Someone else I know in his early 70s has just bought an ebike. He has been a cyclist all his life but was starting to find the local hills too much for his painful joints. He loves his new bike and is back up on those hills that he had been avoiding. I think he still has his old bike, but I'm sure that if he still rides it he would be sticking to the valley bottom.
How many of you also own and ride a regular bike?
- Thread starter MikeFB
- Start date
I think it is more likely that I will get another conventional bike to add to the stable, but probably a gravel/mtb hybrid of some sort. Can't take skinny tyre road bikes anymore, just too uncomfortable and I'm sure the roads are worse now than back then?
Thought I'd share a pic though of my old road bike, that I got from my late father in the earlish 80's. Will be sad to see it go, but it's just going to rot in the garage otherwise.
Thought I'd share a pic though of my old road bike, that I got from my late father in the earlish 80's. Will be sad to see it go, but it's just going to rot in the garage otherwise.
Yes, a classic frame indeed (and those side pull brakes that would barely work in the wet!) and I love steel for it's comfort and my 1989 Dawes Galaxy is still my favourite ride (canti brakes). I do wonder though with steel, as to what corosion (if any) might be going on inside the frame tubes? I keep a very careful eye on my paintwork in the hope of spotting any early signs of frame degradation.
Close 501 tubingThats a quality bit of Reynolds 531 tubing IMHO....
To get closer to the OP's post , I also own a super rubbish Ammoco Mtb that cost me £20 , rode it 4 miles to and from work while I had to . Very tempted to stick a front wheel kit in it tho' , just as emergency back up. Its built like a bridge , but weighs about the same , reckon my Motus is easier and faster to ride even with the battery on charge .
I now have three electric bikes, my original rear hub 2011 cadence Oxygen Emate with unrestricted throttle, very useful, that I bought on a ride to work scheme for £1395 in 2011, a Yamaha entry level Haibike hard tail £1,750 that I bought with money from a personal injury claim after being knocked off my Oxygen Emate in 2015, and a second Oxygen Emate that I bought through pedelec clasified for £100 in 2018 initially for spar parts but it turned out to be in very good nick with 500 miles from new so became an additional bike in the stable, and even the original battery works well enough to get a heavy me and two full panniers 10 miles to work with the motor working hard to average 19.6 miles an hour.
Having a second bike ready to go is very useful when you want to commute to work by bike all the time as it allows you to keep riding to work if a minor mechanical prevents you using a bike half way through some consecutive days at work.
The Haibike after a long period of very good reliability has let me down with a few minor mechanical issues recently that would have meant using the car or trying to fix it between shifts if another bike was not available. The Haibike gets used in a harsher environment off road than the Oxygen bikes.
So as a shift worker 10 miles from work by road I now use the £100 Oxygen for any shift that is too early in the morning to use my Haibike on my preferred cross country route, travelling on the road there and back, 20 miles round trip.
The Haibike gets used whenever I have time to take the longer (12 miles) and more time consuming but much funner off road route to work and then 10 miles back on the road.
I notice as I approach 60 that I am much more tired when I use the torque sensor Haibike, but this may be because I purposely only use eco on the ride to work and quite a lot of the route, maybe as much as a third with no assist.
However if I ride the cadence sensor bikes to 4 shifts in a row, eighty miles, I know I have done a good bit of exercise. I always add a good deal of effort to the pedals. The cadence bikes are very relaxing to commute on the road when it is early in the morning and you are still waking up.
Crank drive bikes wear out their transmissions far quicker than rear hub bikes so using a combination of the two seems to work very well for me. Hub drive on the road and crank drive off road.
I was paid just over £5,000 for my personal injury claim from the insurance company of the Audi driver who knocked me off, and the total cost of my three bikes and two replacement batteries for my original Oxygen comes to £3,870.
So that allows £1,130 for consumables for the 9 years I have been riding them. The Haibike is easily much more expensive to keep in good fettle than the rear hub bikes. Probably an average of a new transmission every 1,500, miles, brake pads, more expensive tyres, and two new rear wheels to date.
So I might just be reaching the point where their use is no longer free after about 27,000 miles shared between them.
Having a second bike ready to go is very useful when you want to commute to work by bike all the time as it allows you to keep riding to work if a minor mechanical prevents you using a bike half way through some consecutive days at work.
The Haibike after a long period of very good reliability has let me down with a few minor mechanical issues recently that would have meant using the car or trying to fix it between shifts if another bike was not available. The Haibike gets used in a harsher environment off road than the Oxygen bikes.
