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So the boss has given me the green light to buy an ebike next year. However I am coming from a fully rigid fat bike (which I am keeping). At 52 my body is now telling me I need something fully sprung and assisted...but OMG there is so much info, so many bikes/brands to choose from. Don't get me started on the price!!!
Ive got a demo day booked this weekend at Whinlatter, Orbea and Cube will be there to Demo so I can get an idea of how the darn things work. I will avoid Giant at all costs thanks to STW, but what kind of motor do I need, battery? Power?
I live in the lakes, so a hike a bike is often needed. You don't see many hardtail Ebikes out on the trails, which is a shame as I only have a budget of £4k maximum. So going to try to hang on until the Jan sales to see if I can get a bargain somewhere. For me £4k is a big investment so I would like to get something that isn't too shabby.
Are hardtails simply not worth bothering with an ebike? I like the look of some of the Trek's but the model range is a bit confusing. Uphill is more important than getting down for my type of riding too.
Cheers.
Hike a bike with an e-bike is not something to do very often unless you're happy heaving an anvil up a mountain. I avoid a lot of cheeky on mine especially if the stiles and gates are on the tricky or numerous side.
Hike a bike with an eeeb will be hard work.
A lot of bike for the money IMO, mates have them and have liked the way they rode, good support from CRC as well
https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/vitus-e-sommet-297-vrs-mountain-bike/rp-prod206213
as above, hike a bike is a last resort with an e-bike as they're heavy beasts
i guess you probably need to make your decision of if you want a 'full fat' e-bike (motors with typically 70+ nm / 500+ watt hour batteries) or one of the new breed of lighter weight 'half-fat' e-bikes (less powerful motor, smaller battery, lower weight) which will be determined by the riding you want to do, and go from there.
manufacturer warranty is a big one for me in buying decision on e-bikes, at some point they will break, so how easy is it going to to get them repaired or warrantied?
i'd have a look round now for deals as a lot of manufacturers are shifting surplus stock at some decent discounts. for example you can get the entry level specialised levo at just over 4K (500 w/h battery) or a trek rail 5 (with 625 w/h battery) for £4.1K - both great bikes and platforms to upgrade over time if you wish.
as to hard tail e-bikes, can't see the point, but then again it's been years since i've rode hard tail mtb's
unfortunately in the crazy world of e-bike prices your budget will mean compromises, so i'd go for the best motor / battery / bike geo i could and then look to upgrade as things break / wear out
I keep looking at this as a cheap basic ebike. Its only 9spd but that suits me as I have a rohloff to fit and its a pretty basic fork. Motor is one generation old 65 NM IIRC compared to some now are 80Nm. Personally I am not interested in a full sus.
Only read online reviews and they show no red flags. Personally from my reading I would only consider a Bosch motor.
Cheers. Are any particular brand of motor better/more reliable. Shimano/Bosch seem to dominate.
Shimano make it very hard to repair. Bosch are perhaps the easiest to repair - again from online reading not real experience
Cheers TJ.
I love a hardtail, but I think the weight of an emtb one would ruin a lot of that for me. I think most are aimed at the light off-road, gravel paths end of MTBing. Even something like a Kinesis Rise is nearly 19kg so I wouldn't want to carry it over my shoulders any distance.
ebikes make sense to me as a way to have big travel, chunky tyres and the like, but be able to blast up the hills like they're not there. Even the light ones you'd really rather ride (or walk assist) anywhere over carrying.
Worth seeing what you think from your demos. Boost mode is hilarious but unless you're riding with other emtbs and trying to go as quick as possible then lower torque is fine.
Are any particular brand of motor better/more reliable. Shimano/Bosch seem to dominate.
all have their issues, hence warranty / after sales being important.
shimano aren't repairable so when it's broke it's new motor time. anecdotally shimano appear to be awkward on their warranty work as well and it seems to be difficult to buy a new motor if you need one out of warranty.
bosch and brose are repairable to some extent, but still limited. i had a warranty motor replaced with bosch / trek and they were great. now got a spesh levo with the brose motor - no issues so far but they seem to have a great reputation on warranties
Cubes are well spec'd for the money and come with the Bosch motor. There are reports on the www of poor warranty response though.
