E Bikes, which type to go for?

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Just wanted to get the thoughts of you fungi’s on the subject of choosing an
e bike to take in the MH?
I’ve got a 5 Year old 20” wheeled folding rear hub job with the 10A brick battery down behind the seat. Weighs 23kg with battery and gives around 25 miles.
The likes:
Reasonable weight, easily stored in garage, not very appealing to thieves.
Dislikes:
The motor feels quite noisy in populated areas, seem to get overtaken by everyone.
Has anyone had the small 20” and a full sized 26”e bike that could shed some light on their pros and cons?
I’m thinking, possibly in error, that the larger e bike is more efficient than the smaller one. Giving better cruising speed and better range for the same effort??
 
The latest and best ones are getting big and heavy. Ours are older 28" wheels with Bosch chank drive weigh 24kg. My mate has just bought a new Cube 29" wheels 280 Nm Bosch motor weighs 29kg but goes like the clappers.
My wife being on the shorter side finds her bike with 28" wheels bit high but its almost impossible to find any decent brand bikes with 26" wheels.
 
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Bigger wheels will give a better ride but more room needed to store the bike if it is the MH garage, even better is to have a motor drive in the bottom bracket straight onto the crank rather than driving the hub, it really comes down to how much you want to spend and how much storage you have, all new Ebikes will be limited to 25km/h so just over 15mph.
 
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I have a Specialized Levo for serious Mountain Biking but generally we keep two of these in the back And l can highly recommend them, good battery life and move upto speed seriously no lag.
Any problems and a Decathlon store is always close by anywhere in the EU.

9BE62BCC-5EDB-440F-9165-DA65C9107B51.jpeg

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I've just converted an old bike to an ebike by fitting a Tongsheng mid drive motor. It's torque sensing so works just like a Bosch bike. I paid extra for a large 19.2Ah battery. Total cost for the motor and battery was £800. Total weight 21kg. Range is between 60 and 100 miles.
 
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I have a Specialized Levo for serious Mountain Biking but generally we keep two of these in the back And l can highly recommend them, good battery life and move upto speed seriously no lag.
Any problems and a Decathlon store is always close by anywhere in the EU.

View attachment 691730
€705 in France. £599.12 currently
 
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I'm interested by e bikes and laws in other countries. When we were in Italy there were those big e bikes with the big thick 'balloon' tyres really driving very fast - possibly 30 mph - without pedalling. Police didn't seem bothered that they were doing this through pedestrian zones. - it was quite scary! In the UK I believe it's limited to 15 mph and you have to pedal? Very few riders on all types of e bikes were pedalling very much.

Also, surely the bigger bikes become less efficient needing bigger batteries. Can't see the reason for the really big ones with massive tyres.

Logically the slighter the bike the better the range and speed ( battery size also comes into the equation obviously.)
 
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I'm interested by e bikes and laws in other countries. When we were in Italy there were those big e bikes with the big thick 'balloon' tyres really driving very fast - possibly 30 mph - without pedalling. Police didn't seem bothered that they were doing this through pedestrian zones. - it was quite scary! In the UK I believe it's limited to 15 mph and you have to pedal? Very few riders on all types of e bikes were pedalling very much.

Also, surely the bigger bikes become less efficient needing bigger batteries. Can't see the reason for the really big ones with massive tyres.

Logically the slighter the bike the better the range and speed ( battery size also comes into the equation obviously.)

I believe in the UK you can get electric mopeds that are the equivalent of 50cc motorbikes with the same rules applying. Perhaps the Italian 30mph jobies were their equivalent of this?
I just did a bit of googling to confirm this.

1669542669774.png


Source: https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowT...or_driving_a_scooter_in_italy-Rome_Lazio.html
 
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I believe in the UK you can get electric mopeds that are the equivalent of 50cc motorbikes with the same rules applying. Perhaps the Italian 30mph jobies were their equivalent of this?
I just did a bit of googling to confirm this.

View attachment 691750

Source: https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowT...or_driving_a_scooter_in_italy-Rome_Lazio.html
They are 2 different entities if I have understood correctly.
The big jobbie wheeled ones are mountain bike style and have probably been adapted to do 30 mph.

