Ten years ago, if you had told me that I’d be riding what I would soon call an “excellent commuter e-bike” despite it weighing 118 pounds (53.5 kg) and rolling on 24×4.0-inch fat tires, I probably would have laughed. Today, though, I’m not so sure.

The Ariel Rider Kepler occupies a category that doesn’t really exist on paper but makes a lot of sense in the real world: the fat tire commuter. Plenty of riders buy adventure-style e-bikes and end up using them almost exclusively for city riding anyway, enjoying the comfortable fat tires, upright riding position, and confidence-inspiring handling. Ariel Rider seems to have looked at that trend and decided to lean into it instead of fighting it.

When many riders hear about a new electric motorcycle, they tend to compare it to the flagship machines that dominate the headlines. Bikes like those from Zero or LiveWire have shown that electric motorcycles can be fast, powerful, and technologically impressive. They’ve also shown that they can be expensive.

But a much more interesting battle may be happening lower down the power scale.