No longer have a car, new to Ebikes...

[Volusia25]

That's if you can get insurance lol
Enjoy the banter on here we love it,where shall i go for a drive tomorrow.

Did a dummy insurance quote, £500 fully comp. I'd be concerned if I thought that was expensive aha. Why drive when you got an Ebike?

 

[soundwave]

its £45 a month if i wanted to insure my bike ;(

 

[Volusia25]

its £45 a month if i wanted to insure my bike ;(

Not bad. Thats the other issue, carrying a decent lock.

 

[KeithH]

Sorry to butt in with an irrelevance.
The OP did not say in the first post that he was banned for criminal justice reasons. That may be true but I'm sure there are quite a few pedelecers on here, banned from driving for set periods for medical reasons, who may have a reason to object to some of the more personal comments made above!
Keith

 

[Electric Transport Shop]

Hi Volusia25, we have some quality Dutch and german made x demo bikes with German eGroupsets not yet listed on our website. If you email me with your height I can email you the details of suitable models. email me here.

 

[Volusia25]

Sorry to butt in with an irrelevance.
The OP did not say in the first post that he was banned for criminal justice reasons. That may be true but I'm sure there are quite a few pedelecers on here, banned from driving for set periods for medical reasons, who may have a reason to object to some of the more personal comments made above!
Keith

Indeed. Very hostile community it seems, without knowing any of the facts involved. No need at all to get so defensive when I question the price of Ebikes. It seems as if the technology is still in the early days, another 5-10 years and they'll probably be a fraction of the price they are now

 

[Deleted member 4366]

There's no argument for getting a more expensive bike on the basis of economics. Cheaper bikes will always work out cheaper in the long-term. Also the argument about more expensive bikes being more reliable is completely unfounded.

Ebikes are very simple , cheap and easy to fix, except that you can't do that yourself with the more expensive ones because you need spare parts and software, which you can't get access to. Only a dealer can. If you have basic mechanical and electric ability, you should be able to fix anything that goes wrong with a cheap bike yourself.

All bikes get small problems from time to time. Different bikes get different problems. From time to time a particular bike might show itself to be less reliable than the norm, but that's not very common now.

Some bikes have different control systems than others. You can only find your favourites by long-term testing. A short ride around the block can feel fantastic, but it can be a different story on a 20 mile ride - the same with comfort and fit.

It's easy to recommend a particular bike when a rider has special requirements, otherwise arguing about which bike, motor, system, etc is best or most suitable is a bit like arguing about whether caviar is better than rice, or would cheese be better than both of them.

Buy the bike because you like the look of it, because you think it'll impress the neighbours or for whatever reason you want, but if you want to get one on the basis of economics, you have to buy a cheap bike. You can get a perfectly adequate one for £600, which, like your car, might need some attention from time to time.

 

[fatwomble]

Sorry to butt in with an irrelevance.
The OP did not say in the first post that he was banned for criminal justice reasons. That may be true but I'm sure there are quite a few pedelecers on here, banned from driving for set periods for medical reasons, who may have a reason to object to some of the more personal comments made above!
Keith

He did say that he was banned for drink driving in a later post, but despite finding drink driving a deplorable act, I don't think there is any need to give him a load of grief. It would be better to help him find out how good riding an ebike can be and hope it helps his rehabilitation (sorry, not meant to sound patronising as it probably comes across ).

As for the rasist comments in other posts, most people have moved on from the 1970s

 

[Danidl]

Indeed. Very hostile community it seems, without knowing any of the facts involved. No need at all to get so defensive when I question the price of Ebikes. It seems as if the technology is still in the early days, another 5-10 years and they'll probably be a fraction of the price they are now

.. Perhaps two years as a cyclist will make you a more caring driver. I could not understand the racist comment . I cannot see how it is applicable.
Why are e bikes seemingly so expensive compared to motor scooters ... There are a number of reasons .Size and maturity of the market is paramount.
First they are bikes and the cost of a bike can be anything from 100 to 5000 pounds.
Next they have a motor, even the lower cost motor as found in electric drills costs 30 , and that is for an inefficient brushed motor. ...Which won't last long probably about 100 hours of service. A better example might be the motor used in a high end domestic washing machine, using brushless where the price might be 150 to 200 for a highly mass produced item.
Look up replacement motor prices for say LG premium washing machine motors for what might be an equivalent mechanical system. .