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The latest and best ones are getting big and heavy. Ours are older 28" wheels with Bosch chank drive weigh 24kg. My mate has just bought a new Cube 29" wheels 280 Nm Bosch motor weighs 29kg but goes like the clappers.
My wife being on the shorter side finds her bike with 28" wheels bit high but its almost impossible to find any decent brand bikes with 26" wheels.
My mate bought one of these Cube electric mountain bikes last year. Great machine but £5500!!!!
 
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We bought two haibikes in the summer and very pleased with them, depending on the setting they say you can get over 100miles in them. The most we’ve done is 42 miles with over 3000 feet of climb, this was done in std mode 64mile range and when finished we still had just under 20 miles. While in France we used them daily and charged up via inverter when not on hook up, no issues with that either.
 
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RIBBLE cycles weighs about 16 to 17 k with battery .! Nice looking bikes and not a bad price.

colyboy

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Just had a look at Ribble electric bikes they start from £1999 upwards and as I stated weigh about 16 17 k

Colyboy
 
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England, Scotland, Wales ebikes should be limited to a power assist (means you should be pedalling to get the motorisation) up to about 15mph. If you go faster motor should cut out. Older bikes pre this legislation won't have the speed estriction and may also have a throttle to allow motor without pedalling. Kits may allow retrofitting throttle, or override speed limit but it makes your modern ebike illegal. No ebikes allowed northern Ireland.

My Cube 29" ebike mountain bike gas fairly chunky tyres for off road, not the exceptional wide stuff. On flat tarmac I can pedal to about 20mph after that gearing and the tyres are too much unless downhill with wind behind when I've seen a scary 40mph :whatthe: .

Smaller wheel bikes suited to around town commuting. Longer leisure rides and off road means bigger wheels desirable.
 
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Bigger wheels will give a better ride but more room needed to store the bike if it is the MH garage, even better is to have a motor drive in the bottom bracket straight onto the crank rather than driving the hub, it really comes down to how much you want to spend and how much storage you have, all new Ebikes will be limited to 25km/h so just over 15mph.
It is (was?) possible to override the speed limit. I did but can still only get up to 20mph....but that'll do.
 
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I have a Specialized Levo for serious Mountain Biking but generally we keep two of these in the back And l can highly recommend them, good battery life and move upto speed seriously no lag.
Any problems and a Decathlon store is always close by anywhere in the EU.
Too cheap to be any real use. No mention of battery power...Anything less than 16 amps is not worth bothering with.
 
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Too cheap to be any real use. No mention of battery power...Anything less than 16 amps is not worth bothering with.
It depends what your needs are we sold two previously as we opted for the 27”/29” wheel size but didn’t hesitate to buy two more a couple of years later when our needs changed, l am 15+ stone and the bike never runs out of power,l don’t think people on here are looking for John’O’Groats to Lands End capability.😀
 
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It is (was?) possible to override the speed limit. I did but can still only get up to 20mph....but that'll do.
My Specialized e bike has Bluetooth so you download the app then tell the bike it has different wheels on 😂😂
Go 1 tooth up on the chainring and your good for 36mph😳😳
0A6CAC9B-DE0B-4423-A606-E93F4340A497.jpeg
 
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We have 2 Whispers. Mine is the folding one with 16” wheels, the Wife’s non folding with 20” wheels, both weigh within 1kgs of each other (21kgs with out the batteries). The Wife’s on with the larger 20” wheels is far far steadier and the more comfortable to ride. Hope this info is of assistance to you.
 
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I believe in the UK you can get electric mopeds that are the equivalent of 50cc motorbikes with the same rules applying. Perhaps the Italian 30mph jobies were their equivalent of this?
I just did a bit of googling to confirm this.

View attachment 691750

Source: https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowT...or_driving_a_scooter_in_italy-Rome_Lazio.html
Yes. We have an electric '50cc' motorbike. However, you do have to wear motorbike helmets and drive on the road, insurance etc as per normal motorbikes whereas these were being driven in paved areas, cycle lanes, paved pedestrian areas and without helmets I.e. more like standard pedal cycles. Of course it could be just normal Italian relaxed approach to rules/law but it was fairly wide spread.
 
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How did he manage it for that price 🤔
You can get a decent hard tail MTB for around £3500 Whyte (e- 505)also do a good trail bike ( e-506). Full suspension MTB bikes cost a few £k more

 
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