Which e bike?? Help!

[Ungarsee]

I currently have a GoCycle GX and long story short, when it’s working it’s great but sadly that is becoming less common than it should for a supposed ‘premium’ product. So it’s going but I need to replace it.

Until today I was relatively convinced by the Riese and Muller Tinker but it’s £4k and I was focused on it being compact. That’s not a deal breaker and I feel like I’m discounting a lot of other options so what can people suggest?

Must have’s
- Able to deal with a 20 mile daily round trip across London.
- Able to set it to a US setting so it will provide assistance up to 20mph.
- Hybrid style bike.

I’ve got no interest in going off road or racing or going on long rides at the weekend. I’m relatively up to speed on compact or folding bikes. Apologies if this causes offence but I’ve really got minimal interest in riding the bike other than for my commute. It’s a logical choice in that it’s the quickest method of transport door to door and, as long as it doesn’t need fixing every month, it’s far cheaper than the train. I also get some exercise as I like to pedal quite hard.

If it helps anyone here, don’t buy a GoCycle unless you just want to look at it or only use it on newly laid tarmac. For a bike that starts at £4k their quality control is shockingly bad.

Thanks

[Gruffy]

What's driving the desire for a compact/folding bike? Home storage, public transport flexibility or the ability to sling it in the boot?

As you have very specific use in mind (and reading between the lines that you appreciate good design) I'd be looking at the Cowboy 4 or waiting a few more days to see what the new Vanmoof offerings are. Those are likely to land around the same price as the Cowboy, at £2.5k.

I am a couple of weeks from launching our e-bike marketplace at Velomatch, which aims to help solve challenges like this. We're also about to launch live stock, so you can quickly see what's available from lots of different retailers rather than trying to hunt stuff down individually.

In the meantime though, if you're in a rush and can't wait, drop me a message and I'll try to help personally.

[Ungarsee]

Gruffy said:

What's driving the desire for a compact/folding bike? Home storage, public transport flexibility or the ability to sling it in the boot?

As you have very specific use in mind (and reading between the lines that you appreciate good design) I'd be looking at the Cowboy 4 or waiting a few more days to see what the new Vanmoof offerings are. Those are likely to land around the same price as the Cowboy, at £2.5k.

I am a couple of weeks from launching our e-bike marketplace at Velomatch, which aims to help solve challenges like this. We're also about to launch live stock, so you can quickly see what's available from lots of different retailers rather than trying to hunt stuff down individually.

In the meantime though, if you're in a rush and can't wait, drop me a message and I'll try to help personally.

Thanks Gruffy and your marketplace sounds good. No mad rush as my GoCycle is back and working. I did look at Cowboy and VanMoof but reliability seemed a bit patchy? The new bike needs to be reliable after my experience with GoCycle. Also I thought they were locked to the EU setting of 15.5mph?

I had a look at the Tenways ebike yesterday but their support team said any bike delivered to Europe is locked to 15.5mph as well.

The ability to get it unlocked to US settings is key for me. 20mph across London means cars tend to stay behind. At 15.5mph they will overtake and typically too close for comfort.

Folding was more for storage at home but happy to go full size now if it opens up some interesting options.

[daydotz]

Cube do a foldish bike or tern both with bosch drive although you would need a speedbox for your desire for 20mph

[Bacon Is Proof]

Ungarsee said:

The ability to get it unlocked to US settings is key for me. 20mph across London means cars tend to stay behind. At 15.5mph they will overtake and typically too close for comfort.

I wouldn't want to be involved in any sort of accident whilst riding an uninsured, unregistered, unmot'd electric motorbike...
Be very careful.

Or do the sensible thing and get a 125cc scooter.
My OH's was less than half the prices you're quoting new.

Edited by Bacon Is Proof on Tuesday 29th March 11:57

[RizzoTheRat]

There's a myriad of ways e-bikes can be unlocked/chipped to illegally operate at higher speeds, so don't necessarily focus on the US setting if that's what you want to do.

If you're after a more upright "city bike" style hybrid see if any of the big Dutch brands like Gazelle, Batavus or Cortina are available near you. They're relatively uncommon in the UK but built for comfort and reliability.

[Gruffy]

Ungarsee said:

Thanks Gruffy and your marketplace sounds good. No mad rush as my GoCycle is back and working. I did look at Cowboy and VanMoof but reliability seemed a bit patchy? The new bike needs to be reliable after my experience with GoCycle. Also I thought they were locked to the EU setting of 15.5mph?

They are speed limited, as shipped, but so is everything you're likely to look at for legal use in the UK. There are methods to explore, if you intend to use it on private land. I can't advise on those.

Reliability on some of these next-gen models is not as strong as more traditional bikes. It's all down to the compromises needed for tidy packaging and I liken it to mobile phones. I like to wait a few months before upgrading to the latest model or OS, to let them fix the bugs and quality first. That said, if the customer service is first class and they deal with things quickly and without fuss if/when issues pop up, then I'm much more forgiving.

If you treasure reliability above all else then you would want to dodge the fancy tech and stick with tried and tested, like a Bosch drive system. The Cube Compact looks like a solid contender for you at £2.9k. Tern enjoys a great reputation for reliability but that's getting into Man Maths territory.

[RedWhiteMonkey]

Pretty much all e-bikes can be derestricted if you want to do it, its obviously at your own risk though.

I assume you are still looking for something compact and preferably foldable. If so, then have a look at Tern, they do a few different folding bikes that use the well supported Bosch motors.

[cb31]

Can you also make them hand throttle like they do in some countries, so remove the pedal assist necessity?

[Ungarsee]

Thanks for the replies so far, I’m going to have a look at them once I’ve got some time next week.

With regards to derestricting, do you have the option to choose the speed the assistance cuts off or is it simply a case of always having assistance when you pedal? I like the 20mph cut off the GoCycle gives me as i can get some exercise by pedalling hard and keeping the speed a bit over or let the bike do most of the work if it’s been a crap day and I’m already knackered.

[MOBB]

I've had 2 e-bikes so far;

https://www.canyon.com/en-gb/electric-bikes/electr...

Powered by a Fazua motor, I derestricted it with a SpeedBox, very nice fast bike to ride, I got around 20 miles from it if I nailed it everywhere, with a fair amnount of hills included. Great bike, the motor is subtle so you still get a great work out from it

Replaced with;

https://www.giant-bicycles.com/gb/road-eplus-1-pro

More power, more battery range, epic when derestricted (Badass Box)

The Canyon sounds a good bet for you based on what you described above?

Edit - just saw the folding bit, might want to ignore me lol

[JeffreyD]

We've got a Riese and Muller Nevo and a Multicharger

My wife rides the Nevo and I really wish I'd got one as well. I can carry more on mine but tbh I very rarely do. Both assist up to 20mph and have a variety of modes so if you are feeling lazy you could do the entire commute on Turbo. For a bit more exercise leave it on "Eco"

The Nevo really is a great bike - but it is "full size" rather than folding.

So far they've been perfectly reliable and I think the Nevo would make a great commuting bike.

[RizzoTheRat]

cb31 said:

Can you also make them hand throttle like they do in some countries, so remove the pedal assist necessity?

That would class as an electric moped and need to be registered as such, meaning you need a helmet, license, MoT etc. Illegal conversions are presumably a lot more likely to get spotted due to the rider not needing to pedal. If you want to go that route you'd probably be better off buying something like an NIU or Super Soco,