Next they have a battery. Look at the prices in Halfords for lead acid car batteries which could only be fully cycled maybe 100 times before loss , and you will see why the lithium ion cells are as expensive as they are
.
As d8veh has said you can start getting ebikes from 500 600 in Halfords and supermarkets and they will have the equivalence bike parts of a 150 normal bike.
The sweet spot for reliable bikes with good parts is I would suggest 1500 , and the luxury types going up to 6000 .. in car terms do you want a ford fiesta, a focus or a Kuga...Or a jaguar. All will bring you a to b, but with increasing luxury and durability.
Size of market , newness of technology , determines the price

 

[Volusia25]

Food for thought for sure.
I just had a look at the Halfords bike, didnt test ride because as usual they are short staffed. It looked and felt similar to the £130 mountain bike I used to have just with thinner tyres and disc brakes. I wish Woosh had more than one shop, im 150 miles from the showroom.

 

[soundwave]

http://ebike-centres.co.uk/

https://www.evanscycles.com/store/leicester

 

[Danidl]

Reviews are not worth anything. Most people who write anything do it immediately before they've done any serious miles on it. Also most of them have never had an ebike before, or worse still, they had a go on some cheap rubbish , and then extol the virtues of their new bike.

Just about any e-bike can do 35 miles and cope with hills if you only weigh 11 stone,

The Carrera Crossfire is not bad for the money, but it seems to get too many problems from what I've read. Even the people above have mentioned taking their bikes back to get fixed. You can do without that on a commuter. The Crossfire isn't as easy to derestrict as other Chinese bikes. That's sometimes important for people that have to do long commutes.

The Woosh bikes represent state of the art Chinese bikes. I could review one without riding it because I've ridden so many electric bikes and I know how all the components work. Their bikes have about 25% more power than most because they run up to 20 amps, compared with most at 15 amps.

I wouldn't leave any e-bike tied to a lamppost all day. there's a fair chance that it won't be there when you come back to it. 17.5 miles is a stroll on an e-bike, and you'd probably enjoy it. Even when it's raining, if you have a decent cape/poncho it can still be quite pleasant. I commuted 15 miles each way for a few years and really got to enjoy my rides to and from work.

For fast commuting, you need a thin lightweight bike with 700c (28") wheels to cut down the resistance. That can make a difference of 3 or 4 mph compared with a MTB, which reduces long journey times a lot. There's not many OEM e-bikes like that. The Woosh Rio is one of them.

I would avoid a crank-drive bike. They're not too bad in the summer, but in the winter when you have cold hands, all the extra gear-changing can become very tedious and painful compared with a hub-motor bike, which you can more or less leave in top gear if you want, except for the steep hills. IMHO crank-drives are better for fun riding rather than commuting.

I MHO, your expert opinions are anything but humble. ...
There is a contrary view that a wider tyre. Pumped to the same or higher pressure, has actually less rolling resistance than the narrow tyre. ... Counterintuitive.
I would respectfully differ with you in regard to the crank drive . The current Bosch system with the schimano indexed gears is no problem to shift, a single thumb movement is all, easily doable ...Even in mittens. Anyway there is huge latitude and I find that if I remain in 5th. .. midgear, I rarely need to shift, and when I do, it is very positive.

 

[Danidl]

Fair play. I guess we are a few years away from high energy, cheap batteries in bikes and cars.
I suppose i'm limited to Woosh or a Halfrauds special. Or used Ebay find. I'll keep an eye out. I'm not in a particular rush just yet but some time in the next 6 weeks i'll be looking to buy. I'd probably cover about 70 miles a week max. On that mileage how long would a battery last given my weight and medium level of fitness?

... The best practice is to top up the battery after each day. The internal structure of the cells actually expands and contracts as it is charged and discharged. So minimising this movement maximises lifetime. Using a good sized battery you could be looking at 4 to 5 years before it has lost excessive capacity. However other posters are correct. The second hand market will assume the battery is shot.

 

[Chipstix]

Another option is to buy a half decent used bike like this one...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/322467488578

I had a similar older version which I bought new in the sale for £500 (vs Rrp £800). Used it occasionally for a few years at stag dos in Wales, then hardly touched it.

I bought a 1000W 48v 12ah rear hub motor cyclotricity conversion kit. It would have been £600 but £420 spread over 12 months as purchased through cycle2work scheme

From here
http://www.e-bikesdirect.co.uk/Items/Conversion_Kits/Conversion_Kits_List.aspx

This kit
http://cyclotricity.com/kit-configurator/?xt=5


Needed some time to fit which I managed with great help from this forum. So far It will do 28mph and I can get 15-17miles with it derestricted, doing 20mph but Ive only made a couple of journeys so planning a more detailed review when I have some more miles done. It's highly entertaining though, and my commute is stunning and rapid! 45 sweaty ride turned to 25 minute easy ride. I'm upping the gearing so i can add more pedal effort at 20mph!

I'll update a link to a proper review after a few more weeks of commuting.


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