e-bikes

Another one to consider, Rad Power get great reviews in general

https://radpowerbikes.eu/collections/electric-bikes/products/radmission-electric-metro-bike

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My local bike shop just started stocking these. As ebikes go they are pretty good value if not the cheapest (start at £1500). They are quite small, light (17kg), foldable, have a battery with 45 mile range

https://mirider.co.uk/

decathlon bikes are generally some of the best value bikes on the market so i imagine their range will be worth a look - i just bought one of their folding bikes last week and it turns out there’s an e-version for £900

Electric Bikes | e-Bikes for Men & Women | Decathlon

Electric Assisted Folding Bike Tilt 500 BTWIN - Decathlon

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I’ve got a Decathlon folding bike - what did you go for?

EDIT: just found it in the main cycling thread :+1:

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I have a Swytch front hub motor https://www.swytchbike.com/ fitted on my Surly cross-check, was about £400 i think. bought it quite impulsively just before lockdown as we were moving to south london and my commute was going to be > hour and some big-ish hills (for London at least). ended up never commuting and moving out of london but i tested it before moving and it prob cut a good 10-15 mins off the commute each way. i now use it for predominantly for pulling a trailer with my daughter in and its great for getting away from traffic lights quickly. does about 2-3 hours on a full charge, depending on how hilly/what settings you have it on (i leave it on all the lowest settings generally). a good bit of kit i think if you dont want to buy a whole new bike. the battery also clips off quickly so you can take it into your office/the pub and not leave it on the bike.

Currently out of stock, but my partner has a G-Tech ebike, the battery looks like a water bottle and people are often surprised when the find out it’s electric. Good value, you can buy additional batteries that sometimes go into their 20% off sales if you want to double the distance you can go (just need to carry the spare battery) and not too heavy. It doesn’t have gears though so is pretty basic as a normal bike:

https://www.gtech.co.uk/ebikes/ebike-sport.html

I bought an e-bike a couple of months back once it was clear that back-to-the-office was going to start happening again. I’ve always commuted by bike but found it sucked the joy out of riding for leisure, and I’ve been enjoying cycling for fun during lockdown. I figured getting an e-bike would take a lot of the effort out of the commute, meaning less faff around needing to get changed, have a shower, etc, plus I could carry a lot more (as with hybrid working I’m going to be carrying a heavy laptop back and forth).

It’s been fucking brilliant, to be honest. It just goes at 16mph regardless - wind, gradient, any amount of stuff in the panniers - it just eats it up. Can set the amount of assist from “gentle push” to “haha I’m just spinning the pedals wheee” or let it dynamically adjust to the amount of work you’re doing. I can ride the 7 miles into work with a heavy bag, in jeans and a jumper, and I’m not sweaty at the other end. It’ll do between 40-80 miles depending on how much assist you use, and can take the battery out for charging or just charge the bike itself.

The downside? It cost as much as a second-hand car, and it’s a huge theft risk. I have a folding lock and cable to secure the wheels, and both at home and work it’s locked up and kept in a locked building. I wouldn’t be happy leaving it in a busy area for long, even locked up. It’s not covered on our house insurance, so I need to find separate insurance for it, and apparently I’m looking at around £200 a year, which is… not nothing. Still, overall it’s been a definite, massive quality-of-life improvement, and I’d recommend it if it’s not prohibitively expensive.

FWIW, I got one of these: FastRoad E+ EX Pro (2021) | Giant Bicycles UK

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Other things worth saying, I guess - I’d recommend seeing if you can ride whatever you’re thinking about before committing, but that can be tricky if you don’t live somewhere like Cambridge where every second shop is a bike shop. Supply is apparently very tight right now because of global supply chain fuckery and everyone else having the same idea as me about commuting.

In the UK (and EU), e-bikes must be pedal-assist only (as in, they can’t have a throttle - they can only add to your pedaling effort) so they’re not zero-effort. They’re also limited to about 15.5mph - above that, the assist force drops off to nothing, and because e-bikes are fucking heavy, it’s a lot of work to accelerate beyond that - that took a bit of getting used to compared to my gravel/road bikes, but you soon settle into the pace. They’re most efficient when ridden consistently (like a car) - if you’re varying your cadence it’ll drain the battery much faster than a steady consistent 70-80RPM.

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If you’re locking it up regularly in the same spot you could leave some very heavy duty motorcycle chain locks in that place. Saves you carting them round. However, if someone wants your bike, in my experience, they’re just gonna nick it unfortunately :sob:

It’s worth noting that the carrying capacity of an e-bike is much greater than a normal bike, so carrying a big heavy lock is more an issue of space than weight. But agree that locks are ultimately only a deterrent.

My suggestions would be to get the e-bike, get a really chunky gold rated chain lock (these are very heavy), and get panniers to carry it in. The motor will be enough to more enough than compensate for the weight of the chain. Having said that, I’d also make sure to get it insured. As someone mentioned above, standalone insurance is fairly expensive, but some home contents providers will let you add it to your policy for not much extra.

I can recommend specific bikes, locks and insurance providers if you’re interested.

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My partner got a G-Tech electric bike, the battery just looks like a water bottle and you can remove it when leaving your bike somewhere, it makes the bike much less appealing to people as just looks like a normal, bog-standard bike

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I don’t think G-tech exist anymore. The only firms making similar batteries now seem to be retrofit ones, unfortunately.

I hadn’t realised, that’s a shame as they were pretty good value and not too heavy.

It just links to their eBay store now but I think they’re gone

I’ve been looking at e-bikes the last few weeks and found this thread. Looking for the same reasons as MNP, except I was riding a lightweight geared road bike and have hardly ridden it in years. Now I’ve got the added issue of a pinched nerve which means I can’t be bent over with my head tilted back and need something slightly more upright. But also want it to look as much like a normal bike as possible.

I want to get back into cycling for exercise, leisure, and possibly commuting and with the hills around here having electric assist is the only way I’m gonna form a habit at this age.

Have got it narrowed down to 3-4 bikes and going to do some repeat test rides today. Unfortunately going to choose from what’s available vs ordering as it’s summer already and time’s a wasting.

Did you ever pick one up?

No :smiley: