Help for beginners

[DavidCh]

This will be stupid question of the month

We are new to motorhomes (ask me anything about a yacht and I can help though). Whist I have some experience of both folding bikes and very cheap Chinese folding electric bikes I now 'think' I want to buy two full size electric bikes for touring with the motorhome. We are in Portugal so I first looked at Decathalon and Sports Zone, both of which have bikes starting at €800 (which seems a huge amount of money to me) but other cyclists locally have said they are all rubbish and I need to be spending at least €2000 (at which point I nearly needed CPR!). I have never found making a choice based on how expensive something is, rather than how good it is a sensible way to proceed.

Can anyone point me in the right direction

David

 

[Itsmcb]

Lots of people on here have electric bikes to take with their van so you will get plenty of opinions. My thoughts:
What do you intend to use the bikes for? If its just to nip a couple of miles down to the shop then an £800 bike from Decathlon would be fine. If you want to ride 25 miles along gravel tracks then you need to spend more. More money usually gets you a bigger battery (and therefore a better range) along with better components. You wont get much change from £1000 for a basic bike and as you say its easy to spend a lot more. Another thing to consider is the weight of the bike both for lifting on and off your bike rack or even will your rack take the weight of two bikes.

 

[The Wino]

I think we're in a similar position but erring towards the decathlon option as I think they are likely to be of average quality at a reasonable price and if we do find we use them a lot will probably realise half the original cost secondhand wheras if we go to the 2000 euro range and find we hardly use them we're going to lose a lot more.

 

[Itsmcb]

I think we're in a similar position but erring towards the decathlon option as I think they are likely to be of average quality at a reasonable price and if we do find we use them a lot will probably realise half the original cost secondhand wheras if we go to the 2000 euro range and find we hardly use them we're going to lose a lot more.

Seems a reasonable train of thought. Decathlon bikes are actually very good for the money and you can get them repaired (if need be) in any of their stores.
One note, You might want to change the title of your post to "Help for Ebike beginners" or something similar to attract the correct type of replies.

 

[stevewagner]

More expensive does not necessarily mean a bigger battery but it will mean better quality components. We’ve had Chinese bikes and I upgraded to a German bike and the difference is caulk and cheese. You need to consider whether you want a hub motor or mid drive crank motor as they are a completely different ride.

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[Richard n Ann]

You can get a decent 110cc petrol scooter for less than a grand, 50mph, 140mpg, 140 mile range, won't get nicked and carries all the shopping.

 

[The Wino]

You can get a decent 110cc petrol scooter for less than a grand, 50mph, 140mpg, 140 mile range, won't get nicked and carries all the shopping.

It does depend what you want to get out of them in our case a bit of exercise something to do following cycle routes etc. The MH is only 6m and we tend to move almost every day so we're not really looking at shopping etc as we just stop in the MH. If we had a bigger MH liked sites tended to use an awning and pitch up for a few days and visit local towns it would be different

 

[Phill D]

i would start be looking at how much real mileage you intend putting on the bike and how often. then that may push you one way or the other.
I have a Cube Aim, Hard trail mountain bike which is a decent but affordable bike, which i later purchased a rear wheel hub kit for and did the modification.
good value all round.
the equivalent ready built E bike was three times what it cost me.

 

[The Wino]

i would start be looking at how much real mileage you intend putting on the bike and how often. then that may push you one way or the other.
I have a Cube Aim, Hard trail mountain bike which is a decent but affordable bike, which i later purchased a rear wheel hub kit for and did the modification.
good value all round.
the equivalent ready built E bike was three times what it cost me.

I've thought about modding my existing bike but it's over 30 years old!. I suspect we might even keep the existing ones and use them on some motorhome trips and the e bikes on others.

 

[DavidCh]

Seems a reasonable train of thought. Decathlon bikes are actually very good for the money and you can get them repaired (if need be) in any of their stores.
One note, You might want to change the title of your post to "Help for Ebike beginners" or something similar to attract the correct type of replies.

If only I knew how :-( (to change the title)

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[DavidCh]

Thanks, I am guessing that we will probably not use them a great deal, although they might get used at home as well. I did see some ex rental electric bikes advertised a while ago but they were sooooo heavy. The appeal of Decathalon is that at least I can see them and get some support. I am terrified of just buying one from Amazon or Ebay because its £2000 and not seeing it until it is delivered.

 

[The Wino]

Thanks, I am guessing that we will probably not use them a great deal, although they might get used at home as well. I did see some ex rental electric bikes advertised a while ago but they were sooooo heavy. The appeal of Decathalon is that at least I can see them and get some support. I am terrified of just buying one from Amazon or Ebay because its £2000 and not seeing it until it is delivered.

Same with me. I also don't fancy Halfrauds although I did go there last time for car tyres I knew exactly what I wanted and they were the cheapest

 

[Nanniemate]

Go around the independent bike shops they will let you try before you buy .one shop told me I could have it for the full day .in the end I went for weight 13.5kgs I can lift this on the van reasonably easy and it has 25 miles on ghe battery had to compromise with the fixed battery. Try as many as you can .

 

[Brains]

Click here for a recent discussion on the same subject
https://www.motorhomefun.co.uk/forum/threads/electric-folding-bike.262738/

A reasonable human powered bike will start at £1,000 and it's easy to double that before your get out of the mid range.
A new, bottom of the range electric bikes supplied by say Decathlon start at £900

If you dont want to spend that sort of money, then look for second hand (German) bikes

Do not be tempted by cheaper Chinese electric bikes, they are good for a season or 1,000 miles whicher comes first, after that you dump them in the tip

 

[Gail-force]

Just thought I'd throw in a cautionary tale... we bought a couple of e-bikes off Flea-Bay ... they were a very good make and the hubby test rode both of them and they seemed fine, good pick up and all that... anyway, got them home and the weather turned awful for about a week so we didn't try them properly till the following weekend...as soon as we got to a hill the batteries died on both bikes... and a replacement battery cost more than the bikes were worth...our own fault, buyer beware and all that, but worth checking if you're going for a used bike!

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[Richard n Ann]

Just thought I'd throw in a cautionary tale... we bought a couple of e-bikes off Flea-Bay ... they were a very good make and the hubby test rode both of them and they seemed fine, good pick up and all that... anyway, got them home and the weather turned awful for about a week so we didn't try them properly till the following weekend...as soon as we got to a hill the batteries died on both bikes... and a replacement battery cost more than the bikes were worth...our own fault, buyer beware and all that, but worth checking if you're going for a used bike!

Maybe you can get the batteries re-celled. Worth looking into

 

[DavidCh]

I thought I would get back here to thank everyone for the information. In the end we went for a reconditioned ex hire bike at a cost of €1300 for a bike that I guess originally cost about €3000. Unfortunately, they only had one so we purchased a new elop from decathlon for €800. Both are going great, the decathlon one needs charging more often though. Big advantage with decathlon was I could insure it against theft and damage for three years at about €150. The other bike is impossible to insure in Portugal.