Shame you are not in Norfolk got a Delite I could do for a really good price. Good luck with it all. I agree with other people that you should try a range of different bikes to see which would suit you best. Regards David.
Full sus for 18 mile commute on road
- Thread starter Nolan
- Start date
Thank that was a really helpful reply and link to a very interesting tread. One other question though what is about FS and bad weather that doesnt work?
Not many places around me allow more than a spin around the car park or local road. The Haibike trekker has been the ebike that I could have over night to test my commute out.
They do work and work very well, but I prefer not to have the maintenance of the rear shock absorber, and also bearing and bush replacement that a full suspension bike requires when put through constant wet and muddy use.
Giving this thought, I often wonder what I would do if I had to commute by ebke everyday. I do it occasionally, but have to leave my van at whatever location that I am working at.
Having owned both crank drive and hub drive bikes, I would prefer to commute using a hub drive bike. For me, a hub drive bike has always felt as though it gives a smoother more progressive and kind of relaxed feel, which is something that suits the role of commuting very well. It is a shame that over time that the vast percentage of main stream manufacturers have seen fit to drop hub drive bikes from their line ups. Obviously companies such as Woosh, Kudos and Oxygen as examples are still selling hub drive bikes, but it can't be an easy job for them to persuade people to give it a go, and selecting a bike for dual purpose use makes things even harder.
Having owned both crank drive and hub drive bikes, I would prefer to commute using a hub drive bike. For me, a hub drive bike has always felt as though it gives a smoother more progressive and kind of relaxed feel, which is something that suits the role of commuting very well. It is a shame that over time that the vast percentage of main stream manufacturers have seen fit to drop hub drive bikes from their line ups. Obviously companies such as Woosh, Kudos and Oxygen as examples are still selling hub drive bikes, but it can't be an easy job for them to persuade people to give it a go, and selecting a bike for dual purpose use makes things even harder.
If I might ask, where are in the country are you located? If it happens to be in the Crowborough area, you are more than welcome to try one the bikes that I have here.
valid points, seems to be all about crank drive, not sure how I feel about hub drive, no where near sell these types of bikes and they seem to be at the lower level of price, not sure the support is about for problems with hub gear bikes in my area.
I am in Herefordshire. I want to buy local for several reasons, one of them being support for possible problems being able to get support quickly whilist under warranty
In off road terms, hub drive bikes are probably best suited to light trails and bridleway use. I never had a lot of luck with my first hub drive bike (a BH Neo Xrem) using it off road, and suffered two motor failures within the space of 600 miles. Others though, and there are many on this forum, use hub drive bikes in off road conditions covering many many thousands of miles, with absolutely no issues at all.
My two negatives with hub drive bikes for off road use are that there is an immense of amount of weight on the rear of the bike, which can make the front end very unsettled and twitchy, and the second is the minor inconvenience of having to unbolt the rear wheel for removal. Note that I only said inconvenience though, as it really isn't a big drama, or anything to really complain about.
From the times above, I'm guessing the journey is around 20 miles each way? That means a fair amount of mileage per year. A hub drive will be cheaper to run.
If the hills are steep (nebulous term I know), a hub drive might struggle more than a crank drive.
You don't need to 'switch off the assist', it switches off by itself over the cutoff.
You can get good mudguards that fit by inserting a mounting bung up into the hole in the top of the forks.
A FS bike will weigh more, cost more and need more maintenance than an equivalent HT. Or conversely, you get a far higher level of components on a similarly priced or cheaper HT.
Its MUCH easier to have luggage options on a HT.
I very much doubt a hardtail won't be able to let you ride mountain bike trails. You just have to be more careful and go slower.
But if I was buying a bike exclusively for mountain biking, I'd get a FS if cost wasn't an issue.
Just some thoughts.
With this in mind hub gears are not an option. I do not want to be limited in the off road ability.
It depends on what the 'rule' is?
The point I was trying to get at was that its not a generic case of
crank drive = expensive high quality
Hub drive = cheap low quality.
However a number of factors have meant that in general the market place at the moment indeed means:
Cheap (and possibly nasty) ebike = probably has a hub motor
Bespoke crank motor = more design has gone into the bike, so more likelihood of the rest of the machine being of a better quality as well.
I'm sure once the Chinese start pumping out mid drive motors and frames for £2.50, we'll see equally cheap and nasty bikes being of that type sold then as well.
There are still a number of high quality hub drive bikes out there at the moment, even though the trend is for mid drives. But trends change. I wonder how long it will be until hub drive gets the love again and becomes in vogue with the big manufacturers. I suspect its the mountain bikers that are mostly forcing the mid drive.
I've got an exdemo KTM eRace Panasonic hub drive with a suspendy seat post and use it for commuting 20+ miles as well as trail and light off-road and it's taken it all in its torquey stride (now sadly discontinued by KTM in favour of crank drive models). If I hadn't bought the KTM the Oxygen S-Cross was next on my list.
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