at a screen while you ride, period. The somewhat lackluster display of the RipCurrent is very unlikely to be an issue. It’s just less nice than the display on the Aventure.
Range and Speed
The Aventon Aventure is an incredibly well-designed e-bike.
It’ll maintain class 3 speeds with ease with a minimum of pedal effort. Going uphill, it’s one of the most powerful e-bikes in its price bracket, maintaining mid-double digit speeds on very steep hills with no pedal power whatsoever.
Range-wise, it’s no slouch. Expect to get about 20 miles on pedal assist 5 and about 50 miles on pedal assist 1. The bike is quite heavy, however, and with the extra work required to overcome the fat tires, you’ll probably want to stick to the higher pedal assist modes, especially if you want to go fast.
The Aventure has a 15 amp-hour battery and a 750W motor that peaks at 1130W. In practice, it feels like it’s got even more. The controller on this bike seems very well configured, giving you more juice when you need it and backing off to save power when it can get away with it.
You’ll even notice the controller lowering the amount of assistance it provides as the battery drains past 20% power. It’s a terrific package that blows most of the competition out of the water.
The RipCurrent S is fast and powerful, but it’s got bulkier hardware. The 750W motor peaks at 1300W, while the battery provides 19.2 amp-hours of 52-volt power.
This is more than the Aventure by a fair bit. It does not make the bike go faster, however, as legal limits keep your top speed at 20 or 28 miles per hour, depending on your mode of operation.
It also seems to perform quite similarly up hills. In terms of range, expect 60 something miles out of the lowest pedal assist setting and 20 something out of the highest.
Just like with other fat-tire bikes, the level of air in your tires can have a big impact on how long your battery lasts, especially on high pedal assist modes.
The Bottom Line
If you’re on a budget, the Aventon Aventure is nominally cheaper than the Juiced RipCurrent S, although sales can muddy this a fair bit. It’s incredibly powerful, comfortable, and a total blast to ride.
While the range is theoretically lower, the performance is very similar in practice, helping you go as fast as you want regardless of the grade of the road or your level of fitness. Without racks in the box, expect to spend a bit more if you plan to haul cargo.
If you’re a fan of range, the Juiced RipCurrent S can squeak a few more miles out of a fully charged battery than the Aventon Aventure. It’s got a huge motor, a huge battery, and all of the components needed to ensure a comfortable ride over any terrain.
While the MSRP is higher than the Aventure’s, this is muddied by sales and specials. You get racks in the box, too, making it a bit cheaper by comparison than it might seem. If the RipCurrent S is cheaper than the Aventure for the riding setup you’d like to pursue, it’s probably the better choice.
If not, consider the RipCurrent S if the extra few miles of range are important to you or if you’re not a fan of the Aventure’s looks.