I started a new job a couple of months ago, and it’s just enough further from home that the commute is a bit longer than I am satisfied with. (It currently involves a mile to the train, which I do either by bus, by bike share, or on foot, depending on whether and how long until the next sporadic bus; then 20 - 25 minutes by train; then another 3/4 mile on foot downtown. There are also buses downtown, but they are so slow at rush hour that it’s actually faster to walk.)
Work is about 12 miles from home, but the new office is right next to the awesome lakefront bike path. I could shoot about 4 miles to the lake from home, and then go the rest of the way on the path. But biking 12 miles under my own power at 7:30 a.m. is a bit much for me. So I am considering an electric bike. What do I need to know about them? What are solid unbiased information sources about them? How much would I need to spend to get something that isn’t a piece of crap? (Our local bike repair guy says about $2k to get something with quality parts and decent range/battery life, but I don’t want to shell out that kind of cash until I am sure it is something that will get a lot of use.)
If you have one, tell me what you like and don’t like about yours, and what you might do differently the next time around.
I haven’t ridden one but sometimes see the owner of my local bike shop giving demo rides on a local bike path – people tend to smile a lot as they whiz past. The ones he sells cost $2500.
My next door neighbor (not a cycling guy) bought a cheap ebike ($350) online a couple of weeks ago. He took it out of the box, charged it up, and instantly crashed it, hurting his back. Turned out that the torque was so strong it reared up and he lost control. He hasn’t ridden it again.
I my one bit of information – on the $2500 ebikes from the bike shop you have to keep pedaling to make it go; you don’t have to pedal hard but you have to keep the pedals moving to engage the motor. I assume that is to prevent the torque issue of the cheapo models.
I cannot answer all of your questions, but I rode one once. It was built by a friend from a kit, but I wouldn’t recommend that unless you know what you are doing. It was a foldable bike with relatively small wheels, so it didn’t take up much space when stowed, making it convenient for commuting. Power was from a lithium battery pack, and the throttle was motorcycle style, twist to make it go, though there were pedals in case you ran out of energy. Disadvantages were that the whole thing was a bit heavy (could be because the materials were not of the highest end), a bit underpowered (maybe 15-18 mph on level ground), and lacked regenerative braking.
So the foldable, luggable bicycle is a good idea, unless you have room in your office to park a full-sized model, but I would pay the $$ to get a good-quality, lightweight model; look for at least 600-1000 watts of power, especially if there are steep hills, as well as good brakes, tires, and lights; and look for good battery capacity relative to weight.
Any reason a gas powered moped couldn’t be used instead? They get good mileage so co2 production should be low. Not sure if they are legal on bike paths. If money is an issue, Craigslist likely has affordable used mopeds.
I don’t want gas because of the emissions, and they are not legal on the bike paths, so won’t work for my purpose at all. As far as money, I can spend more; I just don’t want to until I know how much I am going to use it.
Chicago is pretty darn flat, and there is plenty of room at the office to park something full-sized, but foldable might be nice so I could bring upstairs to my office if, say, we got a sudden monsoon and I wanted to stow it at work overnight and take the train home.
Carrying a full-sized bicycle up the stairs or elevator is not usually a problem. The difference might be, a regular bike you have to find something to lean it against or a hook from which to hang it, while a folded bike is easier to stash under your desk or in a closet. It’s not briefcase-sized, though.
As for the power, it’s a bit of a guess, but a 250-watt engine will do 15-20 mph tops, while 1000 watts should be able to do 30.
I have an earlier generation Prodeco Phantom x that’s 6 years old or so. ebikes have gotten better.
A couple of things to check out.
can you personally remove the rear tire easily? On mine, it takes a bike shop
size your commute distance/battery power. Can you recharge at work? I would buy the bigger battery to make sure you don’t run out of power. In my experience, they were also really slow to charge. I had about 1.5x my round trip commute worth of battery.
There is pedal assist and throttle. One kicks in whenever you pedal, and the throttle you have to manually turn. I like the throttle.
Can you actually pedal it without power if you have to (mine you can pedal maybe 100 yards)?
you don’t need many speeds. Personally low, medium, high is probably enough and 6 gears overkill.
I commuted about 7 miles one way up and down hills. It was good. I could pedal as much or as little as I wanted. Took about 30 minutes. I would be able to get to work without being sweaty. It wasn’t real fun in winter sleet though.
GenZe by mahindralook to be decent. I checked one out at Costco for $1449. It had fixed some of the obvious drawbacks like being able to change the rear tire and not being stupidly heavy.
