E Bike for my wife

[RW78]

Hi, I'm looking for advice. My wife is keen to use her bike to work scheme to purchase an e bike for the fairly short commute to work. She wants to spend around £1k but is quickly discovering that this is a rather limiting budget. She has seen the Cytronix system https://www.cytronex.com/ which she likes the look of because it would allow her to disconnect the battery and almost have a normal bike.

I'm unsure as it seem expensive for what may soon be out of date technology? Also when you consider something like the GTECH bike £1k gets you a bike as well:
https://www.gtech.co.uk/ebikes/ebike-city.html

I'm also wondering whether I should encourage her to increase the budget to allow her to consider the something with a Shimano or Bosch battery and motor (I don't know much about the hub motor systems in comparison to the bottom bracket systems). Most recently she has seen one of the new Ribble e bikes which is a lot more expensive and seems like a different proposition again.

She's not much of a cyclist so I want something that will encourage her rather than sit and gather dust in the shed if we purchase the wrong bike. (If it makes any difference there is a big hill between our house and her work!)

Many thanks.

 

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[Woosh]

She's not much of a cyclist so I want something that will encourage her rather than sit and gather dust in the shed if we purchase the wrong bike. (If it makes any difference there is a big hill between our house and her work!)

I would suggest she test rides a few bikes first to see which she likes best.
Basically, the way I would narrow down the choices is this: she will need to choose between bikes fitted with a torque sensor that require her to select the right gear and put in at least 25% of the energy through pedaling and bikes fitted with cheaper cadence sensor that do not care which gear she is in and she can choose to pedal as much or as little or not pedal. Then narrow down on battery capacity, motor, and finally the mechanical components and budget.
By the way, the average e-bike costs about £1,500, her cycle to work voucher can be topped up.

 

[Dewey]

Find a Decathlon store near you and test ride the b-twin elops 900 e step over, or if you live in the Southwest try a Bristol Bicycles E-City for a bit more as they're very configurable and could assemble your wife's preferred choice of touch points - saddle, handlebar, pedals, etc.