Good morning,
Given what you say about your cycling experience and your route I wouldn't think that moving away from an ebike would present you a with a problem.
Although the importance of bike weight is often overstated, when talking about large differences it can matter and the Crossfire E is heavy. As you say that you are not in bad shape you may find that the big reduction in weight that ditching the e bit of the bike means that the hill and any inclines are much easier to climb than you think.
The current Crossfire E is advertised as weighing 22.5kg, that's almost 48lbs, a 1970s all steel Raleigh "racer" weighed something like 32lbs. That's over a stone difference in old money and many people would be happy to say
If you lose a stone you will feel better when running or riding.
To put this into a modern context
Halfords offer the Apollo Paradox for £220 which is a drop bar not a hybrid but will take a rack and that comes in at 12kg (26.5lbs) or the non e Carrera Crossfire Hybrid comes in at 15.4kg (34lbs).
The Urban 8.6 is approximately 11kg (24lbs), that's a whooping 24lbs less than Crossfire E.
Recently I did a 6 month experiment where I only rode an effective 1x7 and found that the wide range did have an effect on speed and being used to 2x8 or more was never totally happy with the restricted choice. That doesn't mean that you wouldn't be happy with just three though.
There is of course the Boardman 8.9 which is more expensive at around £850 which has an 8 speed hub gear.
if you are happy with used then I agree with biggs682 that there is a lot of good stuff that is not selling, especially sensible MTBs or possibly
non racer racers if they would be acceptable to you. A quick
ebay search, possibly include Reynolds 501/531 as this will exclude most of the junk at the expense of a few good choices may surprise you. The only downside is that you may need to do a bit of tinkering and you say that this is not really your thing.
Bye
Ian
