What's the best bike from Halfords or Decathlon?

[Hucknallred]

Hi all, thanks for all the messages from the introduction thread.

As I said there, cycling is a struggle as I get older & electric is the way to go.

The reason I'm looking at Halfords/Cycle Republic & Decathlon is that I can get decentish discounts through work. Halfords/CR I get 8% off & 4% off at Decathlon. Also my OH would benefit from one too, so an extra 10% to be had at Halfords.

Budget is not an issue, but don't want to go OTT.

The website seems broken at the moment so I can't sort or filter, but a cursory glance shows the Apollo brand which can be skipped due to the budget nature.

We then have Carrera which are perfectly adequate normal bikes. I got my son a Vulcan which I am impressed with.

Due to an old shoulder injury front shocks are essential. Hybrid preferably or MTB. No folding or stepthrough.

So we have

Carrera Vengance - no hydraulic brakes
Carrera Crossfire - I prefer hybrid over MTB & it has hydraulic
Lombardo Valderice - never heard of this brand
Carrera Vulcan
The Voodoo models are a bit pricey, what do they offer over Carrera?

Decathlon we're looking at Rockrider or Riverside at around £1k

So for those models are the electrics OK / decent brands? The actual non electric elements of these are more than adequate I'm sure, so it's the electric gubbins I want to be sure of.

Cheers

 

[MikeS]

EDIT: To the OP: The Crossfuse is a nice bike with a number of fans/owners here. It does have better suspension forks than the Ebco, but a less powerful motor (40Nm against 58Nm) and 9-speed Alivio gearing against 10-speed Deore. Hydraulic brakes are the same M315's. And it costs £1700 against £1100 (before allowing for your employee discount). I'm going to get off my soap-box now, and just say (any motor preference aside) that IMHO the Ebco is the nicer, better made bike overall!

My Cross fuse has a 50nm motor and I'm pretty sure that they all do. It's the ActiveLine Plus. Yes they have put the price up a lot since they realised it's a much better bike than the Carrera. Halfords will give anyone 10% discount if you just ask - in my experience. I thought the suspension forks might need replacing as they are bottom of the range (£28 I think) but they have been fine over 2200 miles. Buy a Suntour seat post for £50 - then you have a suspension bike front and back and still are able to fit a normal rack.
Mike

 

[cyclebuddy]

My Cross fuse has a 50nm motor and I'm pretty sure that they all do. It's the ActiveLine Plus.

That's my bad... I thought it was the ordinary Active Line when I looked at one in-store. I test rode a couple of Cube's with the Plus; I thought the gear sensing was a nice touch. I think the NEX forks are okay for what they are - there are better, but there are far worse too!

 

[Hucknallred]

Just to thrown another option into the mix, I viewed the thread by the guy who fitted a Whoosh kit to his existing bike.
I think my existing 13 Hybrid would be an ideal donor bike, what do others think. For a DIY conversion I'd rather go rear wheel than BB replacement. What say others?
I'm pondering this due to the lower outlay & the fact that I'd be selling the 13 & wouldn't get a deal for what is a half decent bike, it was a lot more than the £200 Halfords appear to have been knocking them out for.
They were decent bikes but the brand never took off & was dropped.

 

[sjpt]

Looks appropriate. (It would have been a bargain at £200; no longer available). If you contact Woosh they will advise of any likely issues and give comments on bottom bracket vs hub conversion. You'll probably lose at least some of the front gears with a crank conversion, and need to be careful about cassette/freehub on a rear hub conversion.

 

[vfr400]

It's a perfect bike for conversion. I'd use a rear cassette motor. 48V gives more power options.

They knocked those bikes out for £150 on the final clearance. What a bargain!

 

[peter.c]

Went to decathlon to look at this just to be a tyre kicker https://www.decathlon.co.uk/e-st-900-electric-mountain-bike-grey-275-id_8487240.html no stock yet how can they sell it when you cannot try it

 

[Neilski73]

I have been trying to ride one of these for a couple of months. Been to their flagship store and every time they would have put one together. I phoned the head office and they said well you can buy one and you have 365 days to return it if you don't like it. I bit the bullet and ordered one have had it for 2 days I love it, but I get what sounds like a grinding noise from the back (probably the disk breaks) when I hit about 16mph and seems to pull back. I know the motor only supplies assistance upto about 15.5 mph but on the bikes I have tried before I don't remember this happening. Using it for a 5 mile commute and hopefully off road at the weekends

 

[RichB]

I have been trying to ride one of these for a couple of months. Been to their flagship store and every time they would have put one together. I phoned the head office and they said well you can buy one and you have 365 days to return it if you don't like it. I bit the bullet and ordered one have had it for 2 days I love it, but I get what sounds like a grinding noise from the back (probably the disk breaks) when I hit about 16mph and seems to pull back. I know the motor only supplies assistance upto about 15.5 mph but on the bikes I have tried before I don't remember this happening. Using it for a 5 mile commute and hopefully off road at the weekends

The EBCO MH-05 motor suffers the same thing, the assistance shuts off at 15.5 mph and then really feels like it's dragging, makes it difficult to pedal above that speed.
I guess these bikes are cheap for a reason. If it was me I'd go with a conversion kit.

 

[Onegirlandherbike]

My husband and myself only started riding in May this year and I bought a second hand Raleigh Motus ebike with a 400Wh battery. My husband bought a new Kalkhoff Endeavour with a 600Wh battery. We did the Coast and Castles route in August and my battery nearly ran out one day after 45 miles but my husband's had quite a lot left "in the bank" so when we got home I sold my Raleigh and bought a Kalkhoff too. My advise to you would be to decide what sort of riding you want to do - if you think you might want to do long distances then make sure you get a bike with a 500Wh or bigger battery to give you the opportunity to go further without having to think about charging it mid day.

As mentioned above, try other local bike shops. We bought ours from Edinburgh Cycle Coop in Newcastle and got really good discounts plus other free goodies (bike locks, helmet, spare tubes to name a few).

 

[cyclebuddy]

The Lombardo is the one with the Bafang MaxDrive - it's a crank-drive motor, whereas all your other choices seem to be rear-wheel driven. You might also want to consider the Ebco USR55 (hybrid) or Ebco MH-5 (MTB) which Halfords currently have at 30% off... if you're considering crank-driven. Both these are very well spec'd for the money (I see the hybrid in large size has now sold out in about a week).