£1000 ebike for big fat man doing short commute with big hill

[strowger]

Hi all,

I want to get an ebike on a cycle-to-work scheme, which means an absolute can-not-exceed maximum spend of £1000. It's a Halfords scheme so I think I can get pretty much anything with some minor faffing about. Already got a push bike so got locks, lid, lights, etc.

It's for a short commute (so don't need a massive battery life) but with a long and steep hill. I'm not expecting miracles; I do expect to pedal, just want help on the hilly bits. Don't care whether it looks the part or not, but I'm utterly mechanically inept so build quality and ease of maintenance are a factor.

I'm male, 6ft and 100+kg by the time I'm carrying all my work stuff.

Any suggestions please?

Cheers

 

[PhilYerBoots]

Hi Strowger and welcome to the forums.

Regarding the £1000 limit, my employers scheme is also through Halfords and most of their 'partner' independent bike stores have offered to allow me to top-up the £1000 myself due to the higher cost of some e-bikes. You might not want to spend more but it can be an option to get the bike you want and still save up to £400.
Bike-wise you'd probably want to look at the mountain bike style frames for weight/strength for which Kudos Cycles have a few options at your price limit http://www.kudoscycles.com/index.php.

Good luck with your search.

Phil.

 

[trex]

Look for a bike with an 8-Fun BPM or Ezee motor.
or the woosh Krieger:
http://wooshbikes.co.uk/?krieger

 

[JohnCade]

Doesn’t he say it’s a Halfords scheme? I assume that means he has to buy the bike there?

From what I’ve read they don’t have a lot of choice, or many powerful bikes. He could buy a good bike up to the grand limit and convert it or get it converted. He would end up with something very much fit for purpose that way for the cost of the kit.

 

[trex]

it makes sense converting a good bike that you own and is already fitted with mid or top of the range European components. You'll end up with a top end bike that is mechanically well designed and equipped as a Haibike or a KTM for the price of a cheap Chinese. But if you have to spend £500-£600 on a mid range bike at Halfords, you are left with £400-£500 to spend on the kit that you have to fit yourself. you'll get nowhere near the level of electrical performance of a woosh Krieger or a woosh Zephyr-B, sold with guarantee.

 

[mab13]

From the OP, being mechanically inept and having a Halfords C2W voucher, I'd suggest he's looking to simply by a £1k bike and ride it... not go through a build process and have to by the kit separately out of his own pocket.

I guess the question is whether or not Halfords sell a decent pedelec or whether the C2W voucher could be used elsewhere with a retailer that sells a decent pedelec...

Unfortunately, I'm not knowledgeable enough to answer either question.

 

[strowger]

Hi,

Thanks all for the replies.

The Halfords C2W voucher is accepted by a fair number of independent bike shops, and although Halfords are as arsey as possible about helping with this, it's the route I'm likely to take.

I'm not averse to topping up the voucher a bit, but am surprised that it's an option. It's against the scheme rules and my local independent (which does accept the vouchers) didn't mention it as an option.

Yes, I want to buy an ebike and use it, I'm not interested in buying kits of parts or upgrading things. I also don't already own a good bike - I own about £50 worth of second hand sad old mountain bike.

Cheers

 

[JohnCade]

If the voucher can be used elsewhere then you have good options. The reason I suggested using it up at the store on a good bike for a grand and spending extra to get it converted was because as far as I know Halfords don’t sell any powerful e bikes, and that way you would get something in the order of a higher end German one.

If you look through the forum here you will see some names cropping up over again for someone of your weight. Cyclezee, Woosh Big Bear and others are well within your budget. You will probably want a BPM type motor like those, and you should steer clear of a LBS selling e bikes who try to sell you a bog standard lower powered one.

 

[RobF]

I tried a front hub D Cycle, as sold by Halfords.

Hard to quantify the power, but it had more poke than my Brompton Nano.

The EBCO bikes - also as sold by Halfords - pull reasonably well.

Quality, for about £1,000, looks good to me.

The OP doesn't give his exact weight, but '100kg+' in the accepted meaning of the term is not that heavy.

He is 'not expecting miracles' and 'expects to pedal'.

With that common sense approach, I reckon he will get on well enough with an EBCO or D Cycle £1,000 bike.

EBCO have recently appointed some independent bike shops as dealers.

One of those, if they can accept the C2W voucher, may be a better bet than buying direct from Halfords.

 

[Ronnyuk]

I was In the same predicament, I had a Burisch Synergy 250 which pulled my 110kg around ok but big hills were a no go even with pedalling it was a bloody nightmare, light hills and straights were fine though.

I sold the bike and after a bit of looking about I have just put the deposit down on a 13ah Oxygen, I paid an extra £200 on top of the C2W scheme voucher, This one should have a bit more ooompph although I am not expecting it to power me up steep hills but just give me a good helping hand, plus I prefer to have a bike that looks like a normal bike not a "Mary Poppins" type bike

I change the bike every year and love using the savings you get from the scheme.

Will report back next week when I get the bike.

 

[crankyhorse]

Halfords are advertising a much bigger range via e bikes direct.

I think this shows the level of reticence they have for E bikes. From my experience the staff are a bit scared of them, even at one of the better stores for bike knowledge.

At some point Halfords will realise they are late for the party.

 

[JamesW]

I got a folding bike on cycle 2 work 8 years ago now. I had to get it from halfords, but I wanted a Mezzo D9. One of the LBS was the local distributor for Mezzo but I was not allowed to go there a Halfwords eventually got the bike and "set it up" - they didn't have a clue. I had to take it into the authorised dealer a month later to get it properly setup and serviced at my own expense as work refused to let me use the cyxcke to work voucher anywhere other than halfrauds.
By all means let therm source the bike if required - don't let therm set it up make sure you have a good LBS who will do that and cover the warranty for you (I'm sure most places will help for repeated service custom if your company decides to prevent you going to anywhere other than halfrauds)

Good luck

My advice is pick the bike you want at RRP under £1000 ( don't forget to add bags helmet and lights to the order if you can) then get halfords to get the bike - you weont get any discount off rrp,but halfords can't charge you more.
Then make sure someone you know/trust who is good with bikes checks it over before you walkout of the shop.

 

[strowger]

Thanks again for all the replies and suggestions.

I fancy the Woosh Krieger but am not sure whether it's going to be possible on the Halfords scheme - since Woosh's own website says that it isn't, and they appear to only sell direct

Failing that, the Ebco UCR30 is an option. Not perfect, but available from Halfords direct at a reasonable price.

I quite fancy the D-Cycle Discovery bikes, but I see they are available at non-cycle-scheme retailers at a massive discount, so paying £800 via the scheme when they can be had for £550 cash is not attractive.

Got to decide this week as the deadline for our scheme is Friday...

 

[Just Jules]

Woosh Santana CD is under a grand and is great for hills

 

[strowger]

Thanks again for all the suggestions.

After a LOT of annoying fannying-around, I have gone for a Raleigh Motus, which was considerably over the original budget.

The factors which swayed it for me were:

After wasting hours on ringing up dealers and going to see dealers, finding one which both stocks a wide-but-still-limited range of e-bikes, has a clue, and will allow Halfords vouchers to be topped-up with cash. Lots of local-ish dealers which take the Halfords scheme vouchers claim to do e-bikes, but in practice either have little interest/enthusiasm/knowledge, or won't take the vouchers when push comes to shove.

Wanting crank drive for the big hill (controversial I know - but I am very happy with it now I have it).

Wanting "brand name" components for everything (see first post re mechanical ineptitude).


I'm very pleased with it.