Ask Lemmy

I have an ebike I use as my daily commuter for a distance of 11 km each way (6.8 miles) over decently hilly terrain in a windy city as a large man. It still only takes 25 minutes and I charge my battery once a week? Maybe twice if I'm tired and using more boost.

Are you mechanically inclined at all? I purchased a motor conversion kit and a battery to convert my regular bike to ebike. It wasn't really a difficult process, the hardest part was removing the bottom bracket as it was quite stuck. Took some thinking to get enough leverage without having the tool head chew out the bracket teeth. The rest was relatively plug and play. I was able to get the 500 W motor and 48 V 18 A hour battery for ~$1200 CAD together. I use it to commute to work so I wanted a longer range, if you don't need as much power or as much range you could do it for cheaper.

I went for a mid drive motor which are more efficient but more expensive than hub drive, if you're budget conscious you could do a hub drive. From my understanding the hub drive can be more difficult for maintenance (the wheel is a special version, so you need to buy another wheel that works with the hub drive if any issues occur) but I'm no expert.

All of that is a moot point if you don't already have a bike to use, but you could find a local bike recycle store to get one cheap? Or you could get a new bike and convert that. I had a marin fairfax 2 that I converted over and it works great, haven't had any issues and I've put on a couple thousand kms on it since converting (the display tracks total distance which is handy). I believe the marin was $700ish new from my local store.

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B083J95GJP?geniuslink=true&psc=1

https://www.amazon.ca/10AH-Electric-Bicycle-Lithinum-Battery/dp/B09C1RP9KV

You could search for other options if you don't want to support amazon, there are different sites to source the parts from, those were just the first two that I saw.

https://ebikes.ca/shop/electric-bicycle-parts/batteries.html?___store=canadian&___from_store=international

Here's a battery from a Canadian company.

https://lunacycle.com/no-drill-battery-mount-kit/

Here's a mounting bracket for the battery if the bracket seems unsteady or the holes don't line up like with mine.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005664281095.html?pdp_npi=3%40dis%21CAD%21C%24+818.29%21C%24+572.80%21%21%21%21%21%402103205316878009193475419ef97f%2112000033941099570%21sh%21CA%213139937923

This is what I ended up going with. Let me know if you have any questions, I'd be happy to chat about the process more.

All of this is canadian specific because I reposted the meat of it from an older comment, bug I'm sure you could find local alternatives easily enough.

You don't need much, 500w is enough.

I ride an ENGWE EP-2 Pro, I got it because it was on sale for $700, can fold up into the back of my hatchback, and seemed to have a reasonably well designed battery. It is fun, it looks kinda cool, has lots of features including cruise control, but is by no means the best bike.

It weighs 74 lbs and the range in practice isn't all that great: Part of me wishes I saved up a little more to get a Lectric Xpedition because it has crazy range and more storage. If the battery goes out, this thing is not fun to pedal uphill.

Farthest I've ridden is 12 miles one way, took about 40 minutes. On average I usually ride maybe 1-5 miles a day, not far really but everything is pretty close to me. The only major exception is when I take it joyriding, up to maybe 20 miles. I have only had it for a couple of months so far so I don't know how it'll do in cold weather or snow, but I suspect the thicc tires would do well even without chains.

Speaking of extreme weather, extreme cold and heat are problematic for batteries, so don't expect to go on a big journey in -20 F cold or 110 F heat.

I can tell you that my best advice would be to find your nearest reputable bike shop, get their input based on what they carry, and then do your own research to verify it's a decent brand before you buy. One of the most important and often overlooked things when people buy an ebike is whether they can get it serviced or not.

Another possible consideration if you're handy would be to take a traditional bike you think would be ideal and then use a conversion kit to make it electric. If you are mechanically savvy, you'd get more bang for your buck and would probably do all your own maintenance and repairs anyhow.

My advice is that range/battery life depends greatly on things like rider+cargo weight, terrain hilliness, and which assist setting you're using (or worse, if you're just using the throttle and not pedaling at all). Get more battery than you think you need. (The exception is if the bike you choose is more of an "e-road bike" that would still be pleasant to ride without assist, but most e-bikes are not like that, and you wouldn't want that kind of bike for commuting anyway.)

Otherwise, the 750w bikes are perfectly fine -- you do not need that "super cool dual-motor bike" for commuting.

IMO, the other main factors you should be considering are cargo capacity, drivetrain style and budget.

Regarding cargo: you can carry groceries etc. with a basket and/or rack on a regular-style bike, but if you want to carry a lot of stuff (or kids as passengers) you should look into long-tail cargo bikes or even a box bike (a.k.a. "bakfiets" because they're popular in the Netherlands).

Regarding drivetrain style: there are two main types, rear-drive and mid-drive.

Rear-drive tends to be cheaper but slightly less pleasant to use because it relies on a cadence sensor to activate the assist. In other words, when you start pedaling there's a bit of lag before the assist kicks in, and when it does it's either on (according to the setting you picked) or off. It's not "variable" in terms of responding to how hard you're pushing the pedals, only whether they're turning or not.

In contrast, mid-drive systems can sense the torque being applied to the pedals, and can apply assist more immediately and more smoothly in response to how much effort you're trying to use (at least, that's what they say -- I've never tried one myself). However, they tend to cost more.

Based on my use-case (which involved carrying two small kids to school), I bought a Lectric Xpedition, which AFAIK is the cheapest electric long-tail cargo bike currently available. I've been very happy with it so far and think that bike, and Lectric bikes in general, are a good recommendation for people who want the best value-for-money.

For people with other circumstances, I might make some other recommendations:

• If you're doing a mixed bike+transit commute, taking the bike with you on airplane trips, or otherwise carrying it around a lot, I think going all the way to the smallest/best-folding bike you can reasonably have -- an electric Brompton -- is worth it.

• If you want to carry a lot of cargo, but (unlike me) you also have plenty of money and space to store the thing, a high-end bakfeits with a Bosch mid-drive and Gates carbon belt instead of a chain is what you want. Those things can cost $10K, though!

• If your needs are generic -- you don't specifically need cargo capacity or folding -- and you aren't completely mechanically hopeless, then get a rear-drive bike from a lower-end-but-still-well-known mail-order brand like Rad or Lectric (either new or used via Craigslist).

• If you are mechanically hopeless and/or still clueless about what you want and/or have a higher budget and are willing to pay for good service, find a local e-bike shop and let them sell you one of their bikes that they recommend. It'll cost more than the previous suggestion, but they'll have the best support and will be able to do the maintenance on it for you. (This is apparently a bigger benefit than it seems, because although you can get a regular non-electric bike worked on anywhere, I've heard that lots of bike shop mechanics are unwilling to work on e-bikes they don't sell themselves.)

One last thing: whatever you do, avoid random no-name Chinese bikes from Amazon/Ebay/Aliexpress/whatever. This is one of those cases where you really do want a company with a US presence (it doesn't have to be a "US company," but they need to at least have a US phone number/mailing address) to hold accountable for warranty issues and to have some confidence that they're complying with US safety regulations so the battery doesn't burn your house down or something.