So as a shift worker 10 miles from work by road I now use the £100 Oxygen for any shift that is too early in the morning to use my Haibike on my preferred cross country route, travelling on the road there and back, 20 miles round trip.
The Haibike gets used whenever I have time to take the longer (12 miles) and more time consuming but much funner off road route to work and then 10 miles back on the road.
I notice as I approach 60 that I am much more tired when I use the torque sensor Haibike, but this may be because I purposely only use eco on the ride to work and quite a lot of the route, maybe as much as a third with no assist.
However if I ride the cadence sensor bikes to 4 shifts in a row, eighty miles, I know I have done a good bit of exercise. I always add a good deal of effort to the pedals. The cadence bikes are very relaxing to commute on the road when it is early in the morning and you are still waking up.
Crank drive bikes wear out their transmissions far quicker than rear hub bikes so using a combination of the two seems to work very well for me. Hub drive on the road and crank drive off road.
I was paid just over £5,000 for my personal injury claim from the insurance company of the Audi driver who knocked me off, and the total cost of my three bikes and two replacement batteries for my original Oxygen comes to £3,870.
So that allows £1,130 for consumables for the 9 years I have been riding them. The Haibike is easily much more expensive to keep in good fettle than the rear hub bikes. Probably an average of a new transmission every 1,500, miles, brake pads, more expensive tyres, and two new rear wheels to date.
So I might just be reaching the point where their use is no longer free after about 27,000 miles shared between them.
I bought a carbon road bike last year and it became my regular 10 to 15 miler for exercise but I have ended up back on the ebike using pas level 1 or 0. I just prefer it, maybe because I built it and not necessarily because of the motor power but it is good to up the pas level to get home quicker.
I have had a recumby ,om and off, for over 30 yes, seldom have visibility problems, mainly because of what it is
I have had recumbent's on &off over 30 years, I never had visibility worries, mainly because of what it is, unusual!
I have had the occasional moron, but that's been rare.
I do have a flag, I also try and be as conspicuous as possible, I do have hi -vis - checker tape , on it, and try to ride on less busy routes, but I found I always get given room on the road.
Can't comment on balance of use as my Ute's still not finished. It is purely intended for utility purposes though so will be interesting to see how the miles share out between it and my fun bike, which is a bit too shiny looking to leave around town or outside shops. I've two wheel sets on a Tripster AT (latest in a long line of CX and road bikes) and it does most of the fun/fitness stuff I'm interested in, like day rides, club runs and all-road overnighters, though another full susser would be nice for some more aggressive stuff... one day.
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Well didn't you make some contact with company you purchased it from ?
as 4 months is not a long time for a bike to stop working ..id have as well as majority
would have made contact with who u bought it from ..this unless via some accident
you or your wife damaged the bike yourself/s ? .
Yep, the bike covered 20 miles before the motor failed.
There was a 2 month wait to get it into Halfords for them to fix it.
They replaced the motor, tested it, said it was working.
When I got it home exactly the same thing happened. All power lost to the motor.
I'm now waiting for them to take it in again.
Have tried to keep a normal bike several times over the past year but it does not last, the spanners are out and a motor and battery ordered Have a normal in the garage at the moment only because the battery will not fit in the triangle and the auction ends tomorrow, and the next build rode down to the end of the road today to hot today to start pulling it apart
over the past year but it does not last, the spanners are out and a motor and battery ordered Have a normal in the garage at the moment only because the battery will not fit in the triangle and the auction ends tomorrow, and the next build rode down to the end of the road today to hot today to start pulling it apartNot good enough that then ..hopefully u get all working as it should on a near new bike.
8 regular bikes. 3 road bikes, 3 MTB's, a fixie, and a 70's tracker bike.
The pedelec comes in it's own for local utility riding, popping across to friends in the next village, or a few villages across to the shop, or pleasure riding with 'er indoors. The bulk of my serious mileage is on the regular bikes, and will remain that way while my fitness and health permits it.
The pedelec comes in it's own for local utility riding, popping across to friends in the next village, or a few villages across to the shop, or pleasure riding with 'er indoors. The bulk of my serious mileage is on the regular bikes, and will remain that way while my fitness and health permits it.
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I still have a Whyte 605, a dusty Dutch Cruiser bike ( leftover of my ex) and my childhood bike with a banana seat and foxtails on the handle bar . Sometimes I use it to ride to the BBQ party of me neighbor down the road. Someone actually wanted to pay me rather big money for it, but I couldn't separate...
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