Review of the iconBIT Kick Scooter CITY PRO scooter: your own in the city

Elec­tric scoot­ers today remain at the peak of pop­u­lar­i­ty — per­haps in recent years this is the most active­ly grow­ing seg­ment of indi­vid­ual elec­tric trans­port. Small and large, expen­sive and cheap, with and with­out sus­pen­sion — you can choose indef­i­nite­ly. We also chose what to take for the test and set­tled on an option that seemed to us bal­anced for the real con­di­tions of the city: icon­BIT Kick Scoot­er City Pro. How exact­ly? About every­thing in order.

Content

• Design and device
• Our impres­sions
• Sum­ma­ry

Design and device

Let’s start with the main one. While bike own­ers ride com­fort­ably on large pneu­mat­ic (i.e. inflat­able) wheels with a spring at least in the front fork, scoot­ers suf­fer every dip. Man­u­fac­tur­ers are try­ing to alle­vi­ate their fate by equip­ping devices with sus­pen­sions and pneu­mat­ics. But…

• Sus­pen­sion on a scoot­er This is extra weight and a sig­nif­i­cant plus to the cost. Not every­one appre­ci­ates.
• Pneu­mat­ic wheels even author­i­ties like Xiao­mi are con­stant­ly in need of atten­tion and repair. Cam­eras have to be changed almost once a sea­son.

What are the trade-offs? For exam­ple, make only one wheel pneu­mat­ic, leave the oth­er plas­tic. But this is not a solu­tion to the prob­lem. Icon­BIT went the oth­er way: for the Kick Scoot­er City Pro, it used wide 10-inch plas­tic wheels and added per­fo­ra­tions to them. As a result, even with­out sus­pen­sion, asphalt joints and oth­er minor irreg­u­lar­i­ties can be passed with­out slow­ing down and feel­ing uncom­fort­able. You can also ride on tiles with­out tap­ping rhythms of tap danc­ing with your teeth, and isn’t that hap­pi­ness for a real Mus­covite!

Per­haps the mat­ter is in the com­po­si­tion of the plas­tic itself: for exam­ple, if the icon­BIT Kick Scoot­er C60, which we test­ed last year, is dif­fi­cult to con­trol when it hits wet plas­tic mark­ings or the ground, City Pro behaves quite wor­thy.

We start­ed with the wheels, because they often become the main cri­te­ri­on for choos­ing a scoot­er. Now to the rest of the design ele­ments.

The scoot­er is assem­bled on a sol­id frame, a wide plat­form has a non-slip sil­i­cone pad. It is com­fort­able to stand on it with any size of foot, two also fit per­fect­ly.

The engine is locat­ed in the front wheel. The brake has a hybrid design, that is, it com­bines elec­tri­cal and mechan­i­cal. The accel­er­a­tor is tra­di­tion­al­ly locat­ed on the right han­dle, the brake lever is on the left.

The steer­ing wheel is made for the growth of an adult and is not adjustable in height. In the cen­ter is a dis­play that dis­plays all the main dri­ving para­me­ters: speed, kilo­me­ters trav­eled, bat­tery remain­ing. The only con­trol is a but­ton locat­ed below this dis­play. To turn on / off the scoot­er, you need to press and hold it for a cou­ple of sec­onds. Nor­mal press­ing cycles through the pos­si­ble speed options. The first one is for begin­ners, on the sec­ond one you can dri­ve up to 20 km/h, on the third one you can devel­op a max­i­mum speed of 25 km/h. It’s no longer safe.

The steer­ing wheel also has an inte­grat­ed LED head­light. Its main func­tion is to des­ig­nate vehi­cles when dri­ving at night. The qual­i­ty of road light­ing is rather mediocre: even at medi­um speed you don’t have time to go around a hole that sud­den­ly fell into a spot of light.

The fold­ing algo­rithm is extreme­ly sim­ple. It is nec­es­sary to bend the lever on the front of the steer­ing col­umn and tilt the steer­ing wheel until it snaps into place on the rear fend­er. To return to its orig­i­nal posi­tion, respec­tive­ly, press the latch, raise the steer­ing wheel and return the lever to its place.

