Cycling UK Forum

Hi there ,

I can manage regular bikes but I am a bit at sea with Ebikes. I am researching for my partners aunt and would appreciate any advice. What is the best Ebike I could get for around that money ? What should I be looking for or trying to avoid ? What is the bike that is to Ebikes what the Calibre Bossnut is to full suspension trail bikes if you get my drift , affordable but good , Thanks ,

J

Probably look at a step thru ebike.
£1500 is a good figure and should cover quite a few bikes for that price.
Two drives to consider for her but best she tries both out first for personnel preference.
Hub drive mainly cadence sensor the PAS set up only requires gentle or ghost pedalling to move along.
Mid drive OEM use torque sensing and multiplies the riders pedal input to move along.

The Aunt is best to get a bike locally so should an issue arise it will be easier to deal with warranty wise.

Halfords do a lot of ebikes with Suntour hub drives that use torque sensors and can give feel similar to mid-drive and match the casual mid-drive bikes for power output or even exceed it in places but they cannot match the very high torque output of mid-drive motors designed for off-road so are less effective on e-mountain bikes but still a good budget option but just don't expect to power up steep inclines like the mid-drive e-mountain bikes.

Most of the Carrera ebikes are suntour except the Crosscity folding ebike which uses a more generic hub and simple cadence sensor I think.

£1500 is about the price you would get a very good hub motor ebike or a very limited entry level mid-drive ebike unless you find a decent reduction somewhere on one of those.

Buying a new ebike gets you a fresh battery with its full capacity so bear in mind if you are considering a s/hand purchase some sellers are selling their ebikes with the battery at the end of life. A £1000 new ebike vs a secondhand £600 ebike which needs a new £400 battery is no saving in fact it has cost you more effectively because other components will need replacing sooner and you have no warranty for anything except the battery.

Suntour system is known for reliability issues even though some components have been upgraded the system still uses the same TS BB which is the main Achilles heel. Suntour doesn't use a generic battery system so in future years battery replacement will be a lot more expensive then a generic fit all battery.

As it is for the Aunt one needs local warranty and dealers within say 10 miles.

For the Aunt, one needs to actually discuss with her, her needs for the bike.
Frame style.
Rider strength/abilities, this will decide if a Torque system or simple cadence pedal system is required.
Usage, If little and often then battery care isn't too critical but if use is little and not very often then battery care becomes more important esp once warranty runs out as they can be expensive.
Bike specs like mudguards, chain guard, prop stand, rack/panniers or a basket for errands/shopping.
Securing the bike storing the bike at home.

Amongst all this test ride and test ride a few first.

My first post here.

I've got the Decathlon E-ST 520 which is £1499. It's very good, seems to have good components and I am very impressed.

Only issue will be trying to get one. They are arriving in dribs and drabs.

https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/27-5-elec ... 616&c=GREY

I hope this helps

Alan

Decathlon have great CS and if one doesn't like the bike can get a full refund within one calendar year on the bike.

hemo wrote:Decathlon have great CS and if one doesn't like the bike can get a full refund within one calendar year on the bike.

Looking on the site its a fairly standard 1 month to return and then you have a normal warranty. If they can't fix it in a timely fashion they may well refund you at their discretion. You certainly haven't got the right to just return a bike within a year for a full refund. You could have half worn out the bike in that time and it would be commercial suicide for them to operate such a policy. That's not to say they don't occasionally make special exceptions depending on circumstances.

hemo wrote:Suntour system is known for reliability issues even though some components have been upgraded the system still uses the same TS BB which is the main Achilles heel. Suntour doesn't use a generic battery system so in future years battery replacement will be a lot more expensive then a generic fit all battery.

As it is for the Aunt one needs local warranty and dealers within say 10 miles.

For the Aunt, one needs to actually discuss with her, her needs for the bike.
Frame style.
Rider strength/abilities, this will decide if a Torque system or simple cadence pedal system is required.
Usage, If little and often then battery care isn't too critical but if use is little and not very often then battery care becomes more important esp once warranty runs out as they can be expensive.
Bike specs like mudguards, chain guard, prop stand, rack/panniers or a basket for errands/shopping.
Securing the bike storing the bike at home.

Amongst all this test ride and test ride a few first.

The only thing I would say about that is one fifth of all bike shops in the UK are Halfords and its a similar amount of revenue about 20-25% all cycling revenue in the UK passes through Halfords and the amount of Suntour HESC ebikes they have sold is absolutely huge. They make up a large part of the ebikes on the road in the UK. Sometimes its hard to factor reliability fairly when one type of ebike maybe 20x more common than the next type you are comparing to. No question there are issues with Suntour HESC but a huge number of such bikes are in daily use, couriers etc without issues.

Do the Suntour batteries have some sort of restricted handshaking that would limit buying a third party replacement or is it just a matter of changing connectors etc?

https://www.bikester.co.uk/ortler-monta ... 20505.html

Ortlers , great bikes!

Al

Suntour hand shaking protocols like Bosch etc, no.
If the bike is out of warranty and goes kaput or say the TS BB fails most likely if anything then one completely removes all the electronics and spends £70 - £100 and buys a KT controller /lcd system to replace the Suntour stuff. Battery and hub motor being reusable.