Ebike buying advice?

[Hudson1984]

Hi all,

so I hung up my lycra last year, pretty much for good. I've got a buggered hip (well two buggered hips) and swinging my leg over a bar to get on my bikes was already an issue, and once the new hips are in, it's already a bit of a no no motion.

that being said, riding a bike in general isn't off the cards. So i'm looking into E biking - seemingly take some of the pressure off my knees and hips but I'll still be able to get out and about without going in the car all the time.

Anyway, I don't really want to spend a fortune as It'll only really be for trips to the gym or the pub and once the lad is older, potentially I'll go for a ride then.

£500 get me anything worth having? I'm not a big fan of the step through look but think that's what i'm stuck with sadly - that or a folding bike which I do prefer the look of.

 

[Pale Rider]

This bike from Halfords is one of the few I can think of which is on budget.

The compact frame is not quite a step through, but the 20" wheels make this type of bike fairly easy to mount and dismount.

It's single speed with a front hub motor and basic controls.

Something to be said for simplicity, but it won't give the nicest ride in ebike terms.

Good enough for 'the gym and the pub' and anything substantially better would be twice as much and more.

https://www.halfords.com/bikes/electric-bikes/assist-hybrid-electric-bike---20in-wheel-840121.html

 

[Hudson1984]

yea it's pretty much where I got my budget number from to be honest. Probably is my best option

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Problem with that budget is that £500 is about the cost of a good battery on its own.

You need to consider range and the fact that range is variable depending on the level of assists you use and the terrain.

My wife has an ebike so that she can be sure that if her asthma starts playing up then she can rely on the motor/battery to do most of the effort to get her home. The same may apply to you if your hips decide to have a bad day and you are not wanting to try to use them in anger to get up a long hill. However, a short range ebike will not get you that far - even if it says it has a 20 mile range, a 2 mile hill after a 5 mile ride may defeat it if you need full power.

I would also warn against getting a used ebike - it seems sensible to maybe stretch your budget by getting a used ebike of a higher quality. However, this has the problem that the battery may have degraded an the range may no longer be what it should be.If you KNOW how the battery has been treated (i.e. how many charge cycles, how often charged, how it was kept etc etc) then it may be OK - but juts getting one off ebay could be great or not!

Anyway - good luck looking

 

[carpiste]

If you have any chance at all of trying an ebike out then I would advise you do that. You may well find that, with the assist it can give, that you will be able to ride around a lot more than you could ever imagine, bad knees and hips or not. Spend £500 on a bike and then discover you would have been better saving a bit for a more appropriate machine will be heart breaking. Take it from me, and no doubt many others here who have health issues, you will be amazed how good an ebike is and how quickly your fitness and general well being will improve.

 

[KnittyNorah]

I joined this forum with the firm intention of getting a step-through e-bike due to severe joint damage in one leg (both knee and ankle), combined with my age (mid-70s) and the fact that I'd not cycled for around 10 years due to eyesight problems - recently cured. It needed to be a folder because of safe storage issues.

I soon discovered - after several visits to different retailers - that due to my height (or rather lack thereof) all the folding ebikes available and affordable were far too big for me. I was hugely disappointed. So I had a go on a neighbour's rusty old 20" wheel non-e folder - more to check whether I could still even manage a bike at all, than for any other reason! - and found that apart from the non-step-thru aspect, the adjustability on a 'normal' folder was such that I could fit it fine, and even ride it around the church car park better than I imagined.

So I took the risk of buying what I suppose is a mid-range non-e step-thru folder (a Dahon), and am riding further and easier than I ever thought I would, less than two months after buying it and from a starting point of zero cycling fitness. My last bike before my eyesight started to deteriorate was an Isla Rowntree, handmade to fit all 4ft 10.5" of me - but this little Dahon is giving me just as much, if not more, pleasure! So don't worry overmuch about any seeming 'downgrade' - a bike that you can ride is going to give you more pleasure than a bike you can't ride!

If I ever want to ride on hills instead of the flat (where I now live I can ride in three directions for many miles without hitting anything more than a gentle slope - the fourth direction I do not venture towards for there be dragons, in the form of the Bowland Fells...) I shall buy and have fitted an electric conversion kit, without a moment's hesitation.

So that's something else you could think of - e-conversion of a bike that otherwise fits you and is suitable for you to ride, but for which you need some additional assistance. But you won't get both for £500 ...