Lightweight under £1800

Electrically assisted bikes, trikes, etc. that are legal in the UK
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swfcdan
Posts: 24
Joined: 1 Nov 2017, 6:37pm

Lightweight under £1800

Post by swfcdan »

I'm considering getting an E-bike having used my partners (Raleigh Tour Motus with Bosch motor) and find that great in hilly areas and my hilly city I live in! The Bosch motor seems the one you really want due to much better battery life and consistent power. But I'm looking for one more lightweight and one I can take in the back seat of a car on short-mid journeys (find using cycle racks a pain and too time consuming). And lighter weight meaning I can use the battery less also. Can anyone suggest some bikes to me under £1800?

Ideally with the battery integrated into the frame too, but that's not a necessity. Or if some other motors other than Bosch are reccomended and cheaper I'd like to hear those too.

I've also just got an email about this from Bikester, looked at it and noticed they say you can charge it yourself while riding to extend the range- anyone know much about this idea? Never heard of an E-bike doing that before! Imagine it would be hard work riding to charge it though, and may be fairly negligable?

https://www.bikester.co.uk/new-fixie-in ... VyLmNvLnVr

Cheers.
stodd
Posts: 708
Joined: 6 Jun 2018, 10:24am

Re: Lightweight under £1800

Post by stodd »

Different people have different ideas about 'lightweight', but look at Rambletta (https://wooshbikes.co.uk/?rambletta) at 20kg inc battery. Woosh have excellent reputation for value and customer service.

Weight of the bike won't make a significant difference to power usage. Bosch system is good (we've got a Motus), but lots of others are just as good and just as reliable; and much cheaper if anything does go wrong or when you need a new battery.

Look at https://www.bosch-ebike.com/en/service/range-assistant/ to get an idea of how different details (such as total weight) affect range. You'll get very similar figures for other motors with same capacity batteries in similar conditions.

Most ebikes that have had charging from riding or even regenerative braking have not really been successful
.

If you are happy with a single gear one of the Gtech ebikes might suit (certainly wouldn't suite me).
richtea99
Posts: 93
Joined: 30 Jun 2020, 9:56pm

Re: Lightweight under £1800

Post by richtea99 »

The two most common integrated 'lightweight' systems are:
- Fazua (used in Boardmans, some Cubes, etc)
- eBikemotion / Mahle (used in Orbea, Ribble, etc)

The good news is that they're somewhere in the 15Kg range for the cheaper models (11-12Kg for the very expensive versions).
15Kg is light for an ebike.

Lots of little catches, though:
- price tends to be about £2100 up, not £1800, although you occasionally get a 10% off bargain.
- I can't imagine them fitting in the back seat of a car without some serious de-construction (wheels off, seat out/down, pedals removed to avoid scuffing the seats, and so on. They will definitely easily go in an estate or hatchback with the rear seats down, though.
- power is not up there with a Bosch, as far as I understand, but I've found it still pretty usable.

[EDIT: that bike you linked to seems to have motor AND battery in the rear wheel. That doesn't sound great for weight distribution or ride quality with a lot of weight on one wheel.]
hemo
Posts: 1438
Joined: 16 Nov 2017, 5:40pm
Location: West Sussex

Re: Lightweight under £1800

Post by hemo »

My Pinnacle gravel is about 10.2kg, the kit I added is 2.5kg with battery, the extras I add for a longer rider take the final all up bike weight inc drinks to about 15kg.
Janwal
Posts: 29
Joined: 21 Dec 2018, 7:50pm

Re: Lightweight under £1800

Post by Janwal »

https://www.hargreaves-cycles.co.uk/m39 ... LED/eBikes
Are any of these any good? I can recommend the Mahle rear motor system having it on cannondale quick neo.
Janwal
Posts: 29
Joined: 21 Dec 2018, 7:50pm

Re: Lightweight under £1800

Post by Janwal »

https://www.furosystems.com/aventa/?cur ... 8FEALw_wcB
Not seen this before but great price.
peterb
Posts: 392
Joined: 2 Dec 2017, 10:13am

Re: Lightweight under £1800

Post by peterb »

Great price, but 'one size fits all' frame. Rear mudguard stops at the brake bridge, so no protection to the bottom bracket area. Sparse details re components. Need to try one /talk with someone has has one. Does16.5kg quoted include pedals, mudguards, rack, stand?
PH
Posts: 13106
Joined: 21 Jan 2007, 12:31am
Location: Derby
Contact:

Re: Lightweight under £1800

Post by PH »

swfcdan wrote: 10 Oct 2021, 11:04am Ideally with the battery integrated into the frame too, but that's not a necessity. Or if some other motors other than Bosch are reccomended and cheaper I'd like to hear those too.
If I was looking to lift an e-bike in and out of a car I'd prioritise an easily removed battery, so you can remove it before lifting saving several kg's.
I don't know if all the internal ones fit the same, but the couple I've seen are certainly more awkward than an external.
richtea99
Posts: 93
Joined: 30 Jun 2020, 9:56pm

Re: Lightweight under £1800

Post by richtea99 »

PH wrote: 12 Oct 2021, 9:39am
swfcdan wrote: 10 Oct 2021, 11:04am Ideally with the battery integrated into the frame too, but that's not a necessity. Or if some other motors other than Bosch are reccomended and cheaper I'd like to hear those too.
If I was looking to lift an e-bike in and out of a car I'd prioritise an easily removed battery, so you can remove it before lifting saving several kg's.
I don't know if all the internal ones fit the same, but the couple I've seen are certainly more awkward than an external.
The Fazua (i.e Boardman, etc) batteries aren't too bad to remove, and that does drop the lift-in weight by a couple of Kgs.
The eBikemotion/Mahle ones (Orbea, Rible, etc) aren't designed to be removable.
Janwal
Posts: 29
Joined: 21 Dec 2018, 7:50pm

Re: Lightweight under £1800

Post by Janwal »

My Mahle powered Cannondale Quick neo weighs about 15kg and I just remove the front wheel to pop it into the car. I notice that the Raleigh weighs 25 kg. So will need a bigger battery to propel the weight.
You don’t have the oomph of the Bosch system with the Mahle as it’s not torque related. It’s more of a gentle push in the back feeling using the lowest green level. Which I find fine for most riding. Recently did an 85 mile ride and still had 50% battery left as didn’t need it on for most of ride as bike is easy to ride as a normal bike due to weight.
stodd
Posts: 708
Joined: 6 Jun 2018, 10:24am

Re: Lightweight under £1800

Post by stodd »

Janwal wrote: 13 Oct 2021, 5:37pm My Mahle powered Cannondale Quick neo weighs about 15kg and I just remove the front wheel to pop it into the car. I notice that the Raleigh weighs 25 kg. So will need a bigger battery to propel the weight.
Using https://www.bosch-ebike.com/en/service/range-assistant/ (which gives a good idea though not perfect), assuming you weight 70kg, you will see range using default settings is 48.5 miles for a 15kg bike (tot 85kg) and 46.0 miles for a 25kg bike (tot 95kg). Correspondingly bigger ranges for eco mode.

There may be other reasons why you get better mileage per watthour on the Mahle, and weight certainly makes other differences, but it is not directly a significant contributor to range.
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