The Vitus is a good bike, but it's heavy and I'd be wary of the Shimano motor.
Having spent a decent amount of time on Bosch, Brose (Spesh) and Shimano motors I would rank them in that order. The Bosch feels the most punchy and seems to be more economical than the Brose, which is the quietist. The Shimano is , IMO, disappointing if you've read either of the others but fine in isolation.
I’m not in the market for an ebike but the lighter weight / lower power ones appeal to me - like the Orbea Rise / new Transition Relay etc. but motor reliability in general on e-bikes (or batteries / wiring etc) seem ludicrously bad.
Shimano seem to be leading the way in bad out of warranty repair ability - they won’t provide any sensors to 3rd party motor repairers etc. Bosch seem to be best for this.
I had a quick go on a full day cube ebike the other day - what a massive / heavy thing (for comparison I was riding a 160mm travel / 34lb / coil spring 29er so not exactly a light bike) it was - but the power is mental. Even in eco just a few turns of the pedals with not much pressure and you are absolutely flying along.
I wouldn’t fancy lifting that sort of thing over a gate / stile and I do a bit of weight training etc.
Raceco cycles have bikes on their eBay shop that will be in your budget like this one
So there are bikes within your budget but spec may not be what you want.
MTB monster have some orbea rise ebikes for £3899
MTBmonster have reduced the price of the Trek rail 5 to well below your budget (£3,300, or £3.8 with the bigger 625w battery) and also have some Orbea rise H30's on offer also for £3.8k as in Flyingpotatoes post above (that Mulberry colour is really nice) also, with the rise, you can get a battery extender to increase the range if needed, I dont think you can go wrong with either of those two options, a full power trek rail or a mid power lighter weight Rise. And The Bike Factory in Chester have some Specialized Turbo Levo's for £4k, with the 500w battery, another good option, there are some very good deals about at the moment.
If you already have a bike full of nice kit, you'd be better buying something far down the food chain and swopping those parts over.
One annoying thing about ebike is the poor quality kit you get unless your starting figure is £5k.
but OMG there is so much info, so many bikes/brands to choose from.
I researched about a dozen different brands before settling on the Scott Genius 920..
From personal experience I would avoid shimano. They don't want anyone to repair them. Truely shocking.
Giant and Shimano are out then. I do like the look of the Trek rail.
Got a while to go yet, but it gives me more of an idea now. Just need to save a bit now.
Thank you so much.
I worked as a mechanic in a Specialized and Cube dealer for a couple of years. Warranty is absolutely key, as it’s usually a matter of when, not if you need it, particularly with Specialized. My own e-bike, a hybrid utility thing has a Bosch motor based on this experience. Hike-a-bike means walk-assist mode - you’d rarely want to push or carry one, as for lifting one over a stile- no thanks.
As others have said you can forget hike a bike with an ebike, it's not happening. Having said that some stuff in the lakes that is a push on a manual bike can be ridden with an ebike. But if we're on about 'I need to carry my bike on my back in order to get up this' then you'll not do it with an ebike, not a chance! Even if you got up it you'd be absolutely crippled and in no fit state to ride down the other side, in fact you'd probably need a stretcher to carry you off!
Regarding the reliability/repairability aspect. I've had my bosch motored ebike for 3 years, 9000 miles. Its been ridden in all conditions and has been flawless, until today. Yesterday it got very wet when I got caught in torrential rain, it worked fine this morning for my 15 mile commute then conked out at the start of my return journey.
A quick google of the error suggests it's not repairable and it's probably new motor time.
I'm fuming, Bosch don't provide the control board as a spare part despite it being quite easy to remove once you have the motor in bits. It might be possible to reset the error but I'll need to find a local dealer as they also don't allow access to the software. I might be able to send it off and get it refurbished but this will cost over £300, better than the £700 for a new motor I suppose.
I have it in bits at the moment, there was a small amount of water ingress but it's surprisingly clean in there considering the use I've had and there are no obvious signs of damage.
Things break down, of course they do, but to have to replace a £700 motor for the sake of a circuit board which probably costs £50 is disgraceful and smacks of profiteering. Surely the right to repair must apply to these machines.
So for all those above recommending Bosch for their repairability, based on my current predicament, they're as bad as any of the others.
