Hi Folks,
I know there have been a few reviews now of the BB but each person's experience is different and someone somewhere may find something useful in mine - I hope so anyway!
A bit of background first.
I'm a sixty year old wildlife nut spending roughly half the year in Limousine, France, most of the winter in Spain and the rest in the UK.
I'm about 15 stone (a whole stone and a bit lighter than before I got on the bike!) with two dodgy knees and I had a heart attack about ten years ago.
My wife and I bought a derelict house in France about 8 years ago when we both took early retirement.
The countryside here is very hilly and we are right on top of one of the biggest. It's 4.2 km downhill to the river in one direction and 1.5km very steeply downhill to the same river the other way. When we first got here we went out on our road bikes a few times but the hills were just too much.
Several years ago I started thinking about an E bike but with this terrain didn't think I'd be able to get too far with the kind of batteries then commonly available. After a fair bit of research I finally gave up and bought a small motorbike which has been brilliant for exploring the local area and nipping to the shops - 18km each way!
I never gave up on the E bike idea though and when I read about the Big Bear I thought I'd give it a try. So almost exactly a year and 3200km (2000 miles) ago I took delivery. I used a company called mouse2house deliveries who are based near Taunton and deliver groceries etc. to Brits out here. They charged me £60 and I picked up the bike from their lorry at one of the local villages where they make their drops.
Just a word here about the experience of riding a bike here in rural France compared to riding a motorbike. My daily ride (weather and commitments permitting) is to a local lake along quiet country roads. It's 12.5 km each way and I can often make the journey without meeting a single car! When I do though they are almost always very polite and "bike aware" sometimes embarrassingly so - they will often crawl along behind for ages until they are absolutely certain that it's safe to pass.
This is a big contrast with experience on the motorbike where they show a near pathological need to overtake instantly often in very dangerous spots and causing me more than a few anxious moments. I have asked my French neighbours and friends about this and they always say "the car and the motorbike are not friends!" - I can only agree!
I must also say that riding the BB in Spain has given me the odd moment too - some Spanish drivers have the terrible habit of driving right up behind you and really laying on the horn - the first few times it happened I nearly jumped out of my skin!
I'm going to post this review in a couple of bits - so the next one will deal with the bike itself (at last!)
All the best for now,
Phil
I know there have been a few reviews now of the BB but each person's experience is different and someone somewhere may find something useful in mine - I hope so anyway!
A bit of background first.
I'm a sixty year old wildlife nut spending roughly half the year in Limousine, France, most of the winter in Spain and the rest in the UK.
I'm about 15 stone (a whole stone and a bit lighter than before I got on the bike!) with two dodgy knees and I had a heart attack about ten years ago.
My wife and I bought a derelict house in France about 8 years ago when we both took early retirement.
The countryside here is very hilly and we are right on top of one of the biggest. It's 4.2 km downhill to the river in one direction and 1.5km very steeply downhill to the same river the other way. When we first got here we went out on our road bikes a few times but the hills were just too much.
Several years ago I started thinking about an E bike but with this terrain didn't think I'd be able to get too far with the kind of batteries then commonly available. After a fair bit of research I finally gave up and bought a small motorbike which has been brilliant for exploring the local area and nipping to the shops - 18km each way!
I never gave up on the E bike idea though and when I read about the Big Bear I thought I'd give it a try. So almost exactly a year and 3200km (2000 miles) ago I took delivery. I used a company called mouse2house deliveries who are based near Taunton and deliver groceries etc. to Brits out here. They charged me £60 and I picked up the bike from their lorry at one of the local villages where they make their drops.
Just a word here about the experience of riding a bike here in rural France compared to riding a motorbike. My daily ride (weather and commitments permitting) is to a local lake along quiet country roads. It's 12.5 km each way and I can often make the journey without meeting a single car! When I do though they are almost always very polite and "bike aware" sometimes embarrassingly so - they will often crawl along behind for ages until they are absolutely certain that it's safe to pass.
This is a big contrast with experience on the motorbike where they show a near pathological need to overtake instantly often in very dangerous spots and causing me more than a few anxious moments. I have asked my French neighbours and friends about this and they always say "the car and the motorbike are not friends!" - I can only agree!
I must also say that riding the BB in Spain has given me the odd moment too - some Spanish drivers have the terrible habit of driving right up behind you and really laying on the horn - the first few times it happened I nearly jumped out of my skin!
I'm going to post this review in a couple of bits - so the next one will deal with the bike itself (at last!)
All the best for now,
Phil
