Buying an e-bike

i bike for pleasure not commuting, but I can tell you that an e-bike was a revelation. I go cannock chase fairly often and theres plenty of uphills. the ebike makes the uphills as fun as the downhills. its an absolute riot. you still got a workout, and typically instead of doing maybe 10 miles, I do 20 in the same time. I bought mine in Sept and had done 600mls on it by year end lol. Very addictive. They aint cheap tho!
 
Just on these unrestricted ebikes. They are a legal grey area. A ebike is restricted to 15mph oherwise it isnt an ebike. its classed as a motorbike from what i understand. This means test and insurance, but you probably cant get it.

I think anyone riding a unrestricted or custom ebike on the road, easily doing 30mph+ is asking for trouble, especially if you crash it or god forbid hit someone. Those MTB brakes were never designed to stop something with that mass going that fast.

It gives those of us doing it legally a bad name, and will cause more concern from joe public resulting in more regulation... please dont.

last point - if you unrestrict a normal ebike (easily done via bluetooth on mine) you invalidate the warranty and potentially will destroy the battery/motor. Not designed for that much current etc.

Specialized Turbo Vado is what id get for the road. Should do 50-70 miles easy depending upon conditions.
 
mikeh501 said:
I think anyone riding a unrestricted or custom ebike on the road, easily doing 30mph+ is asking for trouble, especially if you crash it or god forbid hit someone. Those MTB brakes were never designed to stop something with that mass going that fast.
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I had a 1000 watt motor that did 30mph on the throttle and it scared me to death so went back to 250 watts.
Pretty sure AmigaFan had one that could do 50 mph.


mikeh501 said:
last point - if you unrestrict a normal ebike (easily done via bluetooth on mine) you invalidate the warranty and potentially will destroy the battery/motor. Not designed for that much current etc.
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All depends what you mean by 'normal' bike, "off the shelf" maybe? If so then they aren't really designed to be derestricted/overclocked and my Cyclotricity conversions warn against it.
However converting your own is a different ball game.

Cyclotricity do a 1000 watt Stealth bike that can do 30 mph but you have to sign a form to say you will only derestrict it off road :)
 
yeah i meant an off the shelf bike which someone then derestricts. on my specialized turbo levo you literally use a bluetooth explorer to change the wheel size parameter - make it smaller, thats it. wouldnt do it myself, and cant see the point. 15mph is plenty off road.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
I had a 1000 watt motor that did 30mph on the throttle and it scared me to death so went back to 250 watts.
Pretty sure AmigaFan had one that could do 50 mph.
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I did and it scared me to death as well. Was fun snatching the local lycra brigades koms though :) I still have that source bike as a commuter, but it has a much more modest crank drive bbs02 on it now.
 
We sell a few ebikes from volt or bigger brands.

You do pay a premium, the volt metro folding bike is probably around a £400 bike before the electrics. Same for the orbea gain at £1800 a bike with claris and discs would usually be £650-750 mark.

I get that the frames are unique and will cost more to manufacture.

It will be interesting to see where it all goes in the future. If I ride an ebike at 25mph and don't have insurance would I get points on my car license??

I've also watched some chap on YouTube with a 9000w motor on a crap bike. I'd only convert a decent bike with hydraulic brakes personally.
 
i have the Giant Road E 2 that you linked to purely as a commuting bike - 15 miles each way so perfect for those "cant be bothered" mornings, mines is also unlocked via a dongle and i avg about 24-26mph each way.

I should also note i have my full blinged out road bike that i will switch to in the spring/summer but for commuting an e bike is amazing!
 
Another ebike user here. My commute is just over 4 miles each way, with the return leg being very steep uphill. I'm simply to fat and unfit to be able to make it home on a bicycle, but the ebike makes it possible. I still get out of breath using it, so am still getting exercise which otherwise I'd not have. I still have to put up with comments from people "why bother", "you might as well drive" etc, but it doesn't bother me.
I converted my MTB with a BBS02 kit and don't regret it a second.
 
Luke said:
I still have to put up with comments from people "why bother", "you might as well drive" etc, but it doesn't bother me.
I converted my MTB with a BBS02 kit and don't regret it a second.
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I wish I had a £1 for the amount of people who said 'That's cheating' over the last 5 years but I would have said the same thing at one time.
It's weird how commuting to work in a car, taxi, bus, on a motor bike, moped etc are all OK but it's cheating if you're on a motorised cycle :)

My brother in law has got a £5,500 Cervelo (!) which he obviously adores and calls me a cheat.
I asked him to come down one Sunday morning to try an experiment and I told him to ride to the bottom of the bank where I live, ride up on his bike and remember how easy/difficult it was to do.
I put him on my hybrid, told him how to use the assist and when he gets to the assist that feels like his bike to tell me - the hybrid was on number 4.
I then got the MTB and told him to do the same, he got to the top of the hill on assist 5 and was out of breath because he couldn't get to the same feel as his bike.
My conclusion - his £5,500 bike is cheating :)
 
Jonny ///M said:
It will be interesting to see where it all goes in the future. If I ride an ebike at 25mph and don't have insurance would I get points on my car license??
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Depends what you mean by "ride". If you're not using the motor to assist you at 25mph, you're fine. Otherwise, you can get points on your lcience (if you have one).