What was the error code mdavids?
My Bosch Gen 4 motor packed up last week displaying error code 510. Had the firmware updated by an lbs and it seems to have sorted it.
https://www.hargreaves-cycles.co.uk/m39b0s418p0/SHOP-SOILED/eBikes
Check out this shop. Their shop soiled and ex demo sale. A good shop to deal with. Friendly knowledgeable staff. Myself and best mate have had excellent service from them for some Cannondale hybrid and road bikes.
The ebike motor repairability question would make a good article for the main page I think.
A lot of hearsay is out their regarding this.
Singletrack world should ask each manufacturer what is their position on spares and repairs.
Canyon Neuron ON8 ? £4350
shorter travel 130mm.f&r Good kit. fox 34 performance elite fork, XT brakes and drivetrain. 630w/h and shimano EP8. wheels not the best, but has to go down somewhere to cover the better fork and brakes.
Has a nifty USB-C charging port for phone,lights etc.
https://www.canyon.com/en-gb/electric-bikes/electric-mountain-bikes/neuron-on/neuron-on-8/3119.html
Living in the Lakes, personally I'd put the battery/controls/motor and weather resistance pretty high on the choice points and look to upgrade or change things longer term. I see you have already ruled out Giant based on this... No amount of good components will make up for a borked motor/battery/controls.
You will ride up more than you did before but H-a-B is very limited with a 20+kg bike...
Check the other thread on Kenevo vs SL for full fat/semmi skimmed info too.
Just for balance regarding Bosch . I had a Kona Remote Ctrl with a 2nd gen Bosch motor . It had 4 motors in 3 years , one when I switched the bike on in my garage and the bike shot across the garage on its own and slammed into another bike !To say that shit me up is an understatement!
The last replacement followed getting bearings replaced at my local Bosch Service Centre . I was pleased , I thought preventative work the equivalent to swapping BB bearings . 6 weeks later trouble again . This time Bosch said new motor and because it had been " unofficially" opened it would be at full cost.
This after they had trained the guys at the Service Centre to do that work and also sold them the service kit ? 🤔After I threw my toys out of the pram they agreed a hefty discount on the new motor which still worked out the same after the servicing .They even contacted me and advised me not to get the motor wet as , in their words " They don't like it " 🤔🤔🤔
Now they are on Gen 4 I'd like to think the waterproofness has improved, my mates seems better though his has started playing up lately 🙄 Following my experience I'm not convinced regarding Bosch and their attitude, they could probably retro work that motor to improve its performance but it would be too costly I guess .
I've now got an Orbea Rise which worries me into the future being a Shimano motor but for my sort of riding a reduced power motor suits me fine.
Someone mentioned STW doing a motor reliability, real world survey . Chipps told me they were working on one 18 months ago but I haven't seen anything yet?
To sum up if you buy one buy local ! My dealer is still 1 1/2 hours drive away but it's the closest to me unfortunately 😔
I know there is a lot of snobbery about ebikes (although I think if you have something that is pretty much guaranteed to break at some point I would be looking down my nose a bit less) but I would go the DIY route.
I would speak to Starling or Cotic about a bike to run a TongSheng tsdz2 motor with.
Starling would probably be where I would start since they offer custom builds for specific purposes so Joe might be open to adjusting the downtube to tuck the motor away a bit more and some way of mounting a battery pack.
I just don't think the reliability is there for built in motors yet so I would always advise people to build not buy. That way, even if your motor is borked, you've still got a pretty awesome bike you can ride.
I'd also like a real world repairability article. The ebike repair place could help with it I'm sure.
In fact, repairability should be part of all reviews IMO. this stuff shouldn't just be going in landfill.
How many of these wireless mechs and stuff can be repaired? Why can't we replace fork bushings anymore??
As above definitely get an ebike from a local shop.
I had a battery error pop up on my Bosch app. The bike still worked fine as I could clear the message on the screen but it came back when first switching on the bike.
10 minutes at the shop I bought it from and they cleared it and updated the software on the ebike to the latest version.
No problems since.
I was going to get this 3500 was 5700. But I couldnt warrant another bike in the end 😔I say I couldn’t, I mean my wife 😂
https://cykelhouse.com/collections/bikes/products/kona-remote-130