Range. Velocity. Weight. If an electric scooter can create a good balance between these three elements without costing an arm and a leg, it’s an instant gain for me. I’m glad to say that after years of testing scooters and usually by finding a few flaws in at least one of these components, the Speedways Mini 4 Pro comes closest to perfection.
Speedway is a sub-brand of MiniMotors USA, which makes expensive and powerful scooters like the Dualtron Victor and Bluetran Lightning (we’re talking $ 3,000 + for one of the bad boys). These scooters also weigh more than 80 pounds, which is not great if your Brooklyn apartment is on the third floor with no elevator. This Speedway, on the other hand, delivers enough power to cruise around most hills, has a reliable range and weighs only 36 pounds. It’s a dreamlike city trip.
Slow start
Before I dive into everything I like, I will note that I only had two issues with the Mini 4 Pro. On the way home for my first ride with the scooter, the brakes made a screaming sound. It was so loud that I could see disbelieving glances from passers-by. I just grimaced and kept screaming home.
This problem disappeared the next time I took the scooter out for a ride. But I took it to a store for safety, and found that the brake did not fit properly. After less than 10 minutes, it was fixed and I was on my way, feeling a little more confident than I did before. Dozens of trips later I have not encountered this problem.
My second woe? For a while, I had no idea how to properly fold this scooter down all the way. There is a small folding handle at the bottom of the stem that you have to push down, but no matter how hard I pushed with the foot, it never jerked. It turns out that you have to push the stem forward while kicking into the handle, thereby releasing it and folding the entire stem down onto the deck.
When I first found out, I could not stop fold it every moment I did not use it. It’s so easy! I can fold it down with a little pressure from my leg and the stem clicks into place when parallel to the tire. You can also fold the handlebars down to make it all really compact.
Best of all, you just grab the stem to carry the Mini 4 Pro as if it were a piece of luggage. Weighing in at 36 pounds, it is one of the lighter scooters I have tried, and much easier than most to ride up and down a flight of stairs.
Go, Speed Racer!
Despite its small size and weight, this thing is powerful. With the hub motor of 1,360 watts, you can drive up to 28 mph at the highest speed mode. I almost always set it to the second level, which hovers around 18 to 20 mph and will not eat battery life as fast. It can even clear slopes. The Mini 4 Pro is powerful enough to drive over the Williamsburg and Brooklyn bridges here in New York City at speeds that are not frustratingly slow.
It is worth noting that once or twice, when I kicked off and pressed the throttle before putting my foot back in front of the tire, the entire front end of the scooter went a few inches up into the air. I had to press the brake to make it stop before it slid out of my hands. This seems to be a consequence of equipping a powerful engine in a relatively light frame. Just make sure you have both feet planted firmly on the deck when you hit it.
As with all electric vehicles, the terrain you travel on will have a serious impact on your range (so will your weight). I’m a rattlesnake, 6’4 “man, and I got 15 miles on the Mini 4 Pro, but it was a hefty ride that involved crossing both of the aforementioned bridges. On a separate 11-mile round trip mostly on flat roads , the battery reading on the handlebar display said it had 63 percent left.Sure to say, most people can expect a place that is shy of 20 miles (Speedway claims a range of 30 miles) .It’s much better than people who eg. Segway F30. You will spend about 6 hours getting a full charge again.