Thanks for the substantive tips. I finally went and test-rode a couple at a nearby bike shop today. (There was a non-zero possibility that the whole riding experience would freak me out and I would bag the whole deal. That didn’t happen. As far as models, though, I am somewhat limited by height; at 5’1", many frames are simply too bog for me.)
Other points:
I don’t care if it will take a bike shop for repairs; I don’t do repairs on my regular bike, either. (There is a regular bike show a 10-minute walk from here. and the shop where I test-drove is about 10 minutes by bus from home. All Chicago buses have racks for 2 bikes on the front, if it came to that.) I am at a point in my life where I don’t feel like spending leisure time learning to do things that I don’t particularly enjoy for which I may need a whole bunch of tools that I don’t have. I’m glad to give our local shop a few bucks to do a better job in a tenth of the time.
I tried 1 model with a throttle and 1 without. I liked the feel of the pedal-assist-only one better; the throttle is kind of jumpy but maybe that’s just a matter of practice.
The batteries are all removable and I could charge at work if needed, but at 40+ mile range (60 - 70 for the model I liked better), I shouldn’t need to. A full charge takes 4 hours.
The sales guy at the bike shop made the very good point that the pedal-assist model is significantly lighter than the throttle model that I tried and could be pedaled if it came to that. (I think it’s actually lighter than the bike-share regular bikes that I also currently use.)
I almost just said “what the heck” and pulled the trigger this afternoon, but thought I should go home and read up a bit on technical specs first.
Flat repair is relatively easy to learn & will prevent you from being stranded. How far is it between access points on the bike trail? How far do you need to push it before you can even get picked up at a trailhead/road crossing?
All in, including tire levers, pump or CO[sub]2[/sub] inflator, a patch kit/spare tube, & a underseat bag to carry it all should be < $50, even less if you put that stuff in your pockets & don’t need the carry bag.
Which models did you test? Which ones were best for your height (this is something I think about from time to time, and I’m 5’3)? Which one did you nearly pull the trigger on?
Just got home from pulling the trigger on a Specialized Turbo Como 2.0 Low-Entry 650b - 2018/2019. (Actually Tom Scud was awesome enough to go do it on my behalf once I realized I wasn’t gong to make it there until a few minutes after the store closed.) I never thought I would buy a fluorescent yellow bike, but it was on end-of-season clearance, and there’s just about nothing else left in this town that works for someone my height. (I went to the store’s other location to see if they had something left in my size that wasn’t fluorescent yellow, and they didn’t. Oh well, at least visibility won’t be an issue!)
I would totally ride it to work tomorrow, but it’s supposed to rain, so maybe not the best for my maiden voyage. But I’m psyched! Just riding it a couple of miles home was pretty awesome. (I should go tomorrow and get some lights and a rack, though.)
Too late now but my point on the removeable rear wheel is to be able to fix a flat when you’re out and about. On my ebike, it simply is not practical to take of the rear wheel and fix a flat.
I hope you got rain fenders. If you didn’t, you need to. At least my ebike was unrideable without fenders when it is wet, which is all the time in Seattle.
Have fun with it. I used to run into hardcore biking commuters. Most kinda looked at the bike funny until I said “it’s got a battery and I"ve got bad knees”. Most just thought it was cool that another way to go out riding, a few took it as a personal challenge to try outrace me (only one guy did given the hills we were doing), and a coupla jerks thought ebikes violated the 11th commandment against un-pure and unnatural modes of transportation.
I’ll second the fenders if you haven’t already added them. They’re easy to add and the bike shop will probably install them for free.
If you will ride after dark please buy a “real” headlight. I’m not talking about flashy / blinky / strobey but about being able to see obstacles in the road.
Grab a few bungee cords for the rack and you’re all set.
NY Times had an opinion piece today on How an ebike changed my life. If it’s behind a paywall, it probably will be reposted somewhere else in a few days
(Actually Tom Scud was awesome enough to go do it on my behalf once I realized I wasn’t gong to make it there until a few minutes after the store closed.) I never thought I would buy a fluorescent yellow bike, but it was on end-of-season clearance, and there’s just about nothing else left in this town that works for someone my height. (I went to the store’s other location to see if they had something left in my size that wasn’t fluorescent yellow, and they didn’t. Oh well, at least visibility won’t be an issue!)
(I subscribe to the NYT, so I can’t help with the “is it behind a paywall” part.)