MOD Black Review 2022 | Electric Bike Report

One of the features we love about mid-drive motors is that they use power very efficiently. A 350W mid-drive motor can easily compare in performance to most 750W hub-drive motors; often, they climb better. The MOD Black is equipped with a 48V, 557Wh battery. On paper, those numbers look good, but out in the real world, it was a different story.

In our range test the MOD Black slayed. Killed. Destroyed. In PAS 5 our test rider covered 30 mi (29.6) at an average speed of 18 mph. We review e-bikes that can’t cover 30 mi. with maximum assistance at a nice 18.6 mph clip.

That was plenty impressive, but in PAS 1, our test rider was out for the better part of the day (poor guy was out there almost six hours). He covered a whopping 84 mi. Yes, 84 mi., and the MOD Black carried an average speed of 15 mph.

To put that performance in perspective, very few e-bikes we review eclipse the 60-mi. mark. The MOD Black is the first e-bike to my memory that we’ve reviewed to go more than 70 mi. without some sort of dual battery setup. For some commuters, the MOD Black could enjoy two weeks of riding before a recharge. So why include such a powerful battery? Well, one reason is that riding on unpaved surfaces demands more power than riding on pavement, and taking off down a dirt road isn’t much fun if the rider needs to turn back after 10 mi.

A brief word on those average speeds: Most e-bikes, as they reach the end of their charge, will tend to slow down. It’s kinda like when a three year old slows just before falling asleep. As a result, many bikes that cruise well for most of the battery’s charge don’t ultimately deliver a great average speed because they slow so much in those final miles. With an average speed of 15 mph in PAS 1 and 18 mph in PAS 5, the MOD Black delivered impressive performance across the battery’s entire charge.

Of all the tests we do with an e-bike, finding out how powerful it is on Hell Hole is one of the more enjoyable aspects of bike testing. Unlike our circuit test or range test—which take time to perform, the hill test unfolds in less than two minutes and says much about how powerful the bike is. The results often surprise us—light bikes have struggled and utter elephants have conquered the test. That’s what makes this test such a delight. There’s no guessing.

The MOD Black lacks a throttle, so we only performed the PAS 5 test and on that the result was solid. It climbed Hell Hole in 93 seconds for an average speed of 11.7 mph. We want to stress that while this result isn’t especially fast, simply completing the climb is an achievement.

Any time we see hydraulic disc brakes on an e-bike, we are pleased. The extra weight that comes with a motor and battery make an e-bike a bit tougher to slow than a traditional bike. The MOD Black came with Zoom hydraulic discs paired with 180mm rotors, and levers that include motor cutoff switches.

In our testing, we found that the average stopping distance for the MOD Black was 20 feet 8 inches. This is a greater distance than we found in our recent test of the MOD Easy, and we need to explain why a heavier bike (the Easy) stopped in a shorter distance.

Previously, our testing went for a panic stop—ultra-hard braking, to the point of skidding. We’ve realized that it’s not a measurement that will reflect the real-world experience of our reader, so we changed how we do the test, which is now done seated and braking as hard as possible but without skidding.

With that explained, we believe the MOD Black did reasonably well. We noticed that the brake spec’d is a lighter weight model often seen on lighter weight bikes and paired with a 160mm rotor. There are certainly e-bikes out there in a similar price range with more powerful brakes, but these did the job.

Because this e-bike enjoys both front and rear suspension it bears the traits of an eMTB. Upon a bit more inspection we find that the suspension fork offers only 80mm of suspension and MOD does not reveal how much travel the rear suspension provides. That lack of info and the relatively short travel (100mm is on the short side for today’s mountain bikes) of the fork spell out that this is a bike that can handle a dirt road, but isn’t going to win any Red Bull contests.

All that said, this is a full-suspension bike and as such, it offers about as much comfort as a rider can hope to find. The fact that the saddle is fairly firm (a firm saddle actually offers better support) is difficult to object to thanks to the very cushy ride of the frame and fork.

One of the best features of a full-suspension e-bike is how the suspension improves its handling, which it does by doing a better job of keeping the wheels on the ground. No, this isn’t an e-bike that we would recommend taking off a 4-ft. jump, but on a bumpy and rutted dirt road, the suspension improves the bike’s handling significantly.

The MOD Black is an e-bike equipped to do more than stick to the pavement. Its combination of 3-in.-wide tires and front and rear suspension make it suitable to a variety of unpaved surfaces. With a price tag firmly in the mid-range tier, it’s more expensive than many similarly equipped bikes and that owes to the fact that the MOD Black is built around a mid-drive motor and plenty of features.

The 350W mid-drive motor might seem underpowered were it a hub motor, but positioned at the crankset, rather than the rear wheel, and turning up to 90Nm of torque, this e-bike has the power to go most anywhere, paved or not.

Again, the MOD Bikes’ aim of being both commuter and off-road is largely achieved so long as you remember that the short travel of the suspension fork and the budget-end rear suspension travel make this bike a solid all-terrain e-bike but not quite a true eMTB.

Shopping in the $3000-$4000 price tier is a big jump from the more affordable, sub-$2000 e-bikes that dominate the market and considering some of those bikes are marketed as off-road-worthy, we are far more confident steering riders to an e-bike like this should their intended riding terrain lack pavement. There are broad swaths of America’s heartland that are dominated by roads composed of dirt or gravel, or both. The MOD Black would make an excellent daily driver for anyone who needs to cover some gravel before reaching pavement.

We developed great affection for the MOD Bikes Easy which we recently reviewed. The MOD Black is a significantly different bike meant to do something far different for a very different rider. As an exercise in creating an e-bike meant to fill the needs of riders, this is a fine machine.

‘Happy Riding, make sure to let us know if you have any questions down in our comments section or if you think we left anything out in this review of the MOD Black.