The Subway E and other Carrera E bikes thread.

[bonzobanana]

Indeed. During the lockdowns etc of 2020 Halfords reckoned at one point they were selling more Carrera ebikes in the UK than every other make put together.

Yet browse an ebike forum and Suntour are far from being the most complained about e drivetrain. In fact I had more problems myself with my Bosch equipped Trek, which now resides with my Dad as his bike.

They're not faultless (I'm very careful of my torque sensor, although spares are now thankfully easy to come by) but nowhere near the level or the myth that has arisen around their supposed unreliability.

I think that is part of the issue people don't consider how many of certain products are out there in the community. A £8k mid-drive ebike only sells in low numbers compared to a £1k ebike so if you see a complaint about Bosch mid-drive ebike motor failure you have to factor in it is relatively rare compared to other ebikes. The average price of a bike sold is still only about £400 including ebikes. That average doesn't allow for many £14k carbon fibre road bikes for example. It's not possible to mass produce carbon fibre frames either to the same level as steel or aluminium as so much manual labour is involved. Fuji-ta had 80% of its staff working on carbon fibre frame and fork production at one point and it only made up about 2% of its output by volume. At the time carbon fibre frames were $80 factory door price, steel was about $4 and aluminium around $10. Steel frame production used robots. The statistics of the bike industry often don't work with the narrative of what bike companies tell you. Expensive bikes have the marketing budget to manipulate their audience to believe what the company want's them to believe. I saw a gig economy food delivery courier based in Bristol using his Carrera ebike for a huge amount of deliveries without reported failure and he was riding it perhaps 20-30 miles a night for 4 hours of work in the evenings and working most nights on top of his normal job. It was the Carrera Crossfire model.

 

[Drago]

I'd have another Carrera ebike tomorrow, based on my experience and the price.

Speaking or price, the current Subway E is down to £919 across Easter weekend. That's a bargain when one considers it was £999 at launch almost 5 years back.

 

[johnnyb47]

@Drago
Hi buddy,
I've just been reading this thread with interest because I've been looking into buying an Ebike.
At the moment I've been enjoying my road bike now for many years but as my years are advancing my knees and general health is getting the better of me.
On my non assisted road bike i usually enjoy rides of around 25 to 50 miles and can average an overall speed of around 15mph (16 on a good day) on flat terrain.
From your personal experience of your Subway bike would this bike have the range and speed to do what I do,or would it be overstretching it a bit.
I've no experience or Ebikes except for the odd time's I've tried one.
All the very best👍👍

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

@Drago
Hi buddy,
I've just been reading this thread with interest because I've been looking into buying an Ebike.
At the moment I've been enjoying my road bike now for many years but as my years are advancing my knees and general health is getting the better of me.
On my non assisted road bike i usually enjoy rides of around 25 to 50 miles and can average an overall speed of around 15mph (16 on a good day) on flat terrain.
From your personal experience of your Subway bike would this bike have the range and speed to do what I do,or would it be overstretching it a bit.
I've no experience or Ebikes except for the odd time's I've tried one.
All the very best👍👍

15 mph is easy to maintain on an ebike of any type
because the motor cuts out at 15.5 mph (ie. 25 kph) so up to that point you have assistance

you can change the assist level - how much depends on the make and some reduce the assistance gradually when you approach the cutoff point

ANyway - as a result I find that my normal speed on a flat road tends to be just above the cutoff point - basically I am pedalling with assistance upt o the cutoff and then going over under my own power
then dropping down a bit and picking up assist again then going up again

so generally running at about 15-17 mph over assuming that the road is flat and there is no wind (as if that ever happens!!)

but to do so I am using less energy overall - and especially if I have to keep slowing down and speeding up due to traffic or road stuff.

as a result I can go further before getting over tired - and if I start to feel bad for some reason (asthma in my case) then I can put the assis level up higher and still be able to get home.

 

[Drago]

^^^^ what he said ^^^^

The speed will be no problem.

50 miles might be pushing it. 30-35 miles is about it for me, but I am heavier than average and tend to use my bike as an urban utility rider than doing longer journeys at a smooth speed. You might do a little better on low assist, but 50 may be optimistic.

In every other sense its a great bike. Nice frame, rolls well, hydro discs, no cheap and nasty suspension forks, and the motor is a torquey S.O.B.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

In summer I could probably get 60 out of my Raleigh
but in winter it would be less due to the colder weather

Of course the "until the battery runs out and I am doing all the work myself" bit is silent

but remember that you can pedal it as a normal bike perfectly well - it is heavy but perfectly OK to ride with no assist

 

[bonzobanana]

I'd have another Carrera ebike tomorrow, based on my experience and the price.

Speaking or price, the current Subway E is down to £919 across Easter weekend. That's a bargain when one considers it was £999 at launch almost 5 years back.

That's a fantastic deal in fact I see on the Halfords site they are charging more for their refurbished models than this. I wonder if the e-Subway would take plus size tyres. I noticed Merlin have the Schwalbe Super Moto-X Performance RaceGuard SnakeSkin MTB Tyre - 27.5" - Black / Performance / GreenGuard / 27.5"+ / 2.8" / Wired tyres (yes I copied and pasted) for £22.99 and there is a 5% discount code for new members plus free postage for purchases over £40 which this scrapes into for 2 and also topcashback. However I wonder if there is the clearance at the chain stays for these. There looks to be loads of clearance for the forks and the seat stays for thicker tyres and I've had good luck with fitting plus size tyres to standard mountain bike rims (2.4" is a common mountain bike size tyre anyway) but just wondered about the chain stays which is hard to see in the pictures, this is where clearance often narrows.

These 2.8" tyres effectively give you a boost from 15.5mph to 16.6mph approx assistance speed, they raise the gearing slightly and of course you have better braking performance, comfort and road adhesion albeit with a weight penalty. I should point out there is a 10% tolerance in assistance speed so you are allowed up to 17mph assistance which these are still within. I just think they would be a good upgrade for this model but not sure if it would take one at the rear. There is also the 2.4" version at only £19.99. Seems a great price for these at almost half normal price or you could call it 2 for 1. I've ordered a pair to play about with it and already have some plus size tubes thanks to Chain Reaction clearance deals. I guess the clever thing to do would be to buy a 2.8" tyre for the front and a 2.4" tyre for the rear and run the bike as a mini mullet bike but then you would only get half the speed advantage of the bigger tyre over the standard E-Subway tyre which I think is 1.95".

https://www.merlincycles.com/schwal...-raceguard-snakeskin-mtb-tyre-275-163281.html

 

[Drago]

There's plenty of frame and fork clearance. I'll eyeball mine over the weekend and report back.

 

[gbb]

Indeed. During the lockdowns etc of 2020 Halfords reckoned at one point they were selling more Carrera ebikes in the UK than every other make put together.

Yet browse an ebike forum and Suntour are far from being the most complained about e drivetrain. In fact I had more problems myself with my Bosch equipped Trek, which now resides with my Dad as his bike.

They're not faultless (I'm very careful of my torque sensor, although spares are now thankfully easy to come by) but nowhere near the level or the myth that has arisen around their supposed unreliability.

I suspect pretty much like early Skoda cars, once something got a reputation, its very difficult for people to let go (actually I've long since realised, it's really about some people siezing on something negative because it gives them a sense of superiority...and usually they've never even owned the 'offending' article)

Tbf, my carerra drove me faily nuts early on with its infamous cut outs...but it was actually a quite simple fix when I did find it, tape the battery to the holder.
But otherwise, its been a good strong system (barring the lock rings in a post above failing)