I have to agree about test rides, though as I am not intending to buy a bike at the moment, do not know how difficult it is in the current situation to test ride several bikes.
My first electric bike could have been a disaster as I used a ride to work scheme and could only buy through Evans and they only had one model I think at the time so I bought that, a Trek with a battery in the rear rack and a built in BionX motor.
I actually liked the system but am heavy and carry panniers and that combined with the rear rack battery and motor built in to a rather insubstantial back wheel almost immediately led to broken spokes.
Evans tried to fix it but the problem persisted.
That I had bought it through a ride to work scheme actually proved advantageous, as the company I worked for was a large one, and I was able to liaise with the person at my company who administered it, and she got the whole of the price of the bike refunded to me in cash including the cycle to work loan element, that I then paid off through my salary in the usual way over the next year.
This gave me a lump of cash to buy the next electric bike and meant it opened up the market for me and I could approach any bike shop I liked.
I went to the now discredited 50 cycles in their then small shop in Richmond and rode a number of bikes up the hill and into Richmond Park and back.
I was expecting to buy a Kalkhoff but actually bought a Oxygen Emate City that impressed me much more on the test ride, and still own, use and love it over nine years later.
The Kalkhoff's of that time were much liked and revered but I preferred the Oxygen.
Similarly when I decided to buy a crank drive mountain bike in 2015, I bought a Yamaha powered Haibike after attending a dealers demo day and riding a number of bikes and systems on proper single tracks in a hilly area and just preferred the Yamaha. The fact it was the cheapest one at the time had nothing to do with it!
I still love and am riding that bike, now in its sixth year and with 12,496 miles under its wheels.
I was however completely innocent about the way a crank drive bike can wear out a transmission when I bought it. I do however still love that bike and love its ability off road where a crank drive is the best system to have.
Incidentally I noticed this double chain ring hard tail mountain bike available for pre order in the Haibike line up and made a quick post about it for the wide gearing it potentially offers.
https://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/threads/high-speed-commuter-and-off-road-fun.39038/
https://www.e-bikeshop.co.uk/Electric-Bikes-UK-Dealer/Hard-Tail-eBikes/Haibike-sDuro-Hard-Seven-4.0-2020?sort=p.price&order=ASC
The thing about test rides is you go with your own preconceptions about your ideal bike and end up preferring something quite different.
As my story shows, if you get the bike that best suits you it is far more likely to go on impressing you and pass the hardest test of all, time.
