I mostly talk hiking gear on this channel, but I’ve been wanting to do a proper 1,000 km bike-packing trip with e-bikes here in Italy—unpaved mountain roads included. To make that happen with my wife, I needed a second e-bike, so I picked the ENGWE E26 fat tire e-bike because it’s cheap, fairly popular, has decent range, isn’t insanely heavy for a fat tire bike, and (most importantly) it’s 100% road legal here in Italy. ENGWE sent me the bike for free for this review—no money exchanged—and I waited until I had 500 km+ on the odometer before giving my honest take. I start with what I didn’t like: factory setup issues and annoying rattles (mudguards, kickstand, derailleur), plus sloppy front wiring that I ended up redoing myself. Then I cover the stuff I expected to hate but didn’t: the non-hydraulic fork is fine for potholes, gravel, and decent trails, and the screen has been totally okay after hundreds of kilometers. The cadence sensor (no torque sensor) has downsides—especially on steep technical climbs and when riding with others—but after a learning curve it stopped bothering me. On the good side, it’s legal, comfortable, has solid hydraulic brakes, useful lights, a handy walk-assist mode, and I got about 65 km range on moderately mountainous terrain (1,700 m gain). My verdict: if you catch it around 900–1.2k EUR, it’s a really good deal; closer to 1.4k, I’d think twice.