It's quite clear on the government site: "Any electric bike that doesn’t meet the EAPC rules is classed as a motorcycle or moped and needs to be registered and taxed."
So, there's probably a lot of laws you'd be breaking if you got caught using electric assist at 25mph:
-Driving without insurance
-Driving without MOT
-Driving without TAX
-Possibly driving without licence/without correct licence - if you dont have one or havn't dont CBT test.
 
... and barring the obvious legal issues... you would have to be nuts to ride an ebike at 30mph+. Its dangerous. Im also a motorbike rider, and my road bike helmet makes the MTB one look like a kids toy! and you dont even legally need one on a pushbike. Wheres your protective jacket, back protector, kevlar jeans or leathers and boots? The brakes on even a crappy 125 motorbike make those even on expensive mtb's look rubbish. The bike isnt designed to go that fast with that much mass.

Someone who comes off on a push bike at 30mph will be in for pretty serious injury or death if unlucky.... and I wouldnt want to be hit by someone riding one as a ped either! Imagine the **** that guy in london who killed that women ped would be in, if his bike was illegal. lucky for him he was just a ****, and the laws for that arent as penal lol.
 
Jesus Wept lighten up !

They only go as fast as you twist the throttle the same as a M/cycle. You don't go arseholing around everywhere on one of those do you ?

Wont mean much to you unless you know Kalamunda and Lesmurdie. (Western Australia)

Where we lived (forrestfield) we never had a High School, They were still building it...

So

We had to catch a school bus up to Kalamunda.

Kalamunda is in the Darling Ranges .. ie: up a blooooody big hill !!

On the way home we used to think just how kewl it would be to go blasting down that hill on our treadlies (pushbikes)..

But no way could you cycle UP that hill.

So we devised a plan.

We would chuck our treadlies over our shoulders and climb up Lesmurdie Falls.

This most certainly wasn't easy..

Actually it was pretty cretinous .. oh well ..Stupid schoolkids..etc.

Anyway... we made it up the falls.

And started our way along the road to Kalamunda. We then came across the biggest fuckoff hill you could imagine (downwards) with a T-junction at the bottom (these are all quiet side roads).

Mick Woods and I looked at Colin Southam ... He never had any brakes on his bike !!

"I'll be alright" he said.

"I'll put my foot on top of the tyre (behind the front forks) and press down. I always stop like that".

"Er..... You sure... this is a serious hill".

"Yeah.. No worries".

So Mick and I started off.... easy on the speed... braking all the way down.

Then we heard a scream behind us....


Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrgh.

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH

Past us......

Colin must've been doing around 150 kmh (I kid you not).

Apparently when he started braking - after letting it get too fast to start with... THe heat was so intense through his trainer he couldn't stand it anymore.........

Anyway.. I thought he aint never gonna make that T-junction...

He didn't !!

As luck would have it.... There was a big rock on the side of the road (ahead - on the edge of the T-junction).

He hit it and it threw him clean over the Barb wire fence.. which would have cut him in half if he had hit it.

Yup.. he was pretty fuxx0red anyway.

Spent the next fortnight at home recovering.




We ****** ourselves laughing when he came screaming past us !!!

oh yeah... Me & Mick enjoyed going down Kalamunda hill after school too. But we never did it again. Was far too much effort climbing up Lesmurdie Falls.
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We're all still here and grown up to be old farts !

I was even a member of the Tight Jeans and White Pumps M/cycle brigade !
 
yeah i get, and i did a load of stoopid **** when i was younger...... however there are already tons of people who hate on ebikers, and id rather not have people adding fuel to the fire riding huge power ebikes about. if the gov gets involved they will **** it up for everyone.
 
mikeh501 said:
yeah i get, and i did a load of stoopid **** when i was younger...... however there are already tons of people who hate on ebikers, and id rather not have people adding fuel to the fire riding huge power ebikes about. if the gov gets involved they will **** it up for everyone.
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Agree with every word you say however I know there are posters in this thread who can probably hit 40 on a road bike with the minimal of safety gear.
I can hit 30 on the flat on my road bike.
I've been part of the 30 mph e-Biker brigade for about 2 months and it scared me so much I went back to 15.

A lot of motorists have difficulty working out how fast a cycle is traveling and have the mentality of "I've got to get past because it's a cycle".
They will stay in line if a motorbike or moped is in front but if they see a cycle it can't be going fast so I'll overtake which means they overtake in places they wouldn't normally dream of doing.
Normal cyclists who hit fast speeds have this problem every day so imagine 1000s upon 1000s of new riders with no lights, no helmets, dressed as Ninja's while looking at their mobile phones hitting the roads.
 
I'm hiring an ebike for two weeks starting tomorrow. My commute to work is only about 5 miles but one way is almost all up hill, I couldn't drive because of the traffic and lack of parking so I have been taking the bus which is pretty unpredictable. If I used a motorbike I'd still get stuck in single lane traffic so point to point I think an ebike will be quicker.

I'll write a review of my experience if anyone is interested? I've never ridden an ebike before, in a previous job I used to cycle 8 miles each way on a nice Felt road bike (but on a much flatter route than I do now), so I'll be able to compare my experience of the two from a ebike noob perspective.
 
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