3E Sport Review

hgbiker

Finding my (electric) wheels
Oct 13, 2009
20
0
Welwyn Garden City
I hope that members may be interested in a brief review of a new 3E Electric Sport bike which I recently purchased.

My first outing into electric bikes was with an Alien Ocean kit purchased about 3 years ago. It was a great kit but I used it with the throttle only and eventually the battery started to wane so I decided that it was time to buy a ready made bike.

I find the problem with electric bikes is the lack of local dealers. I really wanted to have a proper test ride on something before I bought and this ruled out some makes where dealers were simply too far away. I found Smartebike my nearest electric bike dealer offering 3E electric bikes and Freego bikes in its range.

I had read good reports on this website about the Freego Eagle and wanted to give it a try. The local dealer only had a step through version but Martin at Freego was very helpful and sent a Freego Eagle with crossbar down to the local dealer for me to try. So I can certainly recommend Freego for customer service.

It was a difficult choice between the Freego Eagle and the 3E Electric however in the end I decided on the 3E Electric as it was lighter and I liked the styling. It also had very smooth power delivery and didn't jump forward quite so much when the power kicked in.

The 3E Electric Sport has a 8Fun motor and comes with a Lishen 10AH or 18AH battery. 7 speed shimano gears.

I can honestly say that the difference between my kit bike and the 3E Sport was quite significant. The 8Fun motor is almost silent and I am amazed at how slender and light the battery is. I went for the 10AH battery in the end because of the additional weight and cost.

My first ride was on a mixture of country lane and cycle track (what was an old railway line) and I am very glad that I went for a mountain bike style with spongy tyres which coped very well with the track surface. The bike has suspension forks but no suspension seat post. (You have to remove the saddle post to take out the battery). It was still very comfortable to ride.

The pedelec function has three levels of assistance however I wanted to get some exercise so kept to the low and medium levels and found that I still had all lights showing after a 10 mile ride. Power delivery was very smooth and I found that I was hardly using the gears at all.

I am 6' and initially thought that the frame which is 18" may be a little small but I seem to have got used to it and the riding position I now found is very comfortable.

After a few more rides I have to say that so far I think that the 3E Sport is a great bike for leisure riding and I am very pleased with my choice. Battery and motor seem excellent and the quality of components is perfectly acceptable. The price at £1245 was around the level that I was happy with and will post any further useful information that I feel may be of interest to members.
 

indalo

Banned
Sep 13, 2009
1,380
1
Herts & Spain
Thanks for that HG; always useful to hear people's impressions and opinions of machines not too often mentioned in these pages.

Indalo
 

Kudoscycles

Official Trade Member
Apr 15, 2011
5,566
5,048
www.kudoscycles.com
hgbiker....pleased that you like your new e-bike....can I invite you to our London try an e-bike test day at the RedbridgeCyclingCentre,afternoon May 27....you are welcome to bring your 3E bike and compare it against others on the circuit-as you point out dealers don't always have a good choice of bikes to try and the dealer location may not be ideal to test,this venue will be ideal
Definitely confirmed are BH Emotion,Freego,E-bikes direct and Kudos-even now we will have minimum 30 different bikes to test and probably more by the day. There will be hub drives,crank drives,step throughs,folders.
Dave
KudosCycles
 

Eaglerider

Esteemed Pedelecer
Oct 25, 2011
370
47
East Sussex
Glad you got fixed up HGbiker.

Looks like a really nice bike. Now you're going to have to endure hours of fun, its going to be tough!:cool:

Godspeed.
 

bazwaldo

Pedelecer
Sep 22, 2010
219
21
hgbiker,
Congratulations on your ebike purchase and I hope you enjoy many miles of pleasant trouble free cycling.
I see on the 3 E website the 2012 models have a 3 year battery warranty!?!
That's very brave of them and I hope they don't regret being so generous, from my experience the battery is the biggest long term concern in ebike ownership and the most expensive part to have to replace.
As long as 3E are able to honour this long battery warranty that is a good selling point.
Best wishes,
Barry.
 

indalo

Banned
Sep 13, 2009
1,380
1
Herts & Spain
As long as 3E are able to honour this long battery warranty that is a good selling point.
Barry.
Well spotted Barry! As 3E bikes have never figured in my thinking on ebikes, I didn't know about that warranty. I still haven't looked at their website but you're absolutely right about the long-term ownership costs and clearly, if it doesn't bankrupt the firm, it's a great marketing strategy in the ebike business. Batteries are much better today than a few years ago but mine dates back to 2007 and is still able to provide 20 miles of help so perhaps 3E aren't taking quite as big a risk as one might think?

Indalo
 

DJH

Pedelecer
Nov 8, 2011
166
1
North Yorkshire
I'm looking for a second bike and saw the impressive 3 year battery warranty. Rang up three dealers in the area (everything is in 3's) but nobody had any bikes in stock. I really wanted to have a look and try before I bought, so a bit disappointed.
 

DJH

Pedelecer
Nov 8, 2011
166
1
North Yorkshire
I'm looking for a second bike and saw the impressive 3 year battery warranty. Rang up three dealers in the area (everything is in 3's) but nobody had any bikes in stock. I really wanted to have a look and try before I bought, so a bit disappointed.
Spoke to Chris at 3E and he is bringing a couple of bikes for me try at my nearest dealer. Good service much appreciated!
 

christos

Just Joined
Feb 27, 2012
2
0
Arrangements Made

I'm looking for a second bike and saw the impressive 3 year battery warranty. Rang up three dealers in the area (everything is in 3's) but nobody had any bikes in stock. I really wanted to have a look and try before I bought, so a bit disappointed.
At around 9.30am this morning arrangements have made with DJH for test rides with both the 3E Sport and 3E Urban.