Our impres­sions

In fact, we start­ed with com­fort — indeed, it is very pleas­ant to ride around the city on the Kick Scoot­er City Pro. You can eas­i­ly jump off small curbs, although the man­u­fac­tur­er prob­a­bly does not encour­age this. Dif­fi­cul­ties can begin when try­ing to plunge into pub­lic trans­port. The scoot­er is quite heavy, about 16 kg, while even 10-inch wheels do not pro­vide enough clear­ance to drag the mod­el into the under­pass with­out scratch­ing the bot­tom when dri­ving down the ramp. It is also not easy to keep it on an inclined ramp — it is bet­ter to fold it and car­ry it in your hands.

Engine pow­er is not indi­cat­ed in the spec­i­fi­ca­tions, but accel­er­a­tion is quite pep­py even with a rid­er weigh­ing under 90 kg. Slopes up to 15° are eas­i­ly over­come by run­ning, more seri­ous ones can also be dri­ven, but the thrust peri­od­i­cal­ly dis­ap­pears (prob­a­bly, the con­troller detects an increased load on the engine and turns off the pow­er sup­ply to avoid over­heat­ing). In Moscow, not a sin­gle bridge made you dis­mount or push with your feet.

The design of the steer­ing wheel leaves mixed impres­sions. On the one hand, for peo­ple over 175 cm, it is very con­ve­nient and even infor­ma­tive. But for teenagers and oth­er short per­son­al­i­ties, it’s frankly tall. Was it worth depriv­ing him of the adjust­ment? Not sure. Some con­so­la­tion is the absence of back­lash and squeaks of the con­nec­tion, as on some oth­er mod­els with adjust­ment. But “fit­ting” before buy­ing is still desir­able.

The brake takes some get­ting used to. Its hybrid­i­ty gives a side effect in the form of a feed­back vio­la­tion. That is, although it is man­u­al, it does not work quite like on a bicy­cle (as much as it pressed, it slowed down). This con­fus­es only the first cou­ple of kilo­me­ters — then you already under­stand exact­ly how hard to put pres­sure on the lever.

We did not dare to com­plete­ly drain the bat­tery (after all, rid­ing this scoot­er, push­ing with your foot, is very uncom­fort­able), but accord­ing to the feel­ings of an adult rid­er, the device can take away 20 kilo­me­ters. Charg­ing should take about 4.5 hours.

Sum­ma­ry: is icon­BIT Kick Scoot­er City Pro worth it?

We tried to find the best scoot­er for the city and to a large extent we suc­ceed­ed. City Pro is a nim­ble and com­fort­able mod­el with a suf­fi­cient mar­gin of auton­o­my. Smooth run­ning, the com­plete absence of squeaks and back­lash­es, a sim­ple fold­ing scheme — all this should also be added to the list of advan­tages. But there are still a cou­ple of “con­traindi­ca­tions”. Such a mod­el is quite heavy, and if you expect to com­bine it with pub­lic trans­port, be pre­pared to car­ry a piece of iron weigh­ing 16 kg in your hands.

The City Pro will not be very con­ve­nient for peo­ple of small stature either: the steer­ing wheel is a lit­tle high and is not adjustable in any way.

If you are going to buy, do not be lazy to study the offers. For exam­ple, at the time of pub­li­ca­tion of the arti­cle, some stores offered this mod­el for 29,990 rubles, but you could also find it for 24,000 rubles. For such a scoot­er, this is a very rea­son­able price.

More options, as well as a lay­out for the main char­ac­ter­is­tics — in our selec­tion guide.

Per­haps the mat­ter is in the com­po­si­tion of the plas­tic itself: for exam­ple, if the icon­BIT Kick Scoot­er C60, which we test­ed last year, is dif­fi­cult to con­trol when it hits wet plas­tic mark­ings or the ground, City Pro behaves quite wor­thy.

We start­ed with the wheels, because they often become the main cri­te­ri­on for choos­ing a scoot­er. Now to the rest of the design ele­ments.

The scoot­er is assem­bled on a sol­id frame, a wide plat­form has a non-slip sil­i­cone pad. It is com­fort­able to stand on it with any size of foot, two also fit per­fect­ly.

The engine is locat­ed in the front wheel. The brake has a hybrid design, that is, it com­bines elec­tri­cal and mechan­i­cal. The accel­er­a­tor is tra­di­tion­al­ly locat­ed on the right han­dle, the brake lever is on the left.

The steer­ing wheel is made for the growth of an adult and is not adjustable in height. In the cen­ter is a dis­play that dis­plays all the main dri­ving para­me­ters: speed, kilo­me­ters trav­eled, bat­tery remain­ing. The only con­trol is a but­ton locat­ed below this dis­play. To turn on / off the scoot­er, you need to press and hold it for a cou­ple of sec­onds. Nor­mal press­ing cycles through the pos­si­ble speed options. The first one is for begin­ners, on the sec­ond one you can dri­ve up to 20 km/h, on the third one you can devel­op a max­i­mum speed of 25 km/h. It’s no longer safe.

The steer­ing wheel also has an inte­grat­ed LED head­light. Its main func­tion is to des­ig­nate vehi­cles when dri­ving at night. The qual­i­ty of road light­ing is rather mediocre: even at medi­um speed you don’t have time to go around a hole that sud­den­ly fell into a spot of light.

The fold­ing algo­rithm is extreme­ly sim­ple. It is nec­es­sary to bend the lever on the front of the steer­ing col­umn and tilt the steer­ing wheel until it snaps into place on the rear fend­er. To return to its orig­i­nal posi­tion, respec­tive­ly, press the latch, raise the steer­ing wheel and return the lever to its place.

Our impres­sions

In fact, we start­ed with com­fort — indeed, it is very pleas­ant to ride around the city on the Kick Scoot­er City Pro. You can eas­i­ly jump off small curbs, although the man­u­fac­tur­er prob­a­bly does not encour­age this. Dif­fi­cul­ties can begin when try­ing to plunge into pub­lic trans­port. The scoot­er is quite heavy, about 16 kg, while even 10-inch wheels do not pro­vide enough clear­ance to drag the mod­el into the under­pass with­out scratch­ing the bot­tom when dri­ving down the ramp. It is also not easy to keep it on an inclined ramp — it is bet­ter to fold it and car­ry it in your hands.

Engine pow­er is not indi­cat­ed in the spec­i­fi­ca­tions, but accel­er­a­tion is quite pep­py even with a rid­er weigh­ing under 90 kg. Slopes up to 15° are eas­i­ly over­come by run­ning, more seri­ous ones can also be dri­ven, but the thrust peri­od­i­cal­ly dis­ap­pears (prob­a­bly, the con­troller detects an increased load on the engine and turns off the pow­er sup­ply to avoid over­heat­ing). In Moscow, not a sin­gle bridge made you dis­mount or push with your feet.

The design of the steer­ing wheel leaves mixed impres­sions. On the one hand, for peo­ple over 175 cm, it is very con­ve­nient and even infor­ma­tive. But for teenagers and oth­er short per­son­al­i­ties, it’s frankly tall. Was it worth depriv­ing him of the adjust­ment? Not sure. Some con­so­la­tion is the absence of back­lash and squeaks of the con­nec­tion, as on some oth­er mod­els with adjust­ment. But “fit­ting” before buy­ing is still desir­able.

The brake takes some get­ting used to. Its hybrid­i­ty gives a side effect in the form of a feed­back vio­la­tion. That is, although it is man­u­al, it does not work quite like on a bicy­cle (as much as it pressed, it slowed down). This con­fus­es only the first cou­ple of kilo­me­ters — then you already under­stand exact­ly how hard to put pres­sure on the lever.

We did not dare to com­plete­ly drain the bat­tery (after all, rid­ing this scoot­er, push­ing with your foot, is very uncom­fort­able), but accord­ing to the feel­ings of an adult rid­er, the device can take away 20 kilo­me­ters. Charg­ing should take about 4.5 hours.

Sum­ma­ry: is icon­BIT Kick Scoot­er City Pro worth it?

We tried to find the best scoot­er for the city and to a large extent we suc­ceed­ed. City Pro is a nim­ble and com­fort­able mod­el with a suf­fi­cient mar­gin of auton­o­my. Smooth run­ning, the com­plete absence of squeaks and back­lash­es, a sim­ple fold­ing scheme — all this should also be added to the list of advan­tages. But there are still a cou­ple of “con­traindi­ca­tions”. Such a mod­el is quite heavy, and if you expect to com­bine it with pub­lic trans­port, be pre­pared to car­ry a piece of iron weigh­ing 16 kg in your hands.

The City Pro will not be very con­ve­nient for peo­ple of small stature either: the steer­ing wheel is a lit­tle high and is not adjustable in any way.

If you are going to buy, do not be lazy to study the offers. For exam­ple, at the time of pub­li­ca­tion of the arti­cle, some stores offered this mod­el for 29,990 rubles, but you could also find it for 24,000 rubles. For such a scoot­er, this is a very rea­son­able price.

More options, as well as a lay­out for the main char­ac­ter­is­tics — in our selec